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I really like thinkorswim but I use it like a chess board for options. I don't think I would trust it to daytrade futures. Just me but I just don't think it is up to par like some of the brokers and platforms who specialize in futures. I find the platform amazing for options though. Hopefully TD Ameritrade does not ruin the TOS platform.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I traded NQ today just once, and it took 3-4 seconds to close on market. But I did the software upgrade this morning... Yesterday I traded NQ it would take 2-3 seconds for the order to close on market.
I think I might go with Tradestation, the commisions and fees equate to almost half of Think Or Swim's...
Go with a more 'industrial' strength broker if I were you. Velocity, Optimus seem to be decent IB's recommended that sit on top of whomever (I don't actually know). I like Trading Technologies through ATC Brokers or AMP is decent (with issues), but I think my next stop is on to Velocity Futures.
Tradestation is overpriced garbage in my not so humble opinion. Sierra, Ninja, Multicharts are all better.. :0
i love think-or-swim and have been with them for 10 years, but they cost me 8k today. I dont know who decided to do a server change last night but when i sent orders they did not send confirmation. by the time i realized something was a miss was 1.5 hours later and apparently cancelled orders filled. I am really upset with what occured today. But i know many others were upset over executtions ect today. and to boot now the platform is down for the weekend
1. Failure of tick charts to form properly; sometimes they'll freeze for an hour or two, other times will double print all the bars. Usually these issues go away after they release a patch.
2. Delays in order execution. This can be a really bad one. For instance, you have a stop order that's triggered, but doesn't actually fill until 30 seconds later. Or price will go through the stop but it doesn't look like it's triggered, so you cancel it only to learn a few minutes later that it filled.
I know what you mean. I just had a breakthrough today in a script I've been working on and now I'm just itching
to play with it and make a few more minor tweaks...but it's a no go for now. Hopefully by Sunday evening it will be back up and ready to go.
Sorry to hear about the screwed up order and loss. I can't imagine.
I have found that it commonly takes 5 - 15 seconds to get a fill with TOS, and during busy periods it can take longer. In addition, I find that the platform will freeze and not update the charts for several seconds. This has forced me to constantly question my charts when I am moving from once chart to another (say from my SPX chart to TF chart). I am in a trading room and nobody that uses TOS will trade CL. Fairly soon, I believe there will be nobody in this room using TOS as their broker despite the fact that the room is orientated on indicators based on the TOS platform (I suspect I am the last and I am moving my executions as soon as I can get the ACH process set up with TD Ameritrade). I have not traded any other instruments with TOS so I cannot comment on them, but if you plan to day trade futures TOS is not your solution.
As for the transition to TD Ameritrade, from my standpoint, it was very poorly executed. I was surprised when it occurred last Friday, having received no advance notification of the event. Fills and order notification took several minutes to complete. The uproar that occurred in the chat rooms (which are part of the TOS platform) spiraled out of control. TOS eventually stepped in and premoderated all chat rooms for a period of time. They (TD Ameritrade) have temporarily created futures accounts for everyone that trades futures. These futures accounts are seperate from our "normal" accounts and had to be funded. So Sunday night, after they called me and said that I could access my account, I logged into TD Ameritrade. Needless to say, when I attempted to fund my account by moving funds from my equity account, the system responded with "Rejected". After several calls to TD Ameritrade / TOS (don't you just love it when you finally get a representative and they say "I need to transfer over to that department" and then you get the pre-recorded message "All of our offices are closed, our normal business hours are...") I finally got someone who seemed to be able to help. After more delay I was told "There is some paperwork glitch with your account but they will have it fixed by morning". Come morning and you guessed it, no funding in my account. So I decided to try the system route again. This time, rather than giving me a "Rejected", when I attempted to enter my futures account number (which TD Ameritrade gave me mind you) the system responded "You have entered an invalid account number, all account numbers must have ten digits". Again I began the phone calls. Finally, I got a hold of someone who thought they could help. Unfortunately, even they were unable to fund my account in the system. I was told that they would have to do it manually, that they were very backed up, that they were doing approximately 500 transfers every half hour, and that they were sorry for the inconvenience.
So I am looking for another broker, my current top three are:
AMP
Mirus
Velocity
I would welcome any input you may have on those or any other brokers that I should look at.
Optimus is very good. I use them for futures. thinkorswim I use for options but never for futures. My guess is TD Ameritrade will mess up the things that are good about thinkorswim. Shame because for me they have been a great company to trade options. When I originally opened my TOS account I spoke owner Tom Sosnoff to a get a better commission and he gave it to me. Liked the personal service and fact at times you could get the owner of the company on the phone. I also liked the homegrown community of thinkorswim clients. But won't get that with TD Ameritrade. Kind of ironic because years ago I left Ameritrade for thinkorswim.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
