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After 20+ years of this, there *still* isn't a great platform / broker combo! WHY!?!
Relatively new here, but not new to the subject at hand. I am going to setup a small fund (LLC/LP hedge type) and I want all the assets to reside with a single broker for easy tracking and control. My problem is that over the years I've had to turn to a myriad of accounts & tools to get what I want / access to the tools I need. For me that means options through TDA's ToS, strategy dev on TradeStation, lately looking more to Quantopian as a better portfolio-level strategy builder than TS (but that only hooks up to IB currently), etc. I don't want to just vent here so let me pose this as a question / list of requirements (which I can't seem to find):
1. A very strong options trading environment, including futures options (mainly on ES), historical pricing and automation.
2. A strong futures platform w/a good matrix as sometimes I'll take in long / become short stock or futures based on my options activity and I want this to be seamless.
3. A high quality backtesting platform that isn't so stupidly limited (e.g. TradeStation and multicharts not being able to address portfolio level trading strategies easily via code (e.g. Buy Data1, Sell Data3, SellShort Data7, all from a single program). I despise both platform's kludgey Portfolio level tools as they are so clearly bolt-on patches to an underlying object model that needs re-written I can barely stand looking at them.
4. A high-quality, native platform on Windows. ToS's giant java monstrosity has gotten out of hand over the years.
5. A high-quality simulated environment for testing. I am just now in the middle of an IB eval and I can't believe how limited their simulated account is (especially for ES)!
6. TWO FACTOR AUTH! TDA, TradeStation and some others *still* leave the entire account security resting on a password alone. This is so inexcusable I can't fathom why they haven't fixed this gaping security hole.
7. Money has to be able to move in and out of the account(s) easily. TDA is king here, but TradeStation is in the dark ages, and while IB does support ACH, there's a 7 day wait for the money to clear and a limit of $100K moving (at least via ACH) into accounts every 7 days. WTF?
I'll stop there now that I've probably pi**ed off everyone on this forum. I just can't believe, in the year 2015, the tools, accounts, security, etc., are still all so fragmented. I wish it was 5pm, I'd go get a drink now I'm so riled up.
Is a PC Box reliable and well tested ?
Is Windoze reliable and well tested ?
Do you use any special network devices (a-la Cisco) to build reliable and failsafe connections to an Exchange?
Are you using two connections or more ?
Are all of your strategies well tested and proved by math?
Are your data sources comprehensive and actual in any given time?
....
so ... this chain is quite complex to be angry at any part of them
