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Trading Business Infrastructure

  #1 (permalink)
MktWiz
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
 
Posts: 8 since Nov 2009
Thanks Given: 11
Thanks Received: 6

Hello Traders,

I’m in the process of becoming a full time trader and off course I’m treating it as a business and I’m willing to invest a good amount of Money in order to get a good trading infrastructure.
I’ll appreciate your recommendations in the following subjects:
· Hardware: PC, Monitors
· Internet connection: Wireless, cable, capacity
· Charting software
· Data feed
· Trading Platform
· Broker
Also I will like to know if you suggest getting a one-time-shop with those brokers like Trade Station or Interactive Brokers that provide the whole enchilada, the trading platform, data feed and charting software and also have competitive commissions.
Currently I have an account at OptionsXpress and I’m testing a demo account at Think or Swim. I know these two are more “retail” brokers, probably not for those active traders, especially for the high commission they charge.

Happy Trading
MktWiz

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  #2 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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Swing Trader
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Broker: IBKR
Trading: Stocks & Futures
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Weeks
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More important than ANYTHING else is time. Time to understand, time to learn from experience. Time to stop following everyone else and find your own path.

Only experience and wisdom are going to be able to get you where you want to be, you need to have the time and patience to go through 1,000 step program, where every 50 steps or so you feel like you've had a major breakthrough, only to learn you haven't.

In the end, nothing can tell you how to make money trading. The best you can hope for is to learn the best approaches and techniques from various fellow traders, then have the foresight and fortitude to create your own method out of it.

I'm a hardware junkie, so I have tons of horsepower all over. Multiple servers, dual redundant internet connections, fastest/best of everything. But any $500 computer would be sufficient because in the end all you need is not much of anything (tangible). What's important are the intangibles.

- I have four 22" monitors, and a i7 920 overclocked to 3.9GHz with 12GB ram, 4x750GB R0+1 w/3ware 9690SA, (4) Patriot 32GB SSD's, and 7 x64.

- I have DSL+Cable, dual/redundant. Wired connection from trading PC to router.

- NinjaTrader 6.5

- Zen Fire

- NinjaTrader 6.5

- AMP Futures

If you aren't trading stocks I would steer clear of IB. I also think TradeStation is overpriced garbage, but unfortunately NT sucks too, the short answer is they all suck for power users but you don't need to be a power user to make money.

Mike

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  #3 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta & Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
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Big Mike View Post
I also think TradeStation is overpriced garbage

TS is expensive for a newbie on sim for 2 years. But if you're making money then $200/month (what I pay for the platform fee + data) is not that much. If you don't know how to program then EasyLanguage is very nice. I still prototype ideas in Easylanguage cause it's faster & quicker for me. I do plan to get rid of TS though, as soon as I can ween myself off this indicator I can't port to NT..

I would recommend Ninja because it's free and sufficient. If you know how to program you can backtest lots of ideas and see how they don't work.

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  #4 (permalink)
 
shodson's Avatar
 shodson 
OC, California, USA
Quantoholic
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: IB/TWS, NinjaTrader, ToS
Broker: IB, ToS, Kinetick
Trading: stocks, options, futures, VIX
Posts: 1,976 since Jun 2009
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cunparis View Post
TS is expensive for a newbie on sim for 2 years. But if you're making money then $200/month (what I pay for the platform fee + data) is not that much. If you don't know how to program then EasyLanguage is very nice. I still prototype ideas in Easylanguage cause it's faster & quicker for me. I do plan to get rid of TS though, as soon as I can ween myself off this indicator I can't port to NT..

I would recommend Ninja because it's free and sufficient. If you know how to program you can backtest lots of ideas and see how they don't work.

TS can be expensive if you don't meet their monthly minimums, but if you trade 10+ contracts a month you're clear. You still have to pay for data feeds though. I find the continuous contract support MUCH better than Ninja's lame record/import and merge approach. Also, it's nice that you can bring in stocks, futures, forex, options, all in one platform. Of course, I can do the same thing for free in Thinkorswim, however trades are at higher commissions, and their backtesting environment/features is almost nil though I know a future version will have much-improved strat development features but we'll just have to wait and see, JUST LIKE I'M DOING FOR NT7!

Why can't you port your TS indicator to NT? What's the challenge?

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  #5 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta & Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 2,565 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 1,162
Thanks Received: 2,093


shodson View Post
Why can't you port your TS indicator to NT? What's the challenge?

I agree on everything you said about TS. I don't place trades with them cause their order matrix sucks. the NT DOM is 10000x better. Using TS for trades isn't worth $100/month for me.

There is no challenge, the zen-fire datafeed and NT itself do not support upticks & downticks so you don't know if a trade was at bid or ask. This is very useful information.

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  #6 (permalink)
 
sam028's Avatar
 sam028 
Site Moderator
 
Posts: 3,765 since Jun 2009
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MktWiz, I think Interactive Brokers is a good choice for you.
Not the best datafeed, not the best trading software, but the commission are cheap, you can trade everything (stocks, options, forex, futures, bonds, ...), you can play with the paper account for years if you want, etc, etc.
Then, you can use NT for charting, it's free is your orders are not sent to the broker.
You can also use Quotetracker, their is a free version, and you can use it to send orders.

About hardware stuff, more important than more two screens (
TraderNinja, we want pictures of your 8 screens ), 16 gb of ram, few Tb of disks, a backup machine is mandatory imho. A basic laptop is enough, but you should be able to quickly close your positions is something goes wrong with your main workstation.
I'm using three 20"/22" screens on my main trading workstation, but two is fine.
For the proc/ram, a basic dual-core (E8400 for ex.) with 2 gb is enough. But it's for trading. For backtesting complex strategies with large amount of data, etc, you'll need more ghz/cores/ram.






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  #7 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
Site Administrator
Developer
Swing Trader
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Broker: IBKR
Trading: Stocks & Futures
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Weeks
Posts: 50,397 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 33,173
Thanks Received: 101,537

TraderNinja,

Can you link the stands for me? Do you have any idea if they support 22's in portrait mode?

Nice setup. Pics of my desk w/4x22's are here. As you can see, I am in needs of stands

Mike

P.S.: Too bad I didn't dust first before taking those pics, lol.

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  #8 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta & Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 2,565 since Jun 2009
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TraderNinja View Post
Hey Sam!

You want to see ? Here it is!

But I disagree. Don't use software like quotetracker. In my opinion this is nothing for professional trading. IB is ok but not if you only want to trade futures. There are much better brokers out there like Mirus or AMP.

So guys it's 10pm here in good old Germany and I'm out for today. Have a nice evening!

I can't imagine watching that many screens. My brain would be fried.

I agree about QuoteTracker. I used it for a while. I use IB for swing trading where I don't need a DOM, keeps my swing trades separate from my day trading. But I don't recommend swing trading for newbies so I also suggest Mirus (or Amp). It's free so why not?

One other point to consider, futures have high leverage. Not good for beginners, especially those who don't have the discipline to trade on sim for 6-24 months. In that case it's much safer to trade a few shares of SPY instead of 1 ES contract. And for that IB is good.

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  #9 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta & Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 2,565 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 1,162
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Big Mike View Post
TraderNinja,

Can you link the stands for me? Do you have any idea if they support 22's in portrait mode?

Nice setup. Pics of my desk w/4x22's are here. As you can see, I am in needs of stands

Love the wallpapers Mike. Makes me feel like I'm trading on the beach.

I have two 24" side by side and I get a sore neck. I think portrait mode is the way to go. I'm thinking one 24" landscape and 1 24" portrait on each side. I need landscape cause I do a lot of photography and I need my images to fit on the monitor.

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  #10 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
Site Administrator
Developer
Swing Trader
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Broker: IBKR
Trading: Stocks & Futures
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Weeks
Posts: 50,397 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 33,173
Thanks Received: 101,537



cunparis View Post
One other point to consider, futures have high leverage. Not good for beginners, especially those who don't have the discipline to trade on sim for 6-24 months. In that case it's much safer to trade a few shares of SPY instead of 1 ES contract. And for that IB is good.

This is true, and also helps make sure they are properly capitalized (to meet the 25k day trader requirement).

Mike

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Last Updated on November 27, 2009


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