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Looking for a new platform/broker for my futures spread trading....
Long-time lurker, first time poster. I'm hoping to crowd source your collective wisdom on a possible platform and broker switch. I've done a lot of research, but frankly, I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of options out there.
I trade spreads on virtually all of the U.S. futures markets, except for the very illiquid ones. I have been using IB for several years with TWS as my platform. I've tried out NT on a trial basis, but I've never actually used it for live trading.
I'm going to list my platform and broker requirements below. I welcome any and all recommendations.
Platform Requirements
1) Desktop and iPhone platforms. The iPhone platform should be fairly robust--at least as good as TWS mobile.
2) Charting of futures spreads on a settlement-to-settlement basis, including both intramarket calendar spreads and intermarket spreads (the latter presents a challenge on many platforms including TWS).
3) The ability to view existing futures spread positions in my portfolio as a spread--rather than as the individual legs--on both the desktop and mobile platforms. I have never figured out a way to get TWS Mobile to display spreads as a spread.
4) The ability to enter and exit futures spreads as a spread (rather than legging in) via limit, stop, and stop limit orders on the spread price.
Broker Requirements
Note: I don't necessarily need to switch brokers if you can recommend a platform that works with IB and fits all of the above criteria. But I'm willing to consider a broker switch if it would provide some advantage or give me access to a platform incompatible with IB.
1) Initial deposit requirement of no greater than $100,000.
2) Reasonably low commissions. I don't expect them to be as low as IB's commissions, but anything above $5/contract before exchange fees isn't going to cut it.
3) Responsive, intelligent customer support.
4) Sound financial condition. If I can't clearly tell that the broker is in good shape, there's no chance I'll use them.
5) Level 1 real-time market data for all major U.S. futures exchanges (excluding ICE) for no more than $25/month. I don't need deep-book data.
6) Delayed ICE data for free.
*******
Please let me know if you have any recommendations for a platform or broker. Thanks!
Brian Murphy, the Director of Business Development at CTS, will be monitoring this thread so that he may answer any questions that you post here relating to CTS products and services.
Please keep in mind that some customer service/technical support issues …
All depends on many instance spreader instances will run in parallel.
I have client using TT auto spreader multiple (dozens...) instances, 4 cores was not enough.
We're building an 8 cores (16 threads) 3 Ghz Xeon server now, we'll see...
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,048 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,384
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My primary TT auto spreader server (a Dell R620) has dual E5-2690's (2.9Ghz Xeons) and I can literally run 100s of autospreaders and not see a performance degradation. While 16 cores may seem like a lot these are actually older v1 Sandybridge-EP chips, I suspect v2 or even v3 chips would perform better even with less cores.
