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I have a account with them, been there a few years now. I like thier charts and so forth but thier margins and "day" trading hours suck for most people. I, like a lot of others there only do ten trades a month which is enough to get the platform for free and only pay data fees. I think they list thier margins on thier home page. TF is 1k, ES is 1500 I think ..and that's for "day time" which for them is 8:00 AM EST to 4:15 PM est. Basically thier margins are double or more than a lot of the others. So it comes down to going to them if you like thier charting.
Have used them on and off through the years, just to use the platform. In the past, have run into data reliability (down) issues but they are now on new servers, I think, so maybe that's okay now. Restarted with them a few months ago mainly because I wanted to do some backtesting and haven't seen glitches during regular trading hours.
Like the fact I can get lots of historical data and not have to futz around with symbol definitions or third party data sources - it just works. Their platform is super user friendly, compared to others.
When/if I am done with the back testing, not sure I will stick around there, other than to have a backup brokerage. They were recently bought by a Japanese company and they (TS) don't have -- relatively -- a large number of customers, so maybe you have to wonder about that. I have a very small $$ amount there and usually do the minimum # of trades per month to not have to pay for the platform.
I have been with TradeStation for the past 7 years and have found the software to be quite advanced. While the margins might not be the lowest in the industry they do offer daytrading margin of 1K per contract on the ES. I would recommend contacting directly with specific questions in regard to margin, commissions, charting and analytics(which I believe to be the best in the industry).
I have been with Tradestation for about ten years. I love the charts and I am very comfortable with the platform. I have been experimenting with other brokerages and I have to say I prefer Velocity futures for order entry over Tradestation. I don't have anything definitive but my orders in Velocity seem to fill faster. Well thats my 2 cents. Good luck with your decision.
I'm thinking of opening a futures account with Tradestation. I read a lot of good and bad things about Tradestation. I like their platform but I'm wondering how their order execution is? I read that TS doesn't have the fastest data or execution but I'm not a scalper so I would like to know how "slow" their data and execution are? If it's some miliseconds, I don't really care but if it's much more, that would be a problem.
Here in Switzerland we don't have the same perception of the crisis as probably you have in the US. So I woulde like to know if Tradestation is a SOLID and SAFE broker?
I'm with them and would say they are safe and solid as you put it. I don't have a problem with trade executions or data issues. There were some problems a few years ago with disconnects but haven't had that in a long time.
I do believe my fills happen faster with Velocity than with Tradestation, but I can't quantify that just a gut feeling. I run IRT with DTNiq data and there is no lag between DTN's data and Tradestation's. I really enjoy Tradestations charting platform. I have used it for years and I am very comfortable with them and will continue. Here is an article from futures magazine that might provide some of the information you are looking for regarding US brokers. Top 50 Brokers of 2011: This one is on us - Commodities - Futures Magazine
Best of luck to you,