NT 7 + Rithmic

[fred1]

I talked to deep discount trading before, and he said I can use R/Trader to place the order for Rithmic, and I will have server side OCO.
Right now Ninja only supports server side OCO for IB, but IB is a terrible broker, and I found many horror stories online. IB also hires a bunch of people posting online to discredit traders who complain about IB.

yes, r/trader does support that. deepdiscount - howard lender - is a great broker.
unfortunately r/trader is not able to do trailing stops. that is why i decided not to use it.

i love ib. in combination with nt it has some ups and downs:
ups:
-native 64bit api
-server side oco

downs:
-no historical data for backtesting (get it from kinetick or from other broker )
-data for some instruments very expensive (tf is 75 bucks a month !)
-no server sided trailing stops (other brokers can do that but you pay a monthly fee !)

i use tws directly. it is the cheapest and most comprehensive platform on the planet.
you can trade almost any market anywhere in the world, you can exchange your money at interbank rates and everything is free, even moving money is free, moving your stocks to other brokers is free (free data also if you generate only 30 bucks commissions a month, otherwise 10 bucks for the data). ib is also the most successful broker on the planet.

i employ 25 brokers and i am always looking for a better broker than ib. so far i have not come across any. if you know a better broker than ib, please let me know

[zehua]

yes, r/trader does support that. deepdiscount - howard lender - is a great broker.
unfortunately r/trader is not able to do trailing stops. that is why i decided not to use it.

i love ib. in combination with nt it has some ups and downs:
ups:
-native 64bit api
-server side oco

downs:
-no historical data for backtesting (get it from kinetick or from other broker )
-data for some instruments very expensive (tf is 75 bucks a month !)
-no server sided trailing stops (other brokers can do that but you pay a monthly fee !)

i use tws directly. it is the cheapest and most comprehensive platform on the planet.
you can trade almost any market anywhere in the world, you can exchange your money at interbank rates and everything is free, even moving money is free, moving your stocks to other brokers is free (free data also if you generate only 30 bucks commissions a month, otherwise 10 bucks for the data). ib is also the most successful broker on the planet.

i employ 25 brokers and i am always looking for a better broker than ib. so far i have not come across any. if you know a better broker than ib, please let me know

Yeah. If you are looking for a broker that can trade both stocks and futures in all markets around the globe, there are not many choices, and IB is the best amoung them. However that is only because others are worse, not because IB is good.

However I heard many horror stories and customer support complains. I feel like if I am trading and everything is good, then I am happy. If there is any platform bug that causes me to have to contact their customer support, then no one will be on my side. Their customer support people are pretty frustrating to deal with. Also I heard their futures fill is quite bad. (They only said their stocks execution is above average, right?) One guy said he place the same order in Optimus and IB at the same time, and each trade he can make $4-10 more in Optimus. I seriously considered opening an account with IB but eventually got scared off.

I don't understand why you need trailing stops. Maybe you have a good strategy for that. If you trade intraday, then you will be monitoring the positions all the time, so you can move the stop when you want. If you trade swing trading, then you can move the stops after a daily close.

I think manually moving the stops makes more sense to me because it forces me to reevaluate the market. I would only move the stops if I see a possible sign of reversal, or explosive move in the right direction.

After considering all of these, I think the only choice for me is to open a futures account in a different broker than my stock account. I am investing with Fidelity for stocks. They are nice and cheap. I am not sure which futures broker to pick yet, but probably Deep Discount. It will cost some money to send bank wires back and forth, but it won't happen too many times in a year.

[fred1]

if you do not need trailing stops then deepdiscount with the free rtrader will be an excellent choice. supercheap, phantastic customer service until midnight even on weekends. deepdiscount clears through crossland which is solid and modern allowing free ach transfers.

at ib i never had a problem with fills. some people are frustrated when their positions get cancelled because they overextend their margins. there are rules and they give you guidelines. i have enough cash and stocks on my account and never got any problems. compared to rithmic the data feed of ib sucks. this is only relevant if you are a scalper which i am not. as said before, scalpers should use cqg or rithmic feeds on nt or tt on other platforms.

all traders i know need trailing stops and every professional trading software can do trailing stops.
i learned trading from traders on trading floors.

how do you move your static stops when you play tennis or when you travel? i find it extremely boring to sit on the computer all day watching a candle chart.

ninja has to implement trailing stops to be a serious choice for professional traders. professional traders who trade from home also want a server -side execution of their exit orders. the web is full with threads asking for this feature. for most people local execution is a dealbraker. free software like rtrader, transact, strategyrunner can do server side execution of exit orders.

ninja says that they cannot do this and that because of whatever. i do not care. i will not buy the nt if it cannot do trailing stops and server sided execution. on the other hand i guarantee that i will buy it in case they come up with those features (without making me pay monthly fees). the nt is a nice tool. playing around with it is fun.

[zehua]

if you do not need trailing stops then deepdiscount with the free rtrader will be an excellent choice. supercheap, phantastic customer service until midnight even on weekends. deepdiscount clears through crossland which is solid and modern allowing free ach transfers.

at ib i never had a problem with fills. some people are frustrated when their positions get cancelled because they overextend their margins. there are rules and they give you guidelines. i have enough cash and stocks on my account and never got any problems. compared to rithmic the data feed of ib sucks. this is only relevant if you are a scalper which i am not. as said before, scalpers should use cqg or rithmic feeds on nt or tt on other platforms.

all traders i know need trailing stops and every professional trading software can do trailing stops.
i learned trading from traders on trading floors.

how do you move your static stops when you play tennis or when you travel? i find it extremely boring to sit on the computer all day watching a candle chart.

ninja has to implement trailing stops to be a serious choice for professional traders. professional traders who trade from home also want a server -side execution of their exit orders. the web is full with threads asking for this feature. for most people local execution is a dealbraker. free software like rtrader, transact, strategyrunner can do server side execution of exit orders.

ninja says that they cannot do this and that because of whatever. i do not care. i will not buy the nt if it cannot do trailing stops and server sided execution. on the other hand i guarantee that i will buy it in case they come up with those features (without making me pay monthly fees). the nt is a nice tool. playing around with it is fun.

Agree. The reason I am using NT as a free charting tool and planning to use R/Trader to place my orders is similar to yours---- Only that way can I get server side OCO for Rithmic.
NT has done a good job implementing server side OCO for IB, but not for other data feeds yet.

IB has more problems than just getting orders canceled. One guy complained that he funded the account with USD but it ends up to be Swiss Franc in his account. He had no idea what happened, and IB people refused to fix that.

[fred1]

at ib everything is electronic. i use ib for more than a decade and i never need any support. for what?
when someone says that he ends up with swiss francs when he wires dollars he must have changed his settings and defined chf as the clearing currency.
you talk from your computer to the ib computer. i love that because there is never any moron in between (like most other companies) who messes up everything. machines do not make mistakes!

good luck with deepdiscount and greetings to howard
forexpro has also free charting about anything you want 10 years backwards and real time

[zehua]

at ib everything is electronic. i use ib for more than a decade and i never need any support. for what?
when someone says that he ends up with swiss francs when he wires dollars he must have changed his settings and defined chf as the clearing currency.
you talk from your computer to the ib computer. i love that because there is never any moron in between (like most other companies) who messes up everything. machines do not make mistakes!

good luck with deepdiscount and greetings to howard
forexpro has also free charting about anything you want 10 years backwards and real time

hmm... I have seen some very bad reviews of IB, and also some good one from people who have been there for 10+ years like you.
Maybe it is is just that their trading interface looking too complicated that makes many people complain.
I will look more into this.
Thanks a lot.