Review of Open ECry (futures broker)

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	cooter
	Anyone have problems with OEC and their bracket orders lately?

Ok here. What's been going on?

[cooter]

Bracket orders not filling properly.

Stops and targets (OCO) on bracket not entered/held when main order accepted.

Or main order triggered, and bracket order stops and targets rejected and cancelled outright.

This puts both me and OEC at risk when stops and targets for intended brackets aren't accepted and are cancelled, while the main order sits live and working.

IMHO, they should reject the entire bracket order if any piece of it is not going to being filled or accepted to begin with.

Supposedly there's a fix going into the system this evening.

[Reaver]

There apparently was some sort of major fiasco the other day over at OEC...Brownsfan, did you hear any new info on what may have happened?

[cooter]

	Quote:	Reaver
	There apparently was some sort of major fiasco the other day over at OEC...

Well, some folks had their bracket orders "disappear", only to find that they were still alive and working, but not appearing on the DOM.

Here's a few posts elsewhere about it: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showth...hreadid=103390

Curious to hear what you've found out about what's going on over there too.

[brownsfan019]

Per your requests...

A brief break-down of the issue on Friday:
The CME servers (as a standard practice) send out a "heartbeat" request to all of their incoming connections at regular intervals. If the CME doesn't not receive a response back within specified parameters, it will effectively disable that connection to the exchange. At 10:26AM the response from OEC to the CME was not received and our connection was disabled by the exchange. At 10:35AM the connection was restored but was not performing as expected. Our tech team made a decision to resolve the issue but resetting the connection at 11:42AM.

The particular issue has been isolated and addressed.

We take great pride in our up-time and reliability and go to pretty extensive lengths to strive for 100% uptime. I will also note that we went to great length on Friday to address any reported customer issues. If a customer reported an issue, we did some verification and agreed to do a full refund (not too many other firms do this...and I don't think we get much (any) credit for the way we handle such issues)



-----------------------------

Here's my take - sh*t happens. It happens at most/all brokers at some point. What counts is how the broker handles it. While at TradeStation, if something like this happened and I requested any type of refund or reimbursement, they would have laughed and said 'read the agreement you signed'. Same thing at ProActive. Same thing when I was a stockbroker - if a system went down, oh well, tough luck.

So, if OEC is willing to back their stuff up with MONEY, that works for me.

[Reaver]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	Per your requests... A brief break-down of the issue on Friday: The CME servers (as a standard practice) send out a "heartbeat" request to all of their incoming connections at regular intervals. If the CME doesn't not receive a response back within specified parameters, it will effectively disable that connection to the exchange. At 10:26AM the response from OEC to the CME was not received and our connection was disabled by the exchange. At 10:35AM the connection was restored but was not performing as expected. Our tech team made a decision to resolve the issue but resetting the connection at 11:42AM. The particular issue has been isolated and addressed. We take great pride in our up-time and reliability and go to pretty extensive lengths to strive for 100% uptime. I will also note that we went to great length on Friday to address any reported customer issues. If a customer reported an issue, we did some verification and agreed to do a full refund (not too many other firms do this...and I don't think we get much (any) credit for the way we handle such issues) ----------------------------- Here's my take - sh*t happens. It happens at most/all brokers at some point. What counts is how the broker handles it. While at TradeStation, if something like this happened and I requested any type of refund or reimbursement, they would have laughed and said 'read the agreement you signed'. Same thing at ProActive. Same thing when I was a stockbroker - if a system went down, oh well, tough luck. So, if OEC is willing to back their stuff up with MONEY, that works for me.

You are definitely right.

I wasn't aware of the outcome. Thanks for posting that.

Money Talks- BS Walks. Most definitely.

That is impressive.

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	Reaver
	Money Talks- BS Walks. Most definitely.

You said it. Words mean nothing to me if you can't back them up.

OEC obviously talks the talk and walks the walk.

I stand by my ringing endorsement of OEC as the ONE futures firm that you SHOULD be trading at.

[cooter]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	I stand by my ringing endorsement of OEC as the ONE futures firm that you SHOULD be trading at.

Have they fixed the outstanding issue with bracket orders yet? This is another issue that caused problems for some traders recently. I didn't see a fix or upgrade yet....

IMHO, when you get to the point of having to run Camtasia Studio on all your trades, "just in case", you have to wonder....

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	cooter
	Have they fixed the outstanding issue with bracket orders yet? This is another issue that caused problems for some traders recently. I didn't see a fix or upgrade yet.... IMHO, when you get to the point of having to run Camtasia Studio on all your trades, "just in case", you have to wonder....

My brackets are fine Cooter, so I didn't ask.

If it's that big of a concern, then shop around and see what's out there. There's plenty of FCM's and IB's to trade through; however, I wonder how many would step up AND take responsibility like OEC has done.

[Reaver]

I don't know a whole lot about OEC and a few things always seemed weird to me, as other brokers have their own quirks...but to back up a statement like that with MONEY....that earns some respect...Word are cheap and easy...but once again Money Talks-BS Walks.

I'll give it to OEC on this one. I definitely noticed.