[stock.trader]

Hello,

I am just starting out as a trader, having spent several years watching from the sidelines. Currently, my broker is charging a per-trade commission; I'd like to switch to a reliable broker that charges on a per-share commission. I have searched for a per-share broker and have narrowed it down to two possibilities:

interactive brokers
tradestation

I have heard a lot about IB insofar as its poor charts, lack of time and sales updates, etc. So, I will be using 3rd party chart software and datafeed. I have also heard that customer service is sometimes lacking.

From what I have found about tradestation, they have decent charts and are great for those who want to test a strategy or automate their trading. I only trade stocks, and only trade manually, so the automated features of tradestation aren't too important for my trading.

What I need from a broker is maximum extended hours flexibility (ie pre and after market), reliability, and most importantly a per-share commission structure.

Has anyone at Trader's Laboratory had any experiences with either IB or tradestation that they would be willing to share and thus help me decide between the two.

Any thoughts on this would really be appreciated.

--Ian

[hanz]

My Opinion:- http://www.openecry.com/

ops sorry...i thought you trade futures

MBTrading?

I used IB exclusively for stocks before I dumped equities for futures and my experience with IB was excellent. However, this was before they went public. Their customer service suffers as a result of giving ultra competetive commissions, but if you can live with that, they are the best at what they do.

[momentom]

I use both. If you want the charting platform use TS otherwise I would use IB

[Dogpile]

<<otherwise I would use IB>>

if you only trade futures and stocks and not options -- what is the advantage of IB over TS? I very rarely have problems with filling order at the bid/ask price for futures. IB clearly has something special in options with their Timber Hill subsidiary -- but what do you get at IB for futures that you don't get with TS?

I have used tradestation for years and would recommend it highly as it is a truly amazing piece of software for active traders. I was on the professional buyside at a firm with a $10 million annual IT budget and we used institutional grade software including ILX/Bridge/Bloomberg/Factset/Advent -- and tradestation has more useful functionality than all of those --- though I do wish they could do something with Factset to integrate that.

One thing I don't like is that you cannot trade european futures on TS -- though you can get the data feeds through Eurex.

[steve46]

I leave opinions on the logistics and features to others.

If you are going to put money at risk you should however make sure to learn about the "account risk" issues. What insurance does your broker offer for your account size? What additional insurance does your broker offer for futures accounts (if you trade futures). I suggest you call your broker and ask these questions. If you decide on a publicly traded broker, it is a good idea to request that they send you their standard disclosures for your files.

Good luck

[waveslider]

If you do enough trades to pay for the platform, do tradestation. I have been with them for years and find them more than adequate. The commissions are excellent and the platform is stable. Data is above average.

[Mojack]

commision wise, both, IB and tradestation are good, and close thogether. That should not be a factor.
The biggest factor for sure is the Platform. tradestation is sadi to be the best, and IBs charting is the worst.

I am using an IB account but with Sierra Charts, feeded by my IB account.
The only reason I am with IB is, becaseu its the only broker I found, which alows me to trade Futures, shares and FOREX from the same account.
With tradestation, I would need to open 3 different accounts, and fund all of them separatelly.
I heard, that many people have a 5000$ tradestation account, just to use their Platform for free (you have to make some minimum round turns to have it for free), but they have their trading account elsewhere.

So if you are trading shares only, I would go with tradestation. They have a nice "Radarscreen" a market scanner higly cusomizable, and all the other features you want.
IBs charting is ridiculous bad, mostly useless, but has the advantage, that you can use it with many 3rd party Platforms. But also IBs order entry system is not as nice as many others. IB has a DOM, they call it Book Trader, but it is strange to use, I do not like it. (I use IBs TWS with button trader as order entry, and Sierra Charts for charting)

So with IB I use 3 different Software, which in tradestation you have all in one.