Hello.

I don't seem to run across a lot of people using Tradestation even though it is considered a professional platform with good data.

Specifically,

- Interested in what people can tell me about the reliability and speed of the data vs SC data feed/CQG/IQ/NT Kinetic

- What are some of the more common reasons people don't use Tradestation. From my perspective, the Tradestation platform is quite good and customizable.

Thanks for the responses.

I'm back at Tradestation after a failed move to Schwab.

The Tradestation data feed is a negative because they don't adjust prices for dividends. That makes equity strategies run against their data questionable.

Personally, I'm not aware of the other platforms you mention but, chart based analysis is intrinsically weak, as it can only deal with a single security at a time.

Easylanguage is proprietary to Tradestation, it is based on a design structure that is getting to be 30 or 40 years old and is moreover a little twitchy.

The other platforms are based on the same design structure but maybe their feeds are better.

Does anybody use Tradestation who isn't heavily using their automatation?

While Tradestation's automation is nice and actually very easy it has many weaknesses vs other software. No futures spreads. No futures trade at settlement. Equities and Futures in separate accounts. Can only automate single instruments (unless you use Portfolio Maestro which is actually designed for something completely different). Can't use 'returns' or 'ratios' in any calculations as the way continuous contracts are constructed means the results change every rollover. Also while I would describe myself as a 'light' user the number of data errors I alone have discovered is concerning.