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I have been trading with Tradovate since September 2016 and I thought I'd share some of my experiences and impressions:
1. They are really cheap.
Tradovate advertises "commission free trading." In reality, they as an IB charge you a small annual fee, and then you pay a 9 cents per side fee that goes to their FCM (along with applicable exchange and regulatory fees). They call the fee that gets passed to their FCM a "clearing fee" hence the "commission free trading." Now, no customer would actually agree that this is commission free, but on the other hand if they just advertised "really low commissions" they would not stand out in the crowd -- and at the level they charge, they do deserve to stand out. It is hard for me to imagine a retail trader getting fees close to this anywhere else. (Apparently at one time Optimus may have offered a flat annual fee, but I talked to Matt briefly when I was investigating Tradovate and he said that he did not want to do it anymore.)
2. I have had a very good customer service experience.
There were a few knotty issues surrounding my account opening and I dealt directly with Ryan Hansen, President of Tradovate, and he did a great job for me. The other folks I have worked with regarding trade support, technical support, suggested platform enhancements, etc. have all been responsive and very helpful. Now of course, the firm was very new when I started, so at that time they probably had the highest "employee to customer ratio" in the industry and it remains to be seen if they are able to provide the same quality of service as they grow. But, so far, so good.
3. The data feed is rock solid.
Tradovate uses CQG data, and that cost is included in the Tradovate annual fee. (Customers pay the monthly data fee required by each exchange that they trade on.) I have traded exclusively on Tradovate since September, and I cannot say that the data froze, lagged or crashed even once in that time. Before September I was at Tradestation for many years, and with respect to the data feed, my Tradovate experience is much, much better.
4. The DOM is quite good.
The DOM seems relatively full functioned. The most complicated order I use is an Order Cancels Order with a limit and a stop when I am in a position, and the Tradovate DOM accommodates this perfectly. I cannot speak to other more complicated bracket orders. One thing I don't like: With the Tradestation DOM, you left-clicked to place an order, and the software knew by the location of the click whether it was buy or sell and stop or limit. With Tradovate, it's left click for limit and right click for stop. So, if you're trying to place a sell stop below the market and you accidentally left click, it's a sell limit order below the market, which is actually a sell at market order. I don't like that at all.
5. Great third party integrations.
Designing the platform from scratch, Tradovate seems to have made it a priority to be able to integrate seamlessly popular third party products. I use Bookmap on Tradovate; they also offer integration with Jigsaw, Order Flow Analytics, and, I've recently seen, Sierra Chart. They do a really good job of this integration.
6. Charting is promising but a work in progress.
Charts look good, and the functionality of changing the type of chart, adding and modifying indicators, etc. is very thoughtfully implemented. Indicators are Open Source in java script so you can do your own work if you choose. However, there's just not enough there yet in terms of types of charts, number of indicators, flexibility to do various profile analyses, etc. I suspect most serious traders will want another charting platform (which means some additional platform and data expenses!) The recent announcement of the ability to integrate with Sierra Chart could be a game changer in this regard. That's something I need to look into. I use Investor R/T now, but if Tradovate plus SC gets me all the things I need and works out to be cheaper than what I am paying now, I would definitely consider switching. (Or, maybe Tradovate will offer Investor R/T integration at some point?)
7. No continuous futures contracts (yet?)
This is another reason most serious traders will want another charting package. If you want to do any sort of historical analysis more than a month or two back, continuous futures contracts are a must. Tradovate has said this feature is perhaps coming in the future. I feel it is essential.
8. No "Day Session" contracts
I primarily trade ES, and I like to be able to look at price action and volume on both a "Day Session" and "24-hour Session" basis. Tradovate only offers the "24-Hour Session." So for example, the volume histogram on the DOM always includes the overnight volume. As with continuous futures contracts, I feel the ability to look at Day Session ad 24-hour Session data separately is an essential feature.
All in all, Tradovate offers a great product at an unbeatable price and I am a very happy customer. There is a lot they can add to make the product better, but based on the pace of their development thus far, they seem committed to the goal of getting retail traders everything they need in a solid platform at the lowest price possible.
They peaked my interest when they announced integration with Sierra Chart. I'm not sure though how their first option for SC is any different than just having SC charts up and clicking on the Tradovate DOM. Their second option for SC looks like the real integration but comes with extra fees.....diminishes the differential between other brokers. Still haven't done the calculations yet to figure out the number of contracts to see a benefit switching to tradovate.
"It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop." Confucius
Seems to me that the "first option" as you call it allows you to use Tradovate's CQG data feed to power Sierra Chart. My guess is that is probably cheaper than other options, although I am not an expert on Sierra Chart.
Has anyone used Tradovate along with ninja charts which would require two data streams as I understand it. Would need to run both in parallel. Have tradovate open to execute trade for low commission and then use ninja to do the charting (have developed indicators etc that are specific to ninja). As I understand it I would need 2 data streams into the same PC. Wondering if other traders have done this and what was their experience? or are there other ways to do this.
Thank you in advance