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So my plan is to trade on the CBOT from Australia, these are probably my main questions.. I'm no tech.
- I only have to worry about my domestic connection right? once the data reaches Sydney it goes international onto the servers of my data provider, is that correct or am I mistaken?
- What kind of speeds should I be looking into, how do I measure them and who can provide them?
- Is it logical to scalp international markets or should I stick to the Sydney futures exchange?
I'm not going for a HFT dynamic in any sense, I'm a human trader with a human dynamic so I automatically have roughly 500ms of latency anyway.
"For CME products you will be subject to geographical latency from our data centre in Sydney which is located at the ALC( ASX) The latency between Chicago and Sydney is approximately 350ms round trip. Your latency form Brisbane to Sydney will be about 5 to 10 ms.
Your connection point for market data will be in Sydney."
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I live out in the country and make do with 7 mbps. If you have spotty internet like me make sure all your orders have brackets at all times so if something were to happen you have an automated exit.
I believe that you only need to worry about your domestic internet provider if you are not planning on doing any HFT trading.
I have my trading platform on a server from @sam028. The server is located In Chicago & has incredible uptime reliability. So once I have submitted my order with stops and targets on the server, I am not worrying at all about my internet connection going down.
While I have latency from Germany to the server, that doesn’t affect my orders in any way, as I usually don’t try to enter at the market. Stops are then submitted at the local latency of the server, which for all intents and purposes is next to zero.
While it costs me some $ every month, I don’t need to worry about connectivity AT ALL, wherever I am trading from, which alone makes it worth every penny imho. The better spot in the market queue when my stop is triggered is a nice add-on.
So let us say I choose a good server, this would mean that the only thing I need to worry about is my own connection to that server, meaning domestic internet service provider connection speed?
What I don't get is you have to take care of that internationally, let us say your ISP hosts in Frankfurt, do you worry about your connection to just Frankfurt or do you worry about your connection internationally to the Chicago server?
I'm assuming most ISP's have top level international speeds meaning all you have to pay for and sort out would be the local connection to "Frankfurt" right? sorry if that sounds kinda dumb haha.
My take is that, for most traders, the issue of timelag (latency) from the trader's PC to the Chicago server in this setup is usually not going to be that important. (This assumes that we're not talking about aspiring high frequency traders, just regular retail discretionary trading. Reason? The latency between your your eyes, brain, and your hand moving the mouse and clicking it will be much, much higher, and will measure in full seconds -- or perhaps in minutes -- not milliseconds. After the click, a few more ms's will not matter. ) I think the same case could be made about most internet latency situations: unless it's enormous and unreliable, probably it won't truly matter that much, compared to the decision-time taken by the traders themselves.
The thing that has an appeal with the remote server setup is the total independence from connectivity issues (and local power issues, PC issues, etc.) once the trade is entered, and all the more so if the entries are decided-on ahead of time and orders are already entered (with stops/targets to be handled by ATM or some other automated method.)
This does not mean that traders need a remote server solution; most do not have one, and probably are OK. The thing is to have a way to insulate yourself from internet or PC downtime while you're in a trade. Your stops and targets will generally be either on your broker's server or already on the exchange's (check with your broker on this), so probably your main issue would be the minuscule timelag between the initial trade entry and your ATM setting your stop/target. Putting the whole trading platform on a remote server eliminates this, effectively speaking.
What then should I look into? do I at least need a certain mbps speed or is it all totally irrelevant and I should just start trading? I can download 12.7mbps,
I ran a test and apparently I have 320ms of latency to the Sydney server, quite a bit more than the 10ms CQG stated but is this due to my internet service provider?
@sam028 can probably give you a better idea. I'm sure he's familiar with lagtime issues from Australia to CME. My impression is that there are many Australian traders who don't have that great an issue, but I'm not really familiar with the situation there. I was commenting on the general question of a colocated server near CME in Chicago, more than the original issue you raised regarding your access from Australia. (Sorry for the tangent.)
Short version:
don’t worry, just start trading with what you have. But make sure you can call your broker to close / manage your positions if the internet goes down. If it goes down often, work on that rather than speed / latency.
Long version:
I don’t really worry about any of that. As long as my own internet connection is stable enough to log in to the remote session and look at the chart, I am happy. Often I even use the cellular internet for that. For me the big advantage of the Server solution is knowing that my own internet won’t be able to impact orders in a negative way. Meaning it’s the most stable solution I could come up with.
And stability / access to the market and your orders is really the only thing you should care about as retail trader.
Many traders have backup-internet connections, backup-electricity to keep their computer and internet running and all those things to maintain a stable connection. I rather not invest in all that stuff at home (this limiting myself to trade from home) but rather get a similar level of stability from the remote solution.
But I should also mention that before this setup Ichave trades with regular internet connection for years and I had no major issues, except for a few missed sessions when the connection was spotty & I didn’t want to trade.