Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
looking to complement my current IB account, cannot decide between Optimus and Velocity. Here are a few details:
- I use separate platforms for charting (Investor R/T, Sierra Charts, Updata)
- I believe both Optimus or Velocity apply for the DTN's CME fee vaiwer (as I plan to use IQfeed)
- no idea which execution is better (Rithmic or Trading Technologies)
- will use either Sierracharts (both) or X_Trader (Velocity) for executions. In case of Sierra, which feed is better?
- what about FCMs (Vision vs. Velocity). Any concern for safety?
- any general input in respect with commis (details I can get myself)?
- account management, online RT position tracking with P/L?
- what else I should consider?
I am sorry in case this has been discussed elsewhere. Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions.
Rani
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I've used both, but I've just recently opened an account with Optimus. I can't say much in the way of clearing firms as I honestly don't think it really matters, however as far as execution I have to highly recommend Rithmic over Trading Technologies. I've used Trading Technologies and Rithmic, and TT was just a piece of crap. Not only was it down a lot, but half the time it didn't report my GC or SI positions' prices at all. I would be in the market and it would show an average price of 0. I can't really comment on anything else, as I use just NinjaTrader and RTrader, but I can't recommend Rithmic over Trading Technologies enough. It was just bad.
interesting, anyhow... TT vs. Rithmic... there are lots of factors.. but most importantly please keep in mind that NT7 with TT has issues, period; specially when it comes to overnight holding (if that is what you were doing)...
I use IB as well and I use MD/ORT.. and I have tried most FCM's out there ... but I settled for Velocity and Crossland.. in addition to keeping IB(but that is for options only now)..
first Optimus is an Introducing Broker for Vision Financial Markets (VFM), so you should measure the FCM, not the IB.. though the IB is important as they are your face to the FCM and responsible for your customer service and risk management; a good IB for Velocity is VCap, I use Paul Wilson.
Both Velocity and Vision have great account management platforms; IMO far superiour to most other FCM's.. I like simplicity and KPI style charts for my metrics, and they provide them, and as such the experience is very visual, which I like a lot. Compare that to randweb, just awful.. anyhow, just my opinion.
Both Velocity and Vision support CME fee waivers. You can actually go directly to them by reaching out to Dale Box(VF) and Dan Boldt(VFM), or you can work with your IB. Your use of IRT/Sierra qualifies you of course.
Rithmic vs. TT is a "religious war" ... but honestly it comes down to the FCM's gateways and servers supporting either; meaning they will either be co-locating their gateways at the venue or connect to them (assuming they have their own DC's [Advantage, Crossland, and a few others have their own lines to them vs. colocating]) issues with the feeds are usually on the FCMs side, not TT or Rithmic, to avoid them, go to large FCM's that cater to pro traders usually.
As to order execution, there are a lot of threads on the subject comparing the different OE platforms.. the question you should ask is: what kind of trades do you place? do you plan to scalp or just day trade? if no scalping, then the chart trader from your chart platform would more than likely do it.
with regards to comms... you can negotiate them as long as you have the volume... you can go directly with VF and bypass an Intro Broker and get better pricing, but you cant do the same thing with VFM.. you have to use an IB and VFM does not publish their list of IB's... so you are at the mercy of the IB and what markup they need to pass on to generate revenues.. it is merely the cost of doing business.. but as I said, you can negotiate it based on volume and account size...
In terms of FCM safety, what I personally look at is the amount of assets from clients, their change from month to month and the amount of excess net capital (their buffer for absorbing losses in the event of risk management failure without impact the customers accounts). You can find all the FCM's in the following link and measure and track yourself as well. VFM is the more solid of the two with 12MM in excess capital or over 3% of current customer assets..
oh, one thing, VFM does not have Eurex via Rithmic if I am not mistaken, which is kind of weird because Rithmic lists Eurex as a connected exchange, so I would suggest to double check if trading eurex markets is important to you.
I think CrossLand(DeepDiscountTrading) offers R|Trader, which would normally mean Rithmic, but I am not sure... I would recommend you place a call to Rithmic in NYC to find out the list of current FCM partners... usually they will be helpful and let you know...
to be honest, I have not looked much into Rithmic myself.. contrary to what most people argue, I have found TT and CQG to provide me with what I need.. if I had my way I would love for my OE platform to work with CQG network, but nothing I can do about that.. I already asked my vendor and there are no plans for other API's besides the 3 they support today, and let's face it... every single FCM out there supports TT Network...
and one more thing.. you should always check the Background Affiliation Status Information Center(BASIC) info for any FCM or broker... I always like to check whomever I do business with...
Rithmic had his technical problems too. A lot depends on how the TT server is running at your broker. See the current problems with velocity and TT for the sierracharts who did not affect other brokers but only velocity.
The missing thing with Rithmic IMHO is that they don't provide historical bid/ask data.
I still prefer DTN/IQFeed for charting data and TT for ordering. I'm looking again now at the X-trader DOM and that TT is working so good with it, it's a great combo.
I don't know about other brokers providing Rithmic, but I do know that Optimus does provide historical bid/ask data. I use Optimus/SC combo and I get 30 days of historical bid/ask data. It has proven to be a very stable and reliable combo.