Trade Station

Are you guys that are getting free platform and radar screen for life having to trade the 50 contracts per month, or is it truly 'free" platform and radar screen for life? I am still tip toeing into this process and don't buy many contracts. I am still trying to perfect my entry and exit and do so with 2-5 contracts.

The short answer is "it all depends." I personally am not on a minimum contract plan, but I have to maintain a certain balance in my equity account and separate futures account, and I have to pay for some additional data, but I consider this "compensating balance" arrangement a small price to pay compared to the $220+ per month that QCharts was costing just to get the "Gary recommended" set up. I think the "deals" available from TradeStation vary by time and representative. I got my deal at the end of the year last year and am quite satisfied so far, except for issues with getting the real time data I need, although I have found other, similar data to work around the issue for the short term while TradeStation works to resolve the issue.

I did keep QCharts for several months after starting TradeStation, just to make sure that I could do everything I did in QCharts. There is only one indicator that TradeStation does not have that Gary used in my RTP course and I am able to get along fine without it (and no, I do not feel comfortable disclosing what the indicator is). The big plus for TradeStation is that I can do so much more with it than is possible with QCharts, although there is a fairly steep learning curve to learn how to customize things and modify/write EasyLanguage code. If you can devote several hours per day over a few weeks, you should be able to get up and running with TradeStation and have it doing everything QCharts does, and more. And just in case TradeStation is not working, I also use TD Ameritrade's Think or Swim desktop, which also allows for a "Gary setup" just like QCharts, although I use slightly different intra-day chart lengths so I can get more chart history displayed than if I use the customized "Gary" chart intervals.

BTW, if you are only doing 2-5 contracts, TradeStation, at $1 per contract, with no per ticket charge, should be cheaper than the other popular online brokers, until you get to the 40-50 contract level. At that point if you are doing at least several hundred contracts per month, on average, I would try to negotiate a discounted rate with TradeStation.

brcurley

You DO NOT have to get a promotion if you trade 50 contracts or 5000 shares a month. They count stock & option trades combined, so as has been stated previously - if you make a trade with only 10 contracts, then sell those 10 contracts - that's 20 contracts or the equivalent of 2000 shares. Make 3 trades like that a month & you're over the minimum & there is no charge for the charting platform or radar screen. I guess the promotion would come in handy if you were just starting out as you said, but if you are trading regularly, you get the same items free as in the promotion.

This is true - spoke with a rep recently & he explained the same thing. I guess since the promotion doesn't really help someone who is trading frequently, it would be wise to ask for other perks - can't hurt.