Being a day trader for almost 10 years, Tradestation was the only software platform that was available to everyone. it was the easiest to use and what everybody considered the preferred charging platform for everyone that was day trading either futures or even for forex. There is a completely different dynamic now since you have other charting platforms and big brokerage firms like TD Ameritrade getting into the futures industry.
I use Tradestation with my personal day trading strategy but only as a charting platform, one thing that you should know is whether or not you are trading with Tradestation you will have to pay a monthly fee. With Ninja Trader however, once you pay the onetime lifetime license fee you don’t pay anything else. Click here to see a comparison of Tradestation and Ninja Trader.
Tradestation Charts
How much does Tradestation cost?
There are three different costs that you have to keep in mind when using Tradestation. They do have their own brokerage firm other going to try to convince you to open an account and trade with their brokerage firm. They do that by charging almost double for the software for people that don’t have a brokerage account with them. If you want to use Tradestation I would recommend that you open a brokerage account beaks so you can save that money:
- Option 1: No Brokerage – $240 a month
- Option 2: Brokerage – $100 a month
- Option 3: Only Data Feed Cost (varies see below for different feeds)
- Avoid monthly fee by making 10 round trip trades in a month
All of the logistics with Tradestation are quite good; using the trade station platform, customer service, and even technical support. The platform has only been down a handful of times in the 10 years that I have been day trading but the feed, the actual Tradestation feed is something that I do have an issue with.
Tradestation works really well with Internet access that is not reliable, you won’t be disconnected as often because it connects via a stable platform. However, when there are spikes in volume because of news or pressing global issues, Tradestation does not to keep up with very high volume markets. The issue is that trade station data is bundled which means that you get data in the bundled groups instead of individually. This is a for flaw because you really need to make sure that you get as much information as possible as fast as possible.
