TradeStation For Military, Veterans and First Responders

tom

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I opened a TradeStation account to see how I like Jeff Augen's Phase Trader Indicators, which are a bit pricey, but look quite interesting.

I opened the account with a $2000 deposit and my commissions were set at $1.50 plus fees.

Fortunately I remembered that TradeStation had an offer for military, veterans and first responders. It's called TradeStation Salutes:


The commissions are $0.45 plus fees. What a difference!

If you quality, the commissions are incredible.

I put a trade on the Micro ES futures contract to see how the order process goes. When the trade hits one of my bracket order prices, I'll be able to see the exact costs, which I'll post here if anyone is interested.
 
My bracket order was filled:

1637724964986.png

I bought one Dec 21 Micro ES futures contract ($5/point) at $4686.25 and exited at $4687.50 for +1.25 points x $5/point = gross $6.25 profit.

Commissions were $0.45 each way so $0.90 round turn. Net profit was $6.25-$0.90 or $5.35.

Margin was $1265 (See https://www.tradestation.com/pricing/futures-margin-requirements/ ) which is a net +0.423% in less than an hour.

Now I know how to get an order filled. I'm certainly no expert but it wasn't that hard to figure out.
 
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Tom, I've been looking at some TradeStation videos, and it seems they have several different platforms. Which one did you use?
 
How do the Tradestation commissions stack up against IB? Cost to buy and sell futures and options on futures.
Thanks
 
Any chance he will make his indicators work in IB or TOS? or even TradingView? That would increase the likelihood of signing up.....
 
Daniel. I think Tom mentioned that over 10,000 lines of code were written to work with TradeStation, and he has worked on it for 10 years. Coming from a programming/IT background I believe that would be an enormous task to adopt it to these other platforms.
 
I have been with TS for many years under this program. I was talking with an old trader that set up a few prop firms in the US and Australia and even he couldn't get the rates we get.

From my experience with TS there are a few things I love and dislike.

Option Station Pro is honestly really good! Click and drag open positions etc to create rolls automatically makes it so simple for fast adjustments.
I know their forced 1.00 per index option is kinda a drag. However, I almost always get a price improvement on my limit orders, better than mid-price many times! I also have a tasty works account. I swear, they never give price improvement unless I'm at a decent loss on a position. Only if it benefits them by dropping risk. Also if you look at the TS documentation. They have ALLOT of market makers bidding for your orders vs other brokers. I think this is why I'm getting faster fills with them and getting price improvements. Tasty Works has the best platform for monitoring your open orders in my opinion tho.

Overall, sometimes that $1.00 per contract on SPX can be worth it. Get what you pay for. IF you do a none index like IWM vs RUT, I have noticed some really nice price improvements.

Futures options and outright spread trading ( like ZW vs ZC etc) are pretty bad on TradeStation tho. They had TT make futures plus platform for them. It's beyond buggy, the spreads never calculate right, and it's honestly a complete failure. Talking with their staff, they know it is, but they invested too much into the software and got what they got from TT.
 
I have been with TS for many years under this program. I was talking with an old trader that set up a few prop firms in the US and Australia and even he couldn't get the rates we get.

From my experience with TS there are a few things I love and dislike.

Option Station Pro is honestly really good! Click and drag open positions etc to create rolls automatically makes it so simple for fast adjustments.
I know their forced 1.00 per index option is kinda a drag. However, I almost always get a price improvement on my limit orders, better than mid-price many times! I also have a tasty works account. I swear, they never give price improvement unless I'm at a decent loss on a position. Only if it benefits them by dropping risk. Also if you look at the TS documentation. They have ALLOT of market makers bidding for your orders vs other brokers. I think this is why I'm getting faster fills with them and getting price improvements. Tasty Works has the best platform for monitoring your open orders in my opinion tho.

Overall, sometimes that $1.00 per contract on SPX can be worth it. Get what you pay for. IF you do a none index like IWM vs RUT, I have noticed some really nice price improvements.

Futures options and outright spread trading ( like ZW vs ZC etc) are pretty bad on TradeStation tho. They had TT make futures plus platform for them. It's beyond buggy, the spreads never calculate right, and it's honestly a complete failure. Talking with their staff, they know it is, but they invested too much into the software and got what they got from TT.
So pleased toi read this. I was forced to close my TOS account when i moved back to Australia. Tradestation confused me a littlebut once i was comfortable with how they show delta etc... i am pretty happy. Still learning but stoked to see other people are using it for options trading.
 
So pleased toi read this. I was forced to close my TOS account when i moved back to Australia. Tradestation confused me a littlebut once i was comfortable with how they show delta etc... i am pretty happy. Still learning but stoked to see other people are using it for options trading.
The military/responders program is what keeps the rates where it makes it worth the use for me. If I didn't get that pricing then id be looking for the cheapest broker. Especially when trading butterflies!
 
Will Optionstation pro be usable for Amy Meissner A-14? Showing calendars t+0?
It shows calendars just fine. In the settings window there is a slider you can adjust to reach t-0 and between. It’s allot like TOS. I do like it’s option matrix better. It’s def not a replacement for ONE. I’m not I could do any butterfly without ONE anymore.
 
I do like the Futs pricing part of this. (Me --> USAF in the younger part of my life).

I'm wondering if anyone can weigh in on the options. I like the idea of OptionStation Pro. I used to use the early TradeStation products (TS4, TS2000) and really liked them. I'm hesitating though; I see this in the fine print: "There will be a $1.00 per contract fee for index options. Direct routing options orders incur an additional fee of $1.00 per contract."

I'm getting discounted ToS trades and for weekly 10-lot or 20-lot Butterflies, the commission price difference can be significant over a month. Yes, for sure, I'm trading for a lot more than the $4 per side commission on a BF or BWB. It's still worth doing the math to evaluate for options trades.

I left TastyWorks this year because I wasn't seeing nearly the quality of fills that I'm getting on ToS and IBKR Pro. Price improvement and speed of execution just wasn't the same. It "felt" like it was being routed for Payment For Order Flow (PFOF) instead of a direct routing. I don't have proof, and this may be an incorrect conclusion based on my personal trading comparisons, hence "felt."

Does anyone Direct Route their orders on TradeStation? Is there a commission of $.45 plus the $1.00 fee, plus another $1.00 fee to Direct Route? Plus, of course the Exchange and other fees which I assume are passed through.

I'm intrigued, but cautious..... Thanks anyone for any first-hand trading experience with OptionStation.
 
I opened a TradeStation account to see how I like Jeff Augen's Phase Trader Indicators, which are a bit pricey, but look quite interesting.

I opened the account with a $2000 deposit and my commissions were set at $1.50 plus fees.

Fortunately I remembered that TradeStation had an offer for military, veterans and first responders. It's called TradeStation Salutes:


The commissions are $0.45 plus fees. What a difference!

If you quality, the commissions are incredible.

I put a trade on the Micro ES futures contract to see how the order process goes. When the trade hits one of my bracket order prices, I'll be able to see the exact costs, which I'll post here if anyone is interested.
Hi Tom, can you tell me your opinion of Jeff Augen's Phase Trader Indicators?

I've experimented with enough indicators at this point in my life, where I now think all indicators give you (more or less) similiar signals/results (if you adjusting the indicator settings correctly) as you'd get from typical MACD, Stockastics, Chaiken, band studies, etc.

So, I don't want to spend $500 - $1000 just to find out my theory is correct that there's only a small differences in signals/results from some other indicators. Fyi, I'd be trading ES, NQ and CL futures using mostly 2-min, 5-min, 15-min, 30-min, and daily charts, and sometimes Tick charts.
 
Hi Han,

Overall I liked them but didn't fine $500/month in value. It's the most expensive indicator I've ever tried. Not a holy grail...
 
Hi Han,

Overall I liked them but didn't fine $500/month in value. It's the most expensive indicator I've ever tried. Not a holy grail...Can you say
Which chart timeframes did you test the indicators on? I was thinking it maybe wouldn't work as well on longer timeframes, but just my total guess.
 
Having to switch from TS. I absolutely loved the Option Station Pro software and also the FEE's for the military.

The problem I am having is that TS doesn't calculate margin on Broken Wing Butterflies (BWB). Just even ones. If using a system like the A14, a 10 lot SPX should cost you about ~13k BP reduction in the current environment. I got wacked with $36k BP reduction because they are calculating both spreads that make the BWB separately. I tried adding a 3lot Calendar which would of cost ~3k BP reduction and they wanted 200k because there doing the BP reduction on just the short leg.

If your doing BWB's then you are going to need to look elsewhere till they fix the margin issues. Which is probably not happening soon. I am going to miss there options platform! Managment was so easy.
 
Unfortunately a lot of brokerages are calculating the margin for BWB that way, TOS and only a few others are the exception
For the BWB you could try a workaround if you really want to stay with that brokerage by placing an even fly and than just roll down the lower leg Of course this would add an extra trade with commissions so it may not be worth it

Tradier want's 100k for calendars other brokerages are better on calendars

Last time I used TS many years ago they did not even had margin shown on the platform so I had to calculate it myself that's why I closed my account after one trade
 
@status1

They still don't show it. I was using ONE to trade longer dated flies in SPY and also used their margin calcs. Commission free under the plan. The margin was so low I never checked to see what it was actually. I went to put on a A14 on the SPX and thought nothing of it. Later that day I went to add a Calendar for an adjustment and the order got rejected. They wanted over 200k for a 3lot.

With the BWB, you would think they would just get you for the max risk of the trade like TD and TW do.

I'll have to pay some commissions with TD, but I'm going to transfer over. There is allot TS has that I love, and some things that just make me wonder why. If you ever took the time to use the OptionStation Pro platform, I honestly think its one of the best!! Hands down my favorite for managing options trades.
 
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