TLC,
I use MB Trading and am happy there. I was with Watley until the end of '98 and spent almost all of last year and up to now with MB.
Watley was an on-and-off nightmare for most of the time I was there. Seemed to be getting better during the last two weeks of my time there. Since leaving I've followed the SI Watley thread from time to time and got the impression that for the most part they've been doing OK and that a lot of the problems were traceable to people's ISP's. One thing that seems to have changed, though, is that phone-access to their customer support people ain't what it used to be. When I was there they almost always answered quickly, and I was very rarely put on hold. Now, it seems that happens pretty often.
During the time I was there they were advertising aggressively and offered promotions like first-month data fees for free. Seemed like the influx of new customers was the primary cause of down-time and problems in their network. MB has been very good in comparison. Especially since last summer. Townsend did an upgrade to their servers and bandwidth at that time, and since then there have been virtually no crashes and service has been consistent. There are problems and complaints I've had, but they are really minor in the larger view. Main thing is the system is up and available virtually all the time.
I have a RoadRunner cable connection which is very fast, and I really think you need that speed to use RealTick effectively. Townsend's connections to the RR backbone is not that good, so I get more problems than most people, but this is slowness and occasional disconnections from specific servers rather than system down-time or even system problems. At these times when I connect with my backup dialup ISP, which connects via a different backbone, the problems are not there, so I am beginning to believe that RR is the problem. I'll know better in a few weeks when I get my DSL connection.
But even with these problems, the service is very good. Consistent. It's still RealTick, which is indeed a bandwidth hog, and old and clunky as a trading platform (well, that's what I hear from people who've tried others), but for now, I don't ask for much more. It would be nice to be able to enter synthetic stops and conditional trades, and someday I may go looking for these things.
Also, MB does not trade BBs at all which is an important consideration for some.
Their fee and commission structure, IMO, is pretty decent. Obviously depends on your trading style.
You might want to consult with $Mogul Member 7250480
He was looking real hard for a trading firm a few months ago and I wrote him a couple books on the MB thread and via PM. I think he went with CyberCorp. I'd be interested to know how he's doing.
wily |
