Oddly, RealPlayer works fine on mine. I prefer not to return to Win98 because the value of the Dual Processor will be lost. Considered Win Me but a trader down in Palm Beach tested it and it exploded on him, so to speak. He also returned to Win98. There are crunch periods where the Dual is very helpful, so I prefer to use it.
<CBOT offer a trading platform (Globex?) that allows you to trade futures from home?>
A Globex terminal is expensive, or so I believe. Never looked into getting one, as I tend to think it's value is in trading the electronically traded mini contracts.
I use a LeoWeb screen for online Futures trades. For the pit traded contracts it is marginally faster than telephone. Only because one has to dial and ID oneself over the phone before entering the order. By that time the online screen has already routed the order. From that point on I notice the speed depends on the Market. I did a bond trade at market a few days ago (I rarely trade the Bond at Market) and the response was perhaps 7 or 8 seconds, very startling.
The SP is more realistic, I would think. A Market order on the CME for an SP Contract may be about 40, 45 seconds. Rarely do I trade ND but I think the turnaround is roughly the same, probably.
Trading the mini contracts at Market is virtually instant. 3 seconds would be a long time.
LeoWeb is merely an Internet based screen that allows you to set up orders ahead of time and XMit them when you are ready with a mouseclick. I use a company in Dallas, a small firm that clears through Refco.
lfgllc.com
I also have an account in Chicago that I use for telephone orders, but the online account is rather convenient. The caveat is to be very disciplined about order entry. With a telephone a mistake normally gets caught in repeating the order back and forth. With online once the mouse is clicked, you own it whether it's SnP (SP) or Soybeans (S). |
