Bill: Don't bill me. No money! Hi, All: I've been trying Level II at a site that has a bargain rate and I promised to report on this. I know there's a lot of interest here, so I'll post a summary, but let's keep the discussion on the thread to a minimum. Please respond in private mail if possible.
Web Street Securities offers real time quotes, either refresh or dynamic, for $30 a month and offers Level II, either refresh or dynamic, for an additional $50 a month. This is much cheaper than any other source I have heard about.
While they say Nav 3.01 Gold is the browser to use, I found it works better with Nav 4.04 or Communicator 4.04. There is definitely a problem on the Mac but I'm not positive there isn't also a problem on the PC! The structure is thus:
You can establish up to ten watchlists of up to ten stocks or options in each. You can switch between the watch lists easily. I found these dynamically update pretty well. Sometimes it is slow, very occasionally it stalls. The real problem arises when you click for Level II on a stock and then go back to your watchlist, everything in the update area stalls. Getting it started again is time consuming.
I would like to test it with the Applet Runner but I can't do that right now. I am working my way up to that, having installed System 8.01 over the week-end. Unfortunately nothing is working right when I boot off 8.01, so I'm back on 7.6.1.
I'd love someone to test it with the Applet Runner and also with a PC. I will BUY a PC if it works without locking up.
I'm not experienced with Level II, so I can't report how this compares with other Level II services, and I don't really understand what I'm looking for while I watch it, either. But I'm plodding ahead. I do have another real time quote service. I like the dynamically updating quotes on Web Street much better than I like the click-to-refresh quotes available on quote.com. They don't push the news to your mailbox the way quote.com does, though.
You just need to have a brokerage account at Web Street in order to use their real time quote services.
Web Street's brokerage house has some problems and isn't up to speed on everything, so I'm exactly recommending them for everything. They do offer free commissions on certain transactions, and you can place orders online pretty easily when their site is working. But you cannot place multiple orders on the same stock on line (limitation of their clearing house -- they are working on getting their own), your account balance is incorrectly reported on line, if you overspend just a tad they will punish you by not letting you trade on line for 60 days, their margin clerk gives incorrect information... Well, you get the idea. I think they want to improve, and I like the quotes but am not sure Level II can work efficiently enough on the Mac.
webstreetsecurities.com
Linda |
