A couple of comments on today...
Although I was not one who lost money today, I empathize greatly with those who did. I know the feeling, and I am sorry for you. I was extremely fortunate to have a solid backup feed which served me well, and I think it's worth mentioning. My premise here is that I like having my buying power in one place, and I'm guessing I'm like most people here with 50-100K. Not really enough to spread between 2 firms.
My suggestion to all who don't have one is to make sure a backup quote feed is part of your system. I subscribe to one called myTrack. It costs very little, I don't even know what it is - maybe 40 or 50 bucks a month. I recommend them highly. Several levels of service, nice programmable ticker, a smooth and affordable package. I've used it daily for over a year, and I only saw it down for part of one day. I'm no salesman... I just think it, or something like it, is worth a hard look for any daytrader.
I kept myTrack with live time & sales and dynamic 1-min charts going on one monitor and the Watley order entry and occasionally working L2 boxes on the other monitor. I was able to make 10 successful trades today (thankfully today's order entry and execution was as usual), and although not as profitable as they should have been, the backup enabled me to "stay in business". Without it, today would certainly have been a day off. I am definitely not bragging here, I'm just making the point that we should tune our systems to protect ourselves. I think it's only realistic to plan on outages happening again. At Watley, and from time to time at every other online brokerage.
A point on my experience with Watley staff. I was in the tech chat room all day and did not see all that many others there. Had you been there, you would have encountered a very patient, responsive and polite Watley rep. It didn't make trading any easier, but, like many others here, I have seen the worst side of brokerages and I can tell you that merely having someone there to say "hey, I'm on the phone trying my best" is somewhat unique in the online trading universe these days. Sorry, I know this is probably no consolation to those down today.
Also, I feel obligated to say the few calls I have put in directly to Watley for help have invariably been met with prompt and courteous service. After reading the posts tonight, I'm wondering how I got so lucky. I do feel bad that certain people have encountered frazzled guys on the other end of the phone. I have to believe that any bad apples that may be in the Watley barrel are being taken to task. Bad apples in the Apple?? Tell me it ain't so!
Good luck to all. Let's hope the road's smoother tomorrow... |
