To: Berney who wrote (1553 ) 10/25/1998 12:54:00 PM From: William W. Dwyer, Jr. Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 7382
Hi, Berney I understand what you mean about F/A. However, from my relatively brief experience (about 1 1/2 years), I feel T/A is more important in trading, especially short-term trading. Actually, both are needed, imho. I screen stocks using my own set of fundamental criteria, then screen them several more times with technicals, which I feel are more important to trading. However, I don't pick winners 15 out of 16 times as you do, so you're probably better than I am. But, I cannot imagine trading without using real-time data, charts, level II, TOS, etc. I have used Fidelity, Schwab, Wall Street Access, Datek (very briefly) and A.B. Watley (using RealTick software) and I feel that, for various reasons, none of them are suitable for daytrading. I wouldn't recommend any of them on my worst enemy. I use CyBerTrader and am currently testing their latest version, 1.7 Beta, which is truly a trading machine. After seeing this release, I cannot imagine trading with anything else. However, I do not know if they will allow you to trade an IRA, either. You would have to ask them. But I don't believe daytrading an IRA by making phone trades is the right way to go. Before I did that, I'd use Fidelity Fox Plus software and stick mostly to Nasdaq issues. Fidelity is too slow to trade listed stocks, much of the time. Too dangerous. Another option might be to use quote software such as AT-Financial, S&P Comstock, or PCQuote to get real-time data, charts, and TOS and execute trades using Datek account. I have heard some real horror stories about Datek, but I have also have a lot of friends who do quite well with it. Brown & Company and Yamner would probably be worth looking into, as well, particularly Yamner because Steve Goldman is so knowledgable and helpful and seems to be so much into all this. Yamner seems to be the most "high tech" and still have old-fashioned "know your name" kind of support. I like that. If I were to change brokers now I would probably have to look into Yamner before making any final decision. Good luck, Bill