Convenience is a driver of our society, as well as trading. Every trading publication seems to have advertisements offering an easier way to trade. The most convenient way to trade is through a direct access brokerage. In fact, if you aren’t trading through a direct access brokerage, you should be.
The platform of choice is the CyberTrader Pro platform which offers everything you need all in one place. It has multiple chart windows, watch lists, level 2 quotes, news headlines, real-time position P&L, trade alerts, and many other bells and whistles which are important to any trading style.
The best feature of trading with such a platform is that it can enter orders with a single keystroke. It sets up hotkeys to route orders through different venues, such as ECN’s like ARCA or INET, and separate market orders from limit orders. This way, you can hit one key and buy or sell with the push of a button. Particularly with Nasdaq stocks, it usually has the shares in the account by the time your finger comes off the hotkey, it literally is that fast. The number pad on the keyboard has different share sizes assigned to each number, so one can also easily adjust a lot size if the default is different than what you wish to trade. Hitting the ESC key will cancel my order. This is way faster than a browser-based order entry which requires new pages to load or refresh while waiting for confirmation of a fill or cancel. While you use trading alerts to automatically place orders for positions you intend to hold, hotkeys give you incredibly fast fills on discretionary trades like day trades. If you aren’t using hotkeys, you’re a step behind.
If you’re a full-time or very active trader, it’s highly recommended that you convert to a direct access trading platform such as CyberTrader Pro or something similar. You’ll likely enjoy cheaper commissions, faster order entry and fills, and many more tools at your fingertips designed to make your trading better.