# Beginning Day trading - Software/Trading interface?



## Dominover (1 June 2020)

This is a question I'm sure has been asked in the past somewhere but I'm specifically looking for something related to the Australian market that is up-to-date.

I want to start day trading, but I'm not sure what kind of *charting software* to get.  For intraday trading, should I be only using the embedded charts on my brokers websites, or are there better options out there?

I know there is Iguana Spark which is at a minimum $200 per month (software and data).  Is it worth me getting something like this?  Is that comparatively expensive?  I'm nut sure myself.

Any tips on how to get started day trading on the Australian market (in terms of my setup) would be appreciated.

I'll need indicators such as VWAP, Anchored VWAP, Volume at price at a minimum.

Thanks


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## Trav. (1 June 2020)

Howdy mate, I don't day trade but I do follow Nick Fabrio on twitter (https://twitter.com/longhorncapital?s=20) who does day trade and is transparent with his trades and thoughts....oh and he is very successful so he must be doing something right.

I believe he uses Iress Trader as his platform which should cover everything that you need. God luck with the search.

Cheers

Trav


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## Dominover (1 June 2020)

Trav. said:


> Howdy mate, I don't day trade but I do follow Nick Fabrio on twitter (https://twitter.com/longhorncapital?s=20) who does day trade and is transparent with his trades and thoughts....oh and he is very successful so he must be doing something right.
> 
> I believe he uses Iress Trader as his platform which should cover everything that you need. God luck with the search.
> 
> ...




Thanks mate!  Yes, I'll take a looka t that for sure.  If anyone else has suggestions I'll also be keen to follow up.


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## tech/a (1 June 2020)

IB Interactive Brokers 

Everything you need!


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## Dominover (2 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> IB Interactive Brokers
> 
> Everything you need!



I thought that was more for institutional traders.  The reason I say this is the last time I looked there incentive structure really penalised you if you didn't trade often enough.  I might be wrong there, so will take another look.


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## Dominover (2 June 2020)

Trav. said:


> Howdy mate, I don't day trade but I do follow Nick Fabrio on twitter (https://twitter.com/longhorncapital?s=20) who does day trade and is transparent with his trades and thoughts....oh and he is very successful so he must be doing something right.
> 
> I believe he uses Iress Trader as his platform which should cover everything that you need. God luck with the search.
> 
> ...




Just on that, I notice there is several IRESS Trader platforms.  HSBC WebIRISS, NAB IRESS Viewpoint. 
Do you know which one?


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## Dominover (2 June 2020)

Well, the above question is still valid but I would just like to add that I'm looking at the two platforms below.  Can anyone comment on these.


NAB Viewpoint (is the upgraded version of IRESS Trader).
CMC Markets (Stockbroking Pro Trading platform)
I would like to use Iquana Spark but the $200 a month is something I just can't justify at this point.
Any thoughts on the above. 

Thanks


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## tech/a (2 June 2020)

Used IB for 22 years with 3 personal accounts.

if your day trading you’ll probably trade enough.


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## Trav. (2 June 2020)

Dominover said:


> Just on that, I notice there is several IRESS Trader platforms. HSBC WebIRISS, NAB IRESS Viewpoint.
> Do you know which one?




No mate, I'm sure they are all the same just integrated with the different provider platforms.

I am with commsec and they have IRESS as well, so really up to you on your preference, maybe setup a couple of demo accounts to get the feel.


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## Trav. (2 June 2020)

@Dominover some pricing for you 

free after minimum number of trades




or


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## penny55 (2 June 2020)

Dominover said:


> Just on that, I notice there is several IRESS Trader platforms.  HSBC WebIRISS, NAB IRESS Viewpoint.
> Do you know which one?




FP markets


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## Dominover (2 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> Used IB for 22 years with 3 personal accounts.
> 
> if your day trading you’ll probably trade enough.




What are your costs?


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## tech/a (2 June 2020)

$6 each way that’s it


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## Roller_1 (2 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> $6 each way that’s it




If he's day trading or doing anything with decent size anything over $7500 positions will be 

0.08% of trade value.


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## tech/a (2 June 2020)

Roller_1 said:


> If he's day trading or doing anything with decent size anything over $7500 positions will be
> 
> 0.08% of trade value.




$60 for a $7500 trade each way!!!!
Nahhhh.


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## tech/a (2 June 2020)

Just looked my trades up.
.0008 $12.72 for a $14500 trade


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## Roller_1 (2 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> $60 for a $7500 trade each way!!!!
> Nahhhh.




0.08 not .8

i just said $7500 because 0.08% of $7500 is $6. So anything > $7500 is going to be 0.08% of trade value

eg $10,000 * 0.08% = $8

https://www.interactivebrokers.com.au/en/index.php?f=39753&p=stocks1


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## Dominover (3 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> IB Interactive Brokers
> 
> Everything you need!



Well, they're telling me it's over $500 per month, and then maybe you get those costs
Does that sound familiar??


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## Dominover (3 June 2020)

penny55 said:


> FP markets



It's not FP Markets!!!  Looks nothing like MT4 or MT5?


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## tech/a (3 June 2020)

Dominover said:


> Well, they're telling me it's over $500 per month, and then maybe you get those costs
> Does that sound familiar??




No I have no on going costs even data is included only the brokerage 
I have 3 accounts totalling in the low 6 figures and do 5-35 trades a month.
I’ve used them for over 25 years I don’t know if fees etc have been introduced over the years to new clients.
I do know you have to jump through hoops to get an account — that hasn’t changed.

when you say they are telling you $500 a month— for what?


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## $20shoes (3 June 2020)

This page may be relevant but it may be specific to IB ( as opposed to IB australia) but may be helpful for non activity fees. 

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=4969


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## HelloU (3 June 2020)

Dominover said:


> This is a question I'm sure has been asked in the past somewhere but I'm specifically looking for something related to the Australian market that is up-to-date.
> 
> I want to start day trading, but I'm not sure what kind of *charting software* to get.  For intraday trading, should I be only using the embedded charts on my brokers websites, or are there better options out there?
> 
> ...



Many allow you to see course of sales from days/weeks ago.... but spark also allows you to rebuild the old depth book at any point in time.

(i see IG has gone $5 but for what i am unsure, not sure if NAB Iress feed has Chi depth)


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## Dominover (7 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> No I have no on going costs even data is included only the brokerage
> I have 3 accounts totalling in the low 6 figures and do 5-35 trades a month.
> I’ve used them for over 25 years I don’t know if fees etc have been introduced over the years to new clients.
> I do know you have to jump through hoops to get an account — that hasn’t changed.
> ...




I think I may have got their reply mixed up with someone else. The email came back from IRESS so I'm not sure which IRESS it was.. 

I am now aware (after emailing IB) that there is a $10 inactivity fee, which is very reasonable because their brokerage is so low.    You have said that it comes with free data can you tell me a little bit more.  It's very difficult to navigate their site.. See questions below.

1 - Does this free data cover all the lower time-frames such as 1 minute?
2 - Do you get access to their trading platform with this?  Or is that an extra cost.. I see that they seem to be advertising two platforms but I'm not sure.  Still looking into it. 

Thanks


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## frugal.rock (7 June 2020)

For what it's worth,
Westpac also use IRESS, the platform usually requires a fee, but if you do enough trades, they hand it out free.

They are minimum 19.95 per trade until above 20k or thereabouts then go to a percentage based fee.
(Not negotiable on the 19.95 fee but they will negotiate on the percentage fee structure if doing big dollars.)

Very annoying when orders are only partially filled... scumbags out there know this also, so they take a tiny bite to attempt to push a trade up or down... I usually play the game but will often lower or raise my order price in attempt to counter their piddly pathetic strategies.
They usually win though...

Partial orders are charged for at the end of the day, however the open order doesn't get closed.


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## tech/a (8 June 2020)

Dominover said:


> I think I may have got their reply mixed up with someone else. The email came back from IRESS so I'm not sure which IRESS it was..
> 
> I am now aware (after emailing IB) that there is a $10 inactivity fee, which is very reasonable because their brokerage is so low.    You have said that it comes with free data can you tell me a little bit more.  It's very difficult to navigate their site.. See questions below.
> 
> ...




Yes 
And 
Yes


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## Dominover (17 June 2020)

tech/a said:


> Yes
> And
> Yes




Thanks for the replies.. Just one more 
How good is IB's Level 2 data? Does it provide and identifier for the actual Bidding Party or Offering Party at each level?  Or is it just standard Bid/Offer data you can find on any platform?


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## tech/a (17 June 2020)

Standard that’s all I need.


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## Johny5 (30 July 2020)

tech/a said:


> $6 each way that’s it



Since IB setup in Aus they have had to add GST so its now $6.60 (minimum brokerage) for trades below $7500, for trades above $7500 its 0.08% of the total trade.

But I have a question, does IB now let you use money from sold shares to immediately purchase new shares, in the past if you sold shares the money wasn't available for T+2 days, but more recently I noticed that the money seems to be available immediately. This as you know makes a big difference to intraday trading.


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## tech/a (30 July 2020)

Yes I've never had an issue.
Settlement is immediate.


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## cutz (30 July 2020)

Johny5 said:


> But I have a question, does IB now let you use money from sold shares to immediately purchase new shares,




Yep


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## Johny5 (30 July 2020)

Dominover said:


> I want to start day trading, but I'm not sure what kind of *charting software* to get. For intraday trading, should I be only using the embedded charts on my brokers websites, or are there better options out there?
> 
> I know there is Iguana Spark which is at a minimum $200 per month (software and data). Is it worth me getting something like this? Is that comparatively expensive?




Iguana2 Spark is great for intraday trading. The ability to replay the days trades including depth and volume is a great learning aid to intraday trading, when you see a dramatic move in the market you can correlate it to any news/announcements or strategies that the big players are making, these plays are usually not obvious at first glance but by replaying the days trade you can learn to recognise them as they are unfolding. Spark also has a few other tricks such as a graphical representation of depth and order age and live VWAP. They also have an API if you want to develop your own application using their data, they charge extra for it and its not so easy to use or you can use DDE (easier to use) to bring the data into Excel. But Spark is a little pricey and unlike many other platforms the charges are not debatable.

How large do you think your trades will be, if they are going to be under $10K each I agree with tech/a, you cant go past IB, they have a very good platform on PC and phone. The only drawback with IB is that your proceeds from a share sale are not available to trade for T+2 days (this may have changed recently, I just asked tech/a if this is still so) which can be a problem to intraday trading unless you have a lot of funds in your account.


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## Johny5 (30 July 2020)

cutz said:


> Yep



Thanks, that's great, do you know when that changed?


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## Johny5 (30 July 2020)

tech/a said:


> Yes I've never had an issue.
> Settlement is immediate.



Thanks, well its back to high volume trading of low cost shares with IB. I used to trade a lot with them years ago but I found that the 3/2 day settlement delay knocked out too much trading capital. In those days I used to do 20 to 30 trades a day, at $7500 average for each trade it would often tie up $300K - $500K. I will start back with IB on Monday (need to transfer more funds)


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## cutz (30 July 2020)

Johny5 said:


> Thanks, that's great, do you know when that changed?




Hi.

I've been with IB for around ten years, maybe a little more, it's always been that way. How many years ago do you reckon you had issues ?


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## Johny5 (30 July 2020)

cutz said:


> Hi.
> 
> I've been with IB for around ten years, maybe a little more, it's always been that way. How many years ago do you reckon you had issues ?




It was late 2016, 
To get us onto the same page I think I need to clarify what I'm talking about. Firstly I'm mostly a day trader in ASX listed shares (not CFDs or derivative instruments). 
So as an example of my trading day lets say I have $15K in my account, 
I buy $7.5K of ASX.STO Shares at 10:05am then $7.5K of  ASX.TAH at 10:15am, 
I sell the ASX.STO and ASX.TAH for $7.6K and $7.7K at 10:20am and 10:30am respectively,
At 10:45am I try to place an order for $7.5K of ASX.OSH, my order is declined reason insufficient funds. If I wait T+2 days (T+3 then) I once again have the funds to trade. 

If I do the above with some other brokers (Amscot for example) it works OK, so I can keep turning over my $15K many times a day just scalping the market.

I remember emailing IB about it and they said that's the way the system works, I can try to find the msg from them.


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## cutz (30 July 2020)

Hey Johny5 ,

Yep I totally understand, I mainly turnover options, trades appear as instant cash credits/debits, I don't need to wait for settlement, in the rare cases I have sold stock same again, instant cash credit, just like a proper brokerage should work, this has always been the case with me.


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## tech/a (30 July 2020)

I’ve been with them 18 years no issue.
Shares traded with IB aren’t chess sponsored no HIN 
Number. I also note at times my limit order doesn’t show up
In the buy sell list.


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## Johny5 (30 July 2020)

cutz said:


> Hey Johny5 ,
> 
> Yep I totally understand, I mainly turnover options, trades appear as instant cash credits/debits, I don't need to wait for settlement, in the rare cases I have sold stock same again, instant cash credit, just like a proper brokerage should work, this has always been the case with me.




I don't trade with IB very often as i tend to use order bulking (so I usually trade with other brokers). But I love IBs software so I still keep a data feed subscription with them, occasionally i put through some trades the make sense with IBs low brokerage (actually more shares do nowadays). I only keep a low account balance with IB, recently I put through a few trades in the same day that in the past would have triggered the insufficient funds warning but the trades went through. It makes me think that IB have changed their rules so I will give it another go next week and report back.

Oh, just a thought, maybe the trading rules changed when IB set up in Aus, the high volume intraday trades I used to do were before they set up here.


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## cutz (30 July 2020)

Johny5 said:


> Oh, just a thought, maybe the trading rules changed when IB set up in Aus, the high volume intraday trades I used to do were before they set up here.




Yeah dunno, the major change I noticed when we were transferred to IB Aus was I lost the ability to go negative cash balance, we can now reapply but I haven't requested that facility yet.

Actually did a quick search, Pattern Day Traders with small accounts may get flagged, please refer to this linked article, may be of help. https://ibkr.info/article/193


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## Johny5 (31 July 2020)

cutz said:


> Actually did a quick search, Pattern Day Traders with small accounts may get flagged, please refer to this linked article, may be of help. https://ibkr.info/article/193




Thanks very interesting, I see that as long as I maintain an account balance of at least USD $25K (as below). I will be able to day trade to my hearts content (or peril). Now I just need to find what I did with the source code to my app that connects to the IB API to run my intraday algorithm. 

->>Excerpt IB Article 193
*What options are available if the account is restricted?*
According to the governing bodies, you are now disallowed to initiate any new positions (though you can always close out preexisting positions) for a period of 90 days.  You do have options which are:



A.   Deposit funds into the account which bring the account value greater than USD 25,000.  Accounts valued greater than USD 25,000 are allowed unlimited day trades.
<<- Excerpt IB Article 193


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## Johny5 (24 September 2020)

cutz said:


> Actually did a quick search, Pattern Day Traders with small accounts may get flagged, please refer to this linked article, may be of help. https://ibkr.info/article/193



Oh I promised to report back (week ago) on how the IB cash account balance affects rapid intraday trading. Well Cutz and Tech/a are 100% right, as long as you maintain USD$25K account balance you can trade all day long (I had a few days with more than 10 trades) turning over the full account balance several times over. I don't know why IB help desk didn't tell me about this rule when I inquired (suppose I should have read the trading Ts & Cs more thoroughly), now I'm using IB for all my smaller trades.

I want to do some more development using the IB API, anyone know of a good source of sample apps, tutorials and code (IB only have a few on their site)


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