Tradestation soon to be offering automated Forex trading

Hi all:

FYI, I have been in the process over the past couple of days in opening up my Tradestation/RJ Obrien account, and asked my Tradestation account rep if/when there will be automated trading available for Forex. He says that while they can't provide specific dates, that this feature is definitely in the works and possibly could be released within a few months.

They also said that they will soon be parting ways with RJ Obrien as their broker, but would not say who they would be using in their place and when that transition would officially take place. I have to wonder if the RJ Obrien issue and the automated-forex trading issue aren't somehow related. Perhaps RJ Obrien is not fond of the idea of automated forex trading, who knows..

Anyway, I just thought that some of you out there who are devotees of the TS platform would appreciate the Forex/auto-trading update.

Thanks.

they are switching from RJ to GAIN Capital...

I wonder why they don't want to use more then 1 broker... hmmm.

Actually RJOB still handles the Futures.
TS has been crapping around with automated FX for at least 2 yrs and still nothing.

TS Ver. 8.3 should be rolling out any day now. I got the email a week or so ago announcing the release.

RJ Obrien handles the the clearing for futures trading, not forex. Gain is and will remain the clearing agent for the forex trades. If you want to trade forex with TS, you have to open and separately fund a TS forex account. I think it's every traders dream that we can have one account to trade everything.

Along with this rollout TS also announced that the spreads will be a lot tighter on most pairs than what might be out there right now, and that they will offer fractional pip spreads. Where you currently have a 3 pip static spread, TS should be able to offer it at a 1 or 2 pip dynamic spread, plus a very small commission. They will do this by quoting the best bid/ask from multiple sources, rather than one.

After release 8.3 you'll be able to execute trades directly in TS, via the Matrix, trading bar, strategy order, etc.

The wide spreads and having to use a different platform to trade forex kept me from funding a forex account. But it looks like TS finally has their act together, and it might be worth considering when 8.3 is released. For now though, IMO currency futures offer more bang for the buck.

CarlC

I got my upgrade a few days ago. Thats the good news. The bad news is TS can take weeks to rollout the upgrade to all users. I'd imagine that since 8.3 is so focused on forex integration, it will probably go to forex account holders first.

CarlC

Does anybody know whether the new features (ie automation trading off the matrix etc) will be available to mini accounts or just for the holders of regular accounts?

minis must switch to a standard acct.