When brokerage firms begin their operations, they usually concentrate first on executing orders and then add charting, analytics and other services to their trading platform for their customers. After all, commissions on orders are their bread and butter.

TradeStation Securities took the opposite approach, turning an analytical charting package that was the industry standard into a broker-dealer for stocks, futures and forex that has received wide recognition from traders and publications for being the best in the business in many categories today.

The Cruz brothers - Bill and Ralph - formed Omega Research Inc. in 1982 about the same time that Louis Mendelsohn of Market Technologies, LLC was developing the first back-testing software that individual traders could use on a personal computer. From System Writer, introduced in 1989, to TradeStation (1991) to SuperCharts (1992), Omega Research became THE source of premier software for developing and testing trading strategies and systems. In fact, virtually every money manager or trading system vendor who offered a track record produced it on TradeStation.

Super Charts was a star in the 1990s, but this stand-alone, end-of-day software package met its demise with Y2K, to the lament of many individual traders. Instead of a one-time software purchase using data from other providers, TradeStation became an internet-based service requiring a monthly fee.

Then, after going public in 1997, came two key acquisitions in 2000 that enabled TradeStation to make the shift from a software company to a major broker-dealer firm:

• Windows on Wall Street, which gave TradeStation its own data including up to 90 years of historical data on some markets, a valuable asset for back-testing.
• OnlineTrading.com, an institutional online brokerage firm from the day-trading era that allowed TradeStation Securities to launch the internet-based trading platform that serves as the foundation of the company's direct-access brokerage service.

Today TradeStation Securities is self-clearing for stocks and options, goes through R.J. O'Brien for non-electric futures trades and uses Gain Capital for forex trades. Nearly all trading is in electronic markets, and on some days TradeStation accounts for the most volume of any brokerage firm on the CME Group electronic trading platform.

TradeStation provides an excellent order-entry platform with complex order capabilities that are perfect for an active trader environment, including the ability to insert customized exit strategies. And TradeStation offers all of the typical brokerage services, executing trades at extremely low discount commission rates for futures, stocks and forex.

But TradeStation Securities stands head-and-shoulders above other firms as the premier brokerage firm platform for rule-based trading for several noteworthy reasons:

Great analytics. With its roots in analytical software and back-testing trading strategies and systems, it is no surprise that the analytical package is TradeStation's greatest strength. All of the technical indicators are available, including the recently added Commitments of Traders data for the last 10 years. TradeStation's forte is providing powerful strategy creation and testing tools that allow you to combine customized analysis and automated trading on one platform.

Several dozen strategies are built into TradeStation, and hundreds of other strategies have been logged into a library and are available to test various entry or exit techniques. Or you can use TradeStation's Easy Language to customize your own strategies without having to be a programmer. If you can conceive an idea that can be expressed in computer terminology, you can probably write a trading strategy in Easy Language and back-test and optimize a strategy before you trade.

Caution: TradeStation analysis offers so many possibilities and ideas that experimenting may become time-consuming.

Radar Screen, which provides real-time scanning of a thousand symbols to find those markets that fit your selected criteria. A trader could never go through a thousand charts a day to spot opportunities, but Rader Screen can do the heavy work and provide alerts when it sees desired situations.

Strong international trading community. After nearly 20 years, TradeStation's reputation as the operating system for the trading industry has resulted in building a large loyal group of followers who have tested thousands of ideas and are willing to share them with other traders. A community forum has a core group of about 100 posters, and several thousand may contribute to the forum to share or compare ideas or to direct questions to experienced TradeStation specialists.

TradeStation has a number of other features that stand out, whether you analyze and trade individual stocks, options, futures or forex, but it would be impossible to describe them all in a short review. When you combine all the features of the TradeStation analytical platform and Radar Screen with an online trading platform geared for active, electronic trading in a firm that has a solid financial base, it's easy to understand why TradeStation Securities deserves the coveted http://www.TraderPlanet.com STAR Award.

Review Date: July 2009