Technology at the Indies
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I just moved from major to LPL. I have always had Thompson 1 available to me at either Morgan or Smith Barney. All of the market data I really needed and more. When I came over to LPL I asked my transition guy what the other advisors were using for market data he directed me to their home page where you put in your symbol and click enter and you get a b/a that is about 15 minutes old. Although I run about 85% fee based SMA’s I still need what I had in the past to do some trades and view up to the second co news ect…
I feel that I need something more than stone age market reporting so I decided to get T1 throught LPL. Costs me about $169.00 per month and I get more than I really need. Basically the same service as the majors...and more. Does anyome use anything different ? Any opinions, comments or heads up on technology / market data services would be appreciated.Technology platforms vary considerably by firm as you know. The technology available from B/D's today can be dependent on what their clearing firm has made available to the B/D -- often via contract. Thompson 1 is still popular for sure. Some firms have developed their own trading platform while others outsource (or use) whatever the clearing firm provides. Some Advisors, depending on their needs would even go as far as obtaining a Bloomberg Terminal. It largely depends on what you need to run your business.
I would be surprised if LPL didnt have some kind of deal with Reuters, E-Signal, whatever.
I have Reuters at RJ with DJNewsPlus, costs me 125 a month plus exchange fees, so around the same as you are paying. What i have is better than anything i had at SBCheck out Quodd at www.quodd.com. Talk to Keith Savitz. He can provide a demo and a trial. Pricing is very good compared to Thompson 1 and some others. Web based and very good feature set. I also second freestockcharts.com. I’ve used the Worden Brothers for years.
[quote=BioFreeze]That’s what I like about index annuities - I can get all of my market data from the bottom right corner of the screen while watching Fox News.
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The man’s got a point…
You could get a subscription to eSignal, but that can be pricey with all of the exchanges’ professional rates for data, and Thomson’s web based will run $700-1200/month if you just call them up with your Visa. Morningstar plans on launching a new product called QuoteSpeed in q1 that should probably be fairly cheap and easy with most of what you need, but what you’re going to find is that timely quotes are expensive and the tools out there are either a yugo or a ferrari. Not much in between.
For someone who is 85% fee based or managed money, I don’t know why you can’t get by with just using Yahoo Finance. When you create a portfolio, those quotes are 15 minutes delayed, but when you click on the symbol, that is a real time quote, FOR FREE. When I first transitioned to Indy last January, I thought it was a joke that I didn’t have free real time/streaming quotes, but now I have realized that it just created wasted time of “staring at the screen”. My book is probably 95% managed/fee based. FYI though, my firm clears through Pershing and you can get streaming real time quotes for $65 per month and Reuters News and Commentary for an additional $20 per month.
Quodd has been very good for us, but we are always looking for ways to cut expenses. Will keep an eye on this thread.
Besides quoting services what software you Indy’s using to create financial plans?