APRIL 2001 TRADE NEWS
News Releases & Products 

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TRADE NEWS & PRODUCTS 

AMERITRADE ADDS DIRECT ACCESS WITH ACQUISITION OF TRADECASE


Ameritrade


TradeCase

Ameritrade Holding Corporation announced an agreement to acquire TradeCast Ltd., which, through its subsidiaries, is a provider of direct-access trade execution and software designed for the active trader. The advanced trading capabilities of TradeCast will combine with Ameritrade's operational efficiencies and technology engine to provide customers with order management and decision support tools.

Ameritrade will integrate certain parts of its systems with TradeCast's platform to benefit Ameritrade and TradeCast's growing base of broker/dealer business partners and active and professional investors. Ameritrade's tools include the advanced analysis features that make up the BigEasy Investor client software and website. The BigEasy Investor package includes strong technical and fundamental analysis tools that provide decision support to the active investor.

A comprehensive broker/dealer offering an integrated direct access/active and professional investor platform is scheduled to launch spring 2001.

Ameritrade Holding Corporation (www.amtd.com)
TradeCast Securities Ltd., www.tradecast.com


FREE REAL-TIME FUTURES QUOTES

TradeSignals.com

TradeSignals.com unveiled a new real-time, on-demand quote service, which is available on the company's own website and for deployment on other financial websites. The unique feature and key advantage of MyRealTime is that it entirely circumvents the retail investor having to pay monthly fees to the exchanges to access real-time quote data. In the past, retail investors often had to pay from $5 to $70 per month per exchange for real-time quote data. The new service is available free to existing subscribers of TradeSignals.com

TradeSignals.com
+353 21 487-6525
subscribe@tradesignals.com


DIRECT ACCESS TO EQUITY MARKETS

  Watcher Technologies, a provider of professional daytrading systems, announced that Trinix Securities has begun using Watcher's Application Programming Interface (API to connect to the US equity markets.
 
The Watcher Api provides ultra-fast connectivity to Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange, and various electronic communications networks (ECNs), including The Island ECN; Redibook; Archipelago; Instinet; and Brut. 
 
Using the Watcher API, Trinix can access the markets through the same advanced execution software utilized by the WatcherPlus's trading system. Trades placed using the WatcherPlus trading system account for approximately 10% of Nasdaq's trading volume.
 
Traders using the WatcherPlus trading system are highly active and typically execute more than 300 trades per day. 
 
Watcher Technologies develops trading systems for the professional trading industry. On average, approximately 350,000 trades per day, roughly 10% of Nasdaq's total daily trades, are executed via the WatcherPlus trading platform. Watcher Technologies licenses its trading systems to broker-dealers and other financial services institutions. 
 
Datek Online Holdings Corp. provides direct access to financial services. Primary businesses are Datek Online Brokerage Services; iClearing, a securities clearing operation; and Watcher Technologies, a software development company for the financial services industry. 
 
Trinix Securities is a professional direct-access trading firm formed in August 2000. 
Watcher Technologies, LLC, https://www.watchertech.com.

Trinix Securities
580 White Plains Rd., Suite 650
Tarrytown, NY 10591
888 640-TRNX, 914 333-7575
www.TrinixSecurities.com


NEW WEBSITE FEATURE CHARTS INDEXES

DecisionPoint.com 

DecisionPoint.com is a website specializing in stock market indicators. A new feature on the site, called Straight Shots, presents a series of indicator charts for a specific market index. You can click on the starting link for, say, the Nasdaq 100 index, to bring up a one-year bar chart of the NDX. Click on the chart to get a price momentum analysis chart. Keep clicking on the charts until you have reviewed 17 indicator charts specific to the NDX. This feature offers a convenient way for the trader to focus on a specific index to trade.

Decision Point
PO Box 7340
Redlands, CA 92375-0340
fax 714 693-0431
DPAlert@aol.com
https://www.decisionpoint.com


DIRECT ACCESS TO SUPERDOT AND SOES

Track Data Corporation offers its myTrack online trading members the ability to route orders directly to SuperDot and SOES. New versions of myTrack offer a new method of choosing routing sources. myTrack members can access SuperDot and SOES directly two ways: by selecting them as their default routing sources or on a trade-by-trade basis. Members who have downloaded myTrack version 4.3.22 can select SuperDot or Soes on a trade-by-trade basis. 

SuperDot, which stands for Super Designated Order Turnaround, is a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) computer system that provides swift executions of market and marketable limit orders, up to specified sizes, in virtually all listed stocks. SuperDot bypasses the floor brokers by transmitting market and day limit orders directly to the specialists. SOES, an acronym for Small Order Entry System, is basically the Nasdaq version of the SuperDot system. SOES accepts orders less than 1,000 shares, aggregates them, and executes them against firm quotes from marketmakers. myTrack offers access through PCs, browser phones, and PDAs. 

myTrack is offering the first week of trading commission-free to new customers.

Track Data Corporation
56 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
1-800-myTrack (800-698-7225) or 718 923-3100
myTrack@tdc.com


DATA BROADCASTING LAUNCHES ESIGNAL

eSignal has launched eSignal 6.0. The enhancements are designed to put the service on par with services used by professional traders. 

The new release fully supports decimalization, speeds up the retrieval time of options chains by 300%, and significantly improves options analytics and pricing. A customizable market-maker screen shows which marketmaker is active in and moving the stocks the user follows. 

It also includes regional stock prices, enhanced alerts, tailored news services for individual ticker symbols, improved charting studies, and a new summary quote window, all supported by the fastest-possible delivery of market data acquired via direct connections with the exchanges. 
 In addition, eSignal integrates with many direct-access trading platforms, which lets eSignal subscribers execute trades instantly through a single click to populate a trading ticket for fast, direct-access trading through multiple ECNs.

Data Broadcasting Corp.
22 Crosby Drive
Bedford, MA 01730
781 687-8500
fax 781 687-8289
dbcinfo@dbc.com
www.dbc.com


eCHARTS.COM LAUNCHED

eCharts.com

eCharts.com is a new website that aims to help investors trade smarter, not more - and to have fun while they are at it. All levels of investors will benefit from the new site, which is sponsored in part by Equis International, developers of MetaStock technical analysis and charting software. 

Visitors to eCharts.com can break into charting and analysis through the site's interactive Trade School, a new, high-tech way to learn the basics of trading, from what makes a chart to how to tell where those elusive highs and lows really are. Hosted by eCharts.com managing editor Thom Hartle, Trade School includes video clips, cartoons, charts, interactive quizzes, and more.

Equis International, Inc.
3950 S. 700 East, Ste 100
Salt Lake City, UT 84107
800-508-9180, 801 265-8886
fax 801 265-3999
www.echarts.com


LIVE NASDAQ SQUAWK BOX

RealTimeFutures.com
 

RealTimeFutures.com squawk box chart

Realtimefutures.com has launched a live, Internet-based, Nasdaq squawk box product. The service is available by subscription and features live, no-delay audio quotes and other important trading information broadcast live over the Internet from the trading pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The Nasdaq 100 futures trading pit has recently been expanded by the CME, as it has become very popular among day traders, large institutional firms, and the public.

Realtimefutures.com is a joint venture between Traders Software Company of Boca Raton, FL, and A-Live Quotes, of Chicago, IL.

www.realtimefutures.com


FOREIGN EXCHANGE INFORMATION

GAIN Capital has partnered with several leading providers of foreign exchange-related trading tools to provide its customers with the kind of market information usually available at the institutional level. The selected vendors include such established names as Thomson Financial's IFR, Aspen Graphics, 4Cast, Prone Analytics, and MoneyLine. These services are offered to GAIN clients at a discounted subscription rate.

GAIN Capital
150 Mount Bethel Rd.
Warren, NJ 07059
877-GAINCAP
908 542-0700
fax 908 542-0701
www.gaincapital.com


PROFESSIONAL AREA AT WWW.EQUITYTRADER.COM

EquityTrader.com has launched a subscription-based professional area to assist traders in stock picking. The new section includes lists of stocks exhibiting pivots and Powershifts (trading signals) and stocks currently depicting Bollinger Band patterns, such as The Squeeze and Walking Up (Down) the Bands. Also available is a screening utility for selecting stocks based on a variety of criteria. Lists with charts-at-a-click enable traders to easily select trades. 

The professional area offers a free one-month trial and thereafter is $25/month. Most areas of EquityTrader.com continue to be free to users. To go directly to the EquityTrader Pro, visit https://www.equitytrader.com/pro/default.asp.

Acme Analytics Corp. was founded by John Bollinger, best known for his Bollinger Bands analysis technique. 

Acme Analytics Corp.
PO Box 3235
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
310 798-8857
fax 310 798-8858
Dorit@BollingerBands.com
www.EquityTrader.com


JURIK RESEARCH RELEASES VERSION 2 OF JMA

www.jurikres.com

Jurik Research has released version 2 of its price data smoother, JMA. Unlike classical moving averages, JMA cleans up price action by removing noise without adding significant lag. JMA can also jump across price gaps and rapidly settle in new market levels. This permits using JMA as a proxy for price data, producing all-around, higher-quality technical analysis. JMA-2 has only half the lag of the original. Benefits include improved accuracy, timing, and long-term trend analysis.

Jurik Research Software
Suite 237, 686 S. Arroyo Parkway
Pasadena, CA 91105
323 258-4860
fax 323 258-0598
sales@jurikres.com
www.jurikres.com


REDESIGNED FUTURES BROKERAGE WEBSITE

www.xpresstrade.com

Xpresstrade has updated its website. Its redesign offers an arsenal of online tools and resources geared toward self-directed, retail, futures and options traders. Direct-access order-routing technology sends customer orders directly and electronically -- without any human intervention -- to their destinations. Fill confirmations are usually returned in seconds. Customers enjoy 24-hour access to leading futures markets worldwide. Customers also receive free, unlimited, real-time futures quotes and futures news from leading sources around the world. 

Xpresstrade, LLC
10 S. Wacker Drive, Suite 2935
Chicago, IL 60606
800 947-6228, 312 715-6228
info@expresstrade.com
www.xpresstrade.com


ORBIT SOFTWARE FROM PCQUOTE.COM

Orbit is a real-time trading tool for investment analysis. Orbit's features include quote grids, charting, time & sales, news, and more for $75 per month (plus exchange fees). Orbit is a Windows-based software application that is housed on user desktops and is powered by HyperFeed market data, a datafeed used by many professional traders, brokers, and portfolio managers. Orbit allows the user to create a real-time investment station based on his or her own specifications.

PCQuote.com
300 South Wacker Drive, Suite 300
Chicago, IL 60606
312 913-2828
fax 312 913-2900


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