The angle that I am making this blog post is that depending what securities that you choose to trade, use the right tools for the right job.  Whether trading stocks, options, forex, futures, e-mini etc, if you are not using the right tools you will consistently lose.

After the past month and a half of trading from a Direct Access Trading software, the experience of trading is night and day.  While using a web page based trading platform, not being able to see real time level 2 quotes and the ability to place fast executions was hindering my trading progression.

When it takes 2 seconds to receive the price of a stock, and it takes an additional 3 to 5 seconds for your order to become live via loading a web page, that is 8 seconds that a stock will move and is very costly when trading volatile stocks.  If practicing the number one rule of trading, which is cutting losses quickly, I was never quick enough no matter how hard I try and continued to lose trades on a consistent basis.

That is what I have come to realize when I used the right brokerage, right software.  Cutting losses takes less than half a second because I have my finger on the the close position button and can get out if the trade is not going in my direction.

I noticed the commission fees are more expensive, but the ability to cut losses quickly AND to take profits quickly once I reached my price goal makes up for that small downside.  Then again, being patient and and waiting for good setups rather than trading random stocks will bring down the commission fees in general.

Thanks for the lessons Tim!