I WAS new to online trading and I tried at least 3 of the main advertised brokers and settled on TOS. They were very helpful in opening the account and getting my money deposited with them. There online live support is immediate but helpful it is not, everyone without exception that I dealt with took the attitude of "If you didn't know tough, your just a punter that is trying to play with the professionals and we don't care, we're not here to hold your hand." This is in stark contrast to what they would have you believe. One guy tried to tell me he had spent 30 years on the floor of the CME (why are you answering emails at TOS then?) and another told me he had cut and pasted a definition to me but when asked were he'd got it from it was admitted it was no where to be found on there site or in any of their literature. There "Prodigio" software is limited, that came from one of their own development guys via email to a question and basic facilities like scanning on varying aggregation periods don't exist. You don't know you'll need to be able to do this when you start off. Charts freeze frequently in mid trade or just after entry but the issue never seems to be resolved. If your a beginner this is panic inducing !! And simple chart layouts like Renko or Range bars aren't available. Now I am more "worldly wise" but still very much an amateur I would suggest that possibly all the mainstream brokers are the same, they just want your cash and will help you loose it with pretty charts and inaccurate indicators. Don't get me wrong, most of the mistakes were mine, being a beginner, but TOS were no help when it came to helping me identify and resolve mistakes and if I did have an issue I was treated like an idiot until I went away. Trading should be straight forward. If a bar is out by 1 tick or your order gets placed 1 millisecond slower it shouldn't matter to Joe Public, were not buying / selling blocks of 100 future contracts. Your either in or out and a bit of slippage is to be expected in a fast market. The emphasis on order execution is meaningless if stops are held on the brokers server instead of the exchanges. (This, I have discovered, is what can cost a small fortune in slippage.) I now use an independent data feed linked directly too the exchange and not the broker and my hard earned savings are deposited with a specialist, smaller broker that doesn't mind giving me a bit of advice occasionally over the phone, if a limit stop is placed it's executed at that price and not submitted as a market order AFTER its hit !!! and I certainly never feel like I'm being laughed at by a spotty "Bud Fox" that likes to tell his mates he's a stockbroker but he really answers emails for a living. I don't have any issues with anything now, not once have the platform guys blamed the data feed guys and never have the data feed guys blamed the broker contrary to what the mainstream brokers would have you believe and I certainly don't ever feel like I'm being lied too !! I feel like my broker is now there to help me succeed rather than to help me fail !! Ohh and the mistakes are all mine now!!!

Reviewed by Ben Putnam | May. 20, 2011