Best Trading Platform Features: What Traders Value Most

Futures Trading Platforms Trading Plaforms | General Q&A
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When selecting a trading platform, your choice can significantly impact your trading success and overall market experience. The platform you choose will be your primary interface with the financial markets, affecting everything from your ability to execute trades efficiently to managing your risk effectively.

To help us understand what matters most to traders like you, please consider the following question carefully:

As an active trader in today’s fast-paced markets, which feature do you consider absolutely essential when selecting a trading platform? This insight will help us better understand traders’ priorities and potentially improve platform offerings. Consider factors such as execution quality, platform reliability, cost structure, available tools, and overall trading experience.

Please select the THREE features you consider most critical:

  1. Execution Speed & Order Routing
  2. Platform Stability & Reliability
  3. Commission & Trading Costs
  4. Available Order Types
  5. Charting & Technical Analysis Tools
  6. Market Depth & Level 2 Data
  7. Low Latency Data Feeds
  8. Risk Management Features
  9. Mobile Trading Access
  10. Customer Support Quality
  11. Integration with Third-Party Tools
  12. Historical Data Access
  13. Paper Trading/Demo Account
  14. Other (please specify)

Your response will help shape our understanding of what traders truly value in their trading platforms, ultimately contributing to better platform development and service delivery.

Please be as elaborate as you can in your answer.

Best,
Matt Z
Optimus Futures

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Hi Matt,

These are top 3 for me.

  1. Execution Speed & Order Routing
  2. Platform Stability & Reliability
  3. Risk Management Features
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Hi Matt,
Top 3 for me
Execution Speed & Order Routing
Charting & Technical Analysis Tools
Risk Management Features

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Hi Matt,

My top 3:

  1. Execution Speed & Order Routing
  2. Platform Stability & Reliability
  3. Low Latency Data Feeds
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Hey Matt,

Absolutely incredible feedback. That was some great insight. Here are my 3 to the question above:

  1. Execution Speed and Order Routing
  2. Platform Stability and Reliability
  3. Charting and Technical Analysis Tools

Would love to receive those 10 rules you mentioned in the talk. Those were GOLD! Thanks again

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These are mine:

  • Execution Speed & Order Routing
  • Platform Stability & Reliability
  • Commission & Trading Costs
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Hi there Matt , here you go :

1.-Execution Speed & Order Routing
2.-Platform Stability & Reliability
3.- Risk Management Features

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Hey Matt,

Thank you for your valuable insights this morning.

Top 3 for me are:

  1. Platform Stability & Reliability
  2. Charting & Technical Analysis Tools
  3. Integration with Third-Party Tools
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Hi Matt,

My top 3,

  1. Execution Speed & Order Routing
  2. Platform Stability & Reliability
  3. Customer Support Quality
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Hey Matt,

my top 3 are Charting & Technical Analysis Tools, Execution Speed & Order Routing, and Customer Support Quality

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Hi Matt.

My top 3 are
Execution Speed & Order Routing
Platform Stability & Reliability
Customer Support Quality

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Hey Matt,

Platform Stability & Reliability
The platform has to be able to perform consistently and efficiently. If I have to worry about the platform being able to perform, then I will switch to a more solid platform.

Commission & Trading Costs
Commission and trading fees are a crucial part of my decision to select a particular broker/firm. Fair and reasonable without always increasing margin requirements due to news/events is what I believe most traders are looking for in the long run.

Market Depth & Level 2 Data
Part of my edge utilizes lvl 2 data and heavily rely on it while trading.

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@GLDBARS Thank you for taking the time to explain your choices!

Matt Z
Optimus Futures

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For me it’s:

  1. Execution speed and order routing.
  2. Platform stability and reliability.
  3. Low latency data feeds.
  4. Risk management features.
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Hey Matt

The top three for me is:

  1. Risk management features
  • Well, the reason for is its quicker to set order and know how much you are risk way faster than calculating it entirely and it changes a lot unless you use a set stop loss and that something I don’t like it give me an unknown feeling and you also have to enter the trade now if you scalp so calculating won’t make it better
  1. Platform Stability & Reliability
  • this is because it would be bad if your platform goes down mid trade, and I didn’t set stops yet because I set stop based off the calculation of how much I want to lose and usually the stop is never where I want it so that lead back to the first one
  1. Charting & Technical Analysis Tools
  • this because I do not like having to switch tab to tab so having a platform with a good system like trading view would be nice, but I use Tradovate cause the speed of candle movement to me Its beneficial for me, but their chart system is weird so it is irritating and how I feel be affecting my trading alot.

In the end all of the choices are valuable to me but I don’t know what 6 is so if possible, all of them.

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Thank you all SO MUCH for your inputs! I truly appreciate your insights.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in more detail when discussing risk management tools. Without mentioning the name of your platform, what features or capabilities do you wish risk management tools had that they currently lack? Your detailed responses would be greatly appreciated, as they can help drive meaningful improvements in this space.

Looking forward to your input!

Best,
Matt Z
Optimus Futures

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I would say a system where contracts are calculated based off the size of the trade itself in points an example would be:

This is a scalping situation for NQ

  • I wanted one contract, and my stop was 20 points away making it approximately 400$ but in a specific scenario before I entered, I could put my stop to 13 points which is decreasing my risk on the trade, but I want to risk 400 on this and it’s going to be 520. I would have to recalculate the size of the trade with 2 cons obviously 20 to 10 would be 400 but that would make me limited to increments of 10 doing all that math I would have missed the move think so hard about it in the moment does this make sense? in the end I don’t think I can do decimal point cons because that would be more math and it’s not simple anymore.

here’s a chat GBT response of what I’m saying if you don’t get it me

Desired Feature:

  • System for Calculating Contracts Based on Trade Size in Points: You suggested a feature that would automatically calculate the number of contracts based on the size of the trade itself in points, to streamline the process and reduce the need for manual calculations in real-time.

Example Scenario (Scalping NQ):

  • Initial Setup:
    • Desired one contract with a 20-point stop, risking approximately $400.
  • Adjusted Setup:
    • Moving the stop to 13 points to decrease risk.
    • Wanting to maintain a risk of $400, which would require recalculating the size of the trade.
    • Considering two contracts with a new stop level but realizing that this recalculation could cause you to miss the move due to the time taken to do the math or input them in another system manually.

Challenges:

  • Real-Time Calculation: Manual recalculations in the moment can be complex and time-consuming, risking missing the trading opportunity.
  • Precision: Calculating trade sizes down to decimal points can make the process more complicated and less intuitive.
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@TrripleTrades

Futures contracts are standardized - this means you can’t trade partial contracts. You must trade in whole numbers (1, 2, 3 etc.). Each contract has a fixed value per point that you cannot change. That’s just how the exchange designed them.

Let’s look at your specific NQ situation:

Original Plan:

  • 20 point stop
  • 1 NQ contract ($20 per point)
  • Risk calculation: 20 points × $20 = $400 risk (perfect for your goal)

Alternative Scenario with Tighter Stop:

  • 13 point stop
  • 1 NQ contract = 13 points × $20 = $260 risk (too little)
  • 2 NQ contracts = 13 points × $20 × 2 = $520 risk (too much)

You have two main options:

  1. Accept the standardization
  • Trade full-size NQ contracts at $20 per point
  • Either risk $260 (1 contract) or $520 (2 contracts)
  • No way to get exactly $400 risk with a 13-point stop
  1. Use micro contracts (MNQ)
  • These are 1/10th the size at $2 per point
  • Could use 15 MNQ contracts: 15 × 13 points × $2 = $390 risk
  • Gets you much closer to your $400 target

The key is not to get too caught up in calculating perfect position sizes at the moment - this could make you miss the trade. Either accept the standardized risk levels of full-size contracts or switch to micros for more precise sizing. I hope this helps.

Matt Z
Optimus Futures

The placement of contingent orders by you or broker, or trading advisor, such as a “stop-loss” or “stop-limit” order, will not necessarily limit your losses to the intended amounts, since market conditions may make it impossible to execute such orders

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Hi Matt , my three features I consider most critical :
1-Execution Speed and order Routing
2-Platform Stability and Reliability
3-commission & Trading Costs

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Hi Matt,

to have possibility to define bracket orders in advance with defined SL & PT for each futures separately. E.g. when trading multiple futures in the same time I want to have these predefined to place limit order with PT and SL (e.g. for NQ I want to have these for 15 points, for ES 6 points etc.).

When placing the order I do not want to adjust it thinking about which futures I am now trading and what is the point value. This is something I have in my system defined and I want to apply when placing the order. I just loose time and I am not precise if I have to adjust is for each trade separately.

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