sat internet daytrading

[tradedog]

I would very much appreciate and comments or advice on satellite internet and daytrading the US futures markets. I currently use a dialup connection which is intermittently ok and sometimes useless. Because of my location in Africa (zimbabwe) there are no other forms of internet connectivity available.

Because I trade intraday and for very short timeframes, measured in minutes, I need a very constant flow of realtime data. Data coming through in bursts is no use to me. I don't need huge bandwidth, just constant flow. Will I get this from a sat internet connection?

Any experiences or advice would be much appreciated.

Thx

 

[Peter Parker]

You will have latency but I think that the speed would offset that. I am not sure what services are available thre. I know this ws moved her but your real question is technical.

 

[cdru]

Satellite internet can be acceptable as long as you aren't looking for very short response times. Inherent to satellite internet is a 1-2 second delay. Blame Einstein for that delay as it's just the amount of time it takes to bounce the signal off the satellite a few miles up in the sky.

Interactive stuff, such as telnet for instance, will seem sluggish...like you are on an old 9600 modem. You won't see the result of a key press until your keypress goes up to the satellite, back down, registers on the server, then the response goes back up the satellite then back down. My work uses satellite for telnet sessions and if you press one key at a time and wait for a response, things drag. Now if you know what you are doing and can type ahead, things appear to go alot faster.

Streaming media, or in your case streaming tickers is a wonderful use of satellite internet technology as once the connection has been established and the pipeline has been primed, you don't notice any type of a delay. The signal will still take a second or two, but since it's coming in at a constant rate, the dealy isn't apparent. Submitting a trade will have a delay though of a few seconds. I know timing is important with daytrading, I just don't know to what degree seconds count.

I would recommend heading over to DSLReports and look into their satellite internet forums, such as DirectWay and ask if there are any traders there.