TradeStation is an awful brokerage firm!

I have been with TradeStation now for over 3 years (actually I have worked with their software since 1992).  They have awesome software whereby I can program and test trading programs, indicators, showmes etc.   Their commissions are $0.01/sh then down to 0.006/sh based on quantity of shs.   In my first couple years I was trading sector baskets of stocks and ran up commissions of $35k.   then I got hammered and stopped trading in late 2009 and held onto (erroneously) my piece of crap "investment" TZA.  I continued to work on systems and indicators and practice with simulated accounts.  TradeStation has a policy that if you generate $50 of commissions in a month they won't charge you $100 for the platform.  Once I stopped trading they began hitting me with this $100/month regardless of the fact that I had paid for almost 700 months of platform commissions!  I didnt pay much attention to it thinking that any day now the market would sell off and I would be back in business.   It has now been 14 months of this and I am realizing what a royal ripoff this is.  I have asked them to give me back the $1400 in light of fairness however I have not heard back from them.  At this point all I can say is that I strongly DO NOT recommend them as a brokerage.  I knew Bill Cruz back in the days of Omega Research (which became TradeStation) and the company no longer has the integrity that it originally did.  If anyone would like to talk to me more about my TradeStation experience please post a comment.  In the meantime I am thinking of suing the bastards or finding out if there are many others that have had this experience with them and put together a class action suit.  And I am most likely going to move my account to another firm and make due with lesser platform/software.  Tdameritrade has a nice offer going right now and I may take them up on it.  Also it seems they offer a lot of tools.  Any suggestions?

I'm Baaaaack!

Well its been a couple months.  Almost correlates with the 7 consecutive up weeks in the market.  I feel this market is way overbought at this point (kinda like I have for the last 21 months).  In fact I am getting some indications that the long awaited correction is beginning now.  I have found that the small caps lead the way and therefore I follow the relative strength of the Russell 2k vs. SnP.  It has now turned down for the first time since early September '10 and in fact is breaking an up trend line since then.  The daily TRIN 30 ema has bounced off the bottom (around 0.90) where it usually hits at a top.  The dow has stopped at resistance in the 11860 area.  The SnP is stalling just under the 1300 barrier.  Weekly RSIs are way overbought and showing bearish divergence.  The VIX has bounced off its low point at around 15, up 9% today.   All these lead me to believe a correction is near.  How far, who knows and with the Fed still pumping the equities with POMO money and QE2, this could just go on at least till June.   Its insane.  I am insane for holding TZA for over 18 months now.  A triple leveraged inverse ETF shorting the small caps.  The same ones that have been leading the market up in the Russell 2k.  UGH!!  I have learned that the math does now work in ones favor holding these highly leveraged, inverse ETFs for long term.  It works against you.  In fact the best way; to play them is to short them.  I now can see that mathematically TZA will never be be where it was when the SnP (for example) was at say 800.   So this is my big mistake that has cost me dearly.  Also, I have learned .. don't fight the FED.  All logic has been out the window during this bull run.  The billions that the Fed has put into the system has simply been used to buy equities and ramp up the market.  And instead of going against that I should have joined the happy crowd of bulls.  They even told everyone how long they will continue to feed the market heroin.

Now on to my real reason for posting.. my next post.