Day Traders In Bangkok?

[jaytrading]

Is anyone doing any stock or futures daytrading in Bangkok? If so, you must have found a reliable high speed (that is, truly high speed 8m+) cable internet connection

that supports your trading platforms. Platforms such as Tradestation and Infinity. I"ve found that connections less than 4m, which seem to be the norm in BKK, cause trading platforms to crash...which is, like, really not good

when you have a trade on.

On my last visit to BKK I only found such a reliable internet connection in one place -- the Hilton Grand Sukhumvit, which provided a whopping 25 m connection. Great place to live, but yeah, rather expensive. Has anyone secured

such a fast connection in their apartment/condo? I understand that True and TOT now offer higher speeds, but of course the rub is always whether their claims live up to reality.

[trd]

Why would you need a high speed connection for trading? The data stream for live charts is quite low. More important is a reliable connection that doesn't cut out just when you are about to open or close a trade.

[lazygourmet]

Out of topic, but there is no Hilton on Sukhumvit., the "Grande" is a Sheraton... Next time for your own credibility, double-check before creating stories!

[HardenedSoul]

I trade with ODL and CMC Markets with no issues using a 14Mbps connection. I'd agree that the speed isn't so much of an issue since nothing commercially available here can rival the high frequency trading systems the professionals use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be doing this with anything less than 4Mbps !

[trd]

I trade with ODL and CMC Markets with no issues using a 14Mbps connection. I'd agree that the speed isn't so much of an issue since nothing commercially available here can rival the high frequency trading systems the professionals use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be doing this with anything less than 4Mbps !

My adsl went down a couple of times and I had to use my Edge dongle running at all of 200kb/s and had no problem placing orders. Of course if you are scalping on 1 minute charts something a bit speedier would be better.

[falang07]

You do not need 4Mbit/s for trading, did you ever check the data traffic? This is really lame, even 256kbit/s is fine.

[jaytrading]

I trade with ODL and CMC Markets with no issues using a 14Mbps connection. I'd agree that the speed isn't so much of an issue since nothing commercially available here can rival the high frequency trading systems the professionals use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be doing this with anything less than 4Mbps !

Glad that one actual trader responded to my question. But my question to you is, FROM WHOM are you getting a reliable14 Mbps connection? This is what I need to know! Are you getting it from True or TOT or perhaps somewhere else? Is this in your home?

Any details you can provide would be much appreciated.

[HardenedSoul]

I trade with ODL and CMC Markets with no issues using a 14Mbps connection. I'd agree that the speed isn't so much of an issue since nothing commercially available here can rival the high frequency trading systems the professionals use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be doing this with anything less than 4Mbps !

Glad that one actual trader responded to my question. But my question to you is, FROM WHOM are you getting a reliable14 Mbps connection? This is what I need to know! Are you getting it from True or TOT or perhaps somewhere else? Is this in your home?

Any details you can provide would be much appreciated.

I'm getting it from True and, yeah, it's very reliable. It's at my flat in Asoke but, from what I've read on various threads, it seems that the quality and speed of service you get is, to some extent, dependent upon where in Bangkok you live but you probably know that.

[jaytrading]

I trade with ODL and CMC Markets with no issues using a 14Mbps connection. I'd agree that the speed isn't so much of an issue since nothing commercially available here can rival the high frequency trading systems the professionals use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be doing this with anything less than 4Mbps !

Glad that one actual trader responded to my question. But my question to you is, FROM WHOM are you getting a reliable14 Mbps connection? This is what I need to know! Are you getting it from True or TOT or perhaps somewhere else? Is this in your home?

Any details you can provide would be much appreciated.

I'm getting it from True and, yeah, it's very reliable. It's at my flat in Asoke but, from what I've read on various threads, it seems that the quality and speed of service you get is, to some extent, dependent upon where in Bangkok you live but you probably know that.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I have a friend in BKK who purchased a very high speed package, but only gets 1/4 of the advertised speed. I don't know where he lives, exactly. Perhaps the Asoke area gets good connections, which is fine with me as I'd like to live there or Thong Lo. Anyway, it's great news that you have an effective trading connection from True. I spent my last month long visit to bkk doing research on this and asking my expat friends about their connections, but since none of them were traders there was no way to know for sure if their connections would work for me. One last question if you don't' mind: What True package do you have that results in you getting an actual 14 Mbps connection? I've heard there are now 100 Mbps connections for sale from either True or TOT.

[HardenedSoul]

I trade with ODL and CMC Markets with no issues using a 14Mbps connection. I'd agree that the speed isn't so much of an issue since nothing commercially available here can rival the high frequency trading systems the professionals use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be doing this with anything less than 4Mbps !

Glad that one actual trader responded to my question. But my question to you is, FROM WHOM are you getting a reliable14 Mbps connection? This is what I need to know! Are you getting it from True or TOT or perhaps somewhere else? Is this in your home?

Any details you can provide would be much appreciated.

I'm getting it from True and, yeah, it's very reliable. It's at my flat in Asoke but, from what I've read on various threads, it seems that the quality and speed of service you get is, to some extent, dependent upon where in Bangkok you live but you probably know that.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I have a friend in BKK who purchased a very high speed package, but only gets 1/4 of the advertised speed. I don't know where he lives, exactly. Perhaps the Asoke area gets good connections, which is fine with me as I'd like to live there or Thong Lo. Anyway, it's great news that you have an effective trading connection from True. I spent my last month long visit to bkk doing research on this and asking my expat friends about their connections, but since none of them were traders there was no way to know for sure if their connections would work for me. One last question if you don't' mind: What True package do you have that results in you getting an actual 14 Mbps connection? I've heard there are now 100 Mbps connections for sale from either True or TOT.

Not sure which package I'm on now since they've upgraded it a few times but I originally made a point of requesting a premium package which has a lower contention ratio.

The 100Mbps packages need a cable connection - I think they use the Truevisions cable.

[MunterHunter]

You realise that with a 1mb connection you will get the same "ping" (i.e. actual speed of data) as you will get with a 100mb connection, right? The difference between the two will be the amount of data you can transfer at the same time... you are still talking to the same servers, using the same fiber backbone and still have to jump through the same 25 server to get to the data center.

You can spend thousands of baht each month for a massive 100mb connection (and use <1% of the bandwidth) but in reality your trading software is sending and receiving small packets of data, so what you actually need is a small fast reliable connection (<200ms ping to your trading server) Good luck getting that however.

And yes, i do know what i am talking about, i have a few friends in Thailand who make their living through day trading, they can happily exist on a 1-2mb connection, but they do their homework and find the most stable/reliable connection (and they have two connections from different suppliers so they can swap over if they have any speed or downtime issues)

But to give you some help with your search, i would recommend looking into True *Cable* internet, i've had it now for 2-3months and i am super happy with it, no downtime (whilst ive been at the computer), lowest ping i've had to the US (220ms on average) and quite cheap as well. So far it has out-performed any ADSL connection i have had since being in the country.

Hope that Helps some

[jaytrading]

You realise that with a 1mb connection you will get the same "ping" (i.e. actual speed of data) as you will get with a 100mb connection, right? The difference between the two will be the amount of data you can transfer at the same time... you are still talking to the same servers, using the same fiber backbone and still have to jump through the same 25 server to get to the data center.

You can spend thousands of baht each month for a massive 100mb connection (and use <1% of the bandwidth) but in reality your trading software is sending and receiving small packets of data, so what you actually need is a small fast reliable connection (<200ms ping to your trading server) Good luck getting that however.

And yes, i do know what i am talking about, i have a few friends in Thailand who make their living through day trading, they can happily exist on a 1-2mb connection, but they do their homework and find the most stable/reliable connection (and they have two connections from different suppliers so they can swap over if they have any speed or downtime issues)

But to give you some help with your search, i would recommend looking into True *Cable* internet, i've had it now for 2-3months and i am super happy with it, no downtime (whilst ive been at the computer), lowest ping i've had to the US (220ms on average) and quite cheap as well. So far it has out-performed any ADSL connection i have had since being in the country.

Hope that Helps some

Yes, it does help much. Thanks to you and HS for info. And yes, I would agree that for trading, cable is the only way to go. My broker at Infinity Trading was really adamant about cable over wireless, even for the mouse. I also think you're on to something about mb volume not being essential. I did some traveling in the States last week and stayed at a hotel that only offered .5 mbps, but to my surprise was able to trade for hours on Tradestation with no disconnections. I look forward to my next visit to bkk and hopefully I can secure an apt on this trip.

[JohnnyFeelIt]

Disconnections are not due to a sub 4mbit connection but more likely packet loss on connections to international networks, which used to be very very bad with certain ISP's in BKK. The situation has improved over the last few years and you should be ok with most ISP's nowadays even on as little as a 256k connection, as your broker said, avoid wireless connections as they tend to drop out from time to time due to interference, etc.

[Chivas]

Why would you need a high speed connection for trading? The data stream for live charts is quite low. More important is a reliable connection that doesn't cut out just when you are about to open or close a trade.

Totally agree-I used a dongle with a o2 sim card (as an experiment)in the UK picking up EDGE only and the data stream was exactly as the Broadband produces on Tradefair Spreads.