BEST Direct
Features
Enhanced Quotes
BEST Direct 7.0 supports real-time quotes for all GLOBEX, e-CBOT contracts, single stock futures and E-Mini NY energy contracts.
Depth of market is also available for all GLOBEX, e-CBOT contracts, single stock futures and E-Mini NY energy contracts. The depth of market feature shows the current bid and ask and the quantity of the bid and ask at that price.
With the Quick Trade window you can also see the four prices in the book above and below the current bid and ask as well as the quantities at those prices.
The depth of market feature also gives you another way of placing Stop and Limit orders. To place a Stop or Limit order through the Quick Trade window, place your cursor over the bid or ask window that shows the price you want and left click. This will populate the price window with the price you selected. Then right click and a menu will appear giving you the option to place a Stop or Limit order.
Real-time Charting
Streaming real-time charts are now available for GLOBEX, e-CBOT and Mini NY energy contracts. The charts, available from the top toolbar of the BEST Direct trade ticket window, are available with 1-, 5-, 10-, 15-, 30-, and 60-minute intervals. Candlestick charts are also available.
BEST Charts remain active on your desktop even after you close the BEST Direct program.
This package is the first generation of BEST Charting. Future versions of the BEST Charting program will include enhancements based on broker and customer feedback.
Reliability
Multiple exchange connections give BEST Direct 7.0 enhanced redundancy.
Order Management Data
Enhanced order management features allow you to export data to tab delimited or html formats. To do so, from the Order Management window select the Main dropdown menu, and choose either format for exporting.
A tab delimited file can be called into an excel workbook if you would like to build data over time. You can also save the data as an html file, and open with your web browser to view a pre-formatted table showing the day’s activity.
Account Status
Continually updated Account Status with streaming real-time P/L.
Customer Service
The Customer Service department is available to answer technical questions at any time during the trading day, and PFG's trade desk is available during evening and overnight hours.
FX Quote
You can view FOREX quotes directly on BEST Direct 7.0.
Parked Orders
The Parked Order function enables customers to store orders and recall them later when they are ready to enter a trade.
BEST Direct's Parked Order function is available from the "View" dropdown menu. Once the Parked Orders window is open, you simply have to click on "Add From Main Ticket" button once you have completed an order ticket. This will automatically place that trade in the Parked Orders window.
When a position is added to the Parked Orders window, the "Send" box will automatically be checked. So if you don’t want to transmit all orders in your Parked Orders window, you will have to de-select those orders.
Control of Commodity List
When you select a commodity from the Market Selection window, you will see that BEST Direct is set up so that you will view all available exchanges and contracts in the commodity list. You can edit the commodity list, however, to just show the commodities that you are interested in.
To edit the commodity list, go to the "Main" dropdown menu, and select "Options," followed by "Edit Commodity List."
You can then select those products you want showing in your commodity list by individual contract or by exchange. If you want to view just the E-Mini S&P 500 and E-Mini NASDAQ, for example, you can individually select those two products so that they show up in your commodity list.
To have just these two products shown on your commodity list, you still have to de-select each exchange in the exchange list:
Even though you’ve de-selected GLOBEX in this case, the E-Mini S&P 500 and E-Mini NASDAQ will still show up on your commodity list since they were selected individually.
Using the Edit Commodity List function can make the commodities list in the market selection window much more manageable, particularly if you don’t trade many markets. You can change your commodity list as frequently as you want.
Online Tutorial
The new version of BEST Direct includes an online tutorial from the dropdown help menu.