DAS Trader Pro

What it is

DAS Trader Pro is the desktop front end of DAS Inc., a Las Vegas firm — the name is Direct Access Software — whose main business is the plumbing underneath: a Nasdaq and NYSE service bureau, market-data vending, FIX connectivity and back-office reporting for broker-dealers. The trader-facing product sits on that stack. It is a montage with Level 2, time and sales, charts and a positions window, built around one job: getting a sized share order to a chosen venue in one keystroke. DAS's home page says routing reaches "over 100+ destinations".

Hotkeys are where the product lives. Each one is a text script of semicolon-separated commands — ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Ask-0.5;Share=100;TIF=DAY+;BUY=Send is DAS's own example less its account field — written in a Hotkey Script Builder, and a TriggerOrder clause attaches a stop or target that is placed when the entry fills. Alerts in the Alert & Trigger dialog can send a predefined order or basket when their conditions are met, which is as far as automation goes inside the platform. There is a scanner included with every subscription and a deeper one, TradeSignal, which gives three scans free and sells more as an add-on. A Market Replay mode replays sessions, at any hour on the simulator packages and outside market hours on live ones.

Pricing

Bought direct, every package bundles the platform with a fixed set of market data, and the price rises with the books, not the features. Non-professional: Basic $100 a month (Level 1 for US equities), Standard $120 (regional, plus OPRA or OTC Level 1), Deluxe $150 (Nasdaq TotalView, plus OPRA or OTC Level 2), Elite $175 and Premium Elite $200 (all books, imbalance, float and FX). Prepaying three, six or twelve months buys no discount — twelve months of Basic is $1,200.

Add-ons price the rest a line at a time for a non-professional: ARCA book $15, IEX DEEP $5, OPRA Level 1 $25 or Level 2 $50, OTC Level 1 $25 or Level 2 $50, OTC Expert Market $100, E-mini $55, fundamentals $15, imbalance $15, TSX Level 1 $25, Market Replay $15, TradeSignal $35, an extra linked account $50, and on the Interactive Brokers form the overnight BOATS book at $15 or $25.

Professionals pay $300 to $550 a month for six packages, and the add-ons cost more — ARCA $65, OPRA Level 2 $85, E-mini $210. ActiveWeb, DAS's browser platform, is a separate product at $50 to $100 a month, and the iDAS phone add-on listed beside it is $30.

The API is its own subscription, granted only after DAS reviews an application: for retail traders $100 (100 symbols, 5,000 orders a day, command line only), $250 and $500; for institutions up to $1,500. Customers of other brokers are billed for the API by the broker, not by DAS. There are no refunds on any of it.

Data & coverage

US equities on Nasdaq, NYSE and OTC markets, options through OPRA, and select futures and indices at Level 1; Level 2 for Nasdaq TotalView, ArcaBook, IEX DEEP, OTC Markets and OPRA. DAS's own disclaimer lists what is not real time: index values for TSX, Cboe and Russell, CBOE and CBOT futures Level 1, and TSX Level 1 are 15 minutes delayed. Everything else streams live. DAS describes itself as a Nasdaq partner reselling TotalView, and on the direct packages the book is part of the monthly price rather than a separate exchange line.

Integrations

Three direct paths: the real-time simulator, a live Interactive Brokers account (IBKR Pro only), and a live Charles Schwab account. Every live package includes a paper training account. Beyond those, DAS reaches traders through the brokers that license it, each with its own routing, locates and price. Trades auto-save to a spreadsheet file at an interval you set, and several journals read DAS directly — Tradervue imports it automatically and Chartlog ships a Windows importer for its logs. The iOS and Android apps, iDAS and DASTrader, carry the same Level 2 to a phone.

Limitations

• Windows only. DAS's knowledge base says it will not run natively on a Mac; Parallels, VMware Fusion and Boot Camp are workarounds at your own risk, and the trial will not run under Parallels or a virtual machine at all.
• A stock platform first. On DAS's pages futures appear only as an E-mini data add-on and Level 1 on select contracts; a futures trader is better served by the rest of this category.
• DAS's pages describe no backtester. Market Replay replays a session for practice; it does not test a rule against history.
• All sales are final. A trader who buys a month and dislikes it has paid for the month.
• The API carries no depth of book, is approved case by case, and is restricted to non-commercial order entry — it is not a market-data feed.
• Short locates: DAS's Locate Tool is not supported on either direct broker path. Its own function table marks it unavailable for IBKR and Schwab, so locates there are requested from the broker, outside DAS.

Alternatives

Most platforms in trading platforms were built for futures and reach stocks through a broker connection: Sierra Chart and Quantower through Interactive Brokers, MotiveWave through Interactive Brokers or Schwab. If what you used DAS for was the scan rather than the order ticket, Scanz and Trade Ideas are scanners first. The trade-offs are set out piece by piece in what to use instead of DAS Trader Pro.