TradeStation Group Announces New TradeStation Platform

TradeStation Group Inc announced that it is launching the new TradeStation platform, which combines for the first time strategy testing, automated trading and intelligent direct-access execution. This release marks the company's entry into the multi-billion dollar market of providing brokerage services to institutional and active individual traders.

The unique patent-pending technology within TradeStation is now available for free to institutional and active traders who trade at a certain level at TradeStation Securities, an NASD, SIPC and NFA member firm. The new platform offers a combination of equities, options, and futures data, and direct-access equities and futures execution services.

"For the first time, institutional and active traders can choose the award-winning TradeStation as their execution platform," said Bill Cruz, Co-Chairman of the Board and Co-CEO. "For nearly a decade, what used to cost traders thousands of dollars in software fees and additional hundreds of dollars in monthly data fees now comes for free by them merely doing what they've wanted to do for years -- trade through the TradeStation platform."

The company is releasing the new platform in a controlled rollout to existing TradeStation users and current brokerage customers of TradeStation Securities. In approximately thirty days, the company will begin direct marketing to its installed base of TradeStation Pro subscribers, WindowOnWallStreet.com subscribers, and legacy TradeStation software users. General marketing efforts through print and television media are expected to begin in late Q3 of this year.

The New TradeStation Platform

TradeStation is the first trading platform that combines the speed of intelligent direct-access order-routing with two powerful advantages not found anywhere else: The power to test and automate your own trading strategies.

TradeStation is designed to transform a user's PC into an interactive trading assistant. One that can actually help traders develop their own time-tested rules for getting in and out of the market. And one that offers traders the power to automate the execution of their trading strategies in ways never thought possible.

What has made TradeStation analytical software so successful over the years is its unique capability to allow users to describe their trading strategies to a computer and have the computer test how successful that strategy could have been historically. What makes this unique strategy testing capability possible is TradeStation's EasyLanguage, the language through which the strategies can be described and modified using English-like statements. It is at the heart of TradeStation, and with today's release, it is the first time that traders will be able to link their strategies directly to direct-access brokerage execution within the same platform.

TradeStation's new Strategy Automation Engine allows users to automate the monitoring and execution of their trading strategies faster than humanly possible. Once a user has one or even dozens of strategies that the user wants to trade, TradeStation will monitor them in real-time, tick-by-tick, and once buy or sell conditions are met, TradeStation will instantly and automatically send the order into the market via direct-access order-routing. Next, TradeStation immediately starts monitoring the market until the order is filled. Then, it monitors the exit criteria placing all exit orders accordingly.

State-of-the-art intelligent direct-access execution is the foundation of the Strategy Automation Engine and is designed to provide two things: reduced costs and increased speed in executing orders. It ensures traders have access to all major pools of liquidity for their orders and on an agency-basis only. Intelligent order-routing technology directs orders automatically to the avenue of liquidity offering the best available price for equity trades, regardless of whether that fill is provided by an ECN, one of over 450 Market Makers or an Exchange.

About TradeStation Group Inc

TradeStation Group Inc, through its operating subsidiary, TradeStation Securities Inc, offers the TradeStation trading platform to institutional, professional and serious, active individual traders -- an electronic trading platform that enables clients to design, test and monitor their own custom trading strategies and then automate them with direct-access order execution. The trading platform currently offers streaming real-time equities, options, futures and futures options market data. Equities and options transactions are cleared through Bear, Stearns Securities Corp and futures and futures options transactions are cleared through Lind-Waldock and Company. The company's other operating subsidiary, TradeStation Technologies Inc, develops and offers strategy trading software tools and subscription services.

Contact TradeStation Group Inc, Miami, Sean M. Davis, 305-485-7005.