Thanks. With the free version (cheap bastard that I am) can you get everything from 6mo/daily bars to 1day/5min bars, multiple charts of the same symbol, with simple indicators (MA's, fibs) and draw TL's and annotations?
I believe it will fit for you Tommie. Check it out. I replaced QT with it. A bit awkward to set up and get used to, but I think you'll like it. Give it a few days. Support is nothing like QT, but not too bad for free.
I tried both MultiCharts and Ninja, there is not much difference about chart quality and indicators. However, there is big difference about loading speed if you use IB data feed. For example, if you checked charts of stock A, B, C, ..... Z once, the chart will load instantly anytime you come back for that stock in Multicharts, but Ninja will take you long time to load the same chart. If you only have one stock or future, and have the chart open all day long, there is no difference. Please try it and let us know your frustration with Ninja loading speed. I had this question for Ray, and he suggested to pay the data from third party, but IB data is free and Multicharts can make it load instantly, I don't know why Ninja can't?
Thanks for the info BSAM, sounds like it's definitely worth a try. I use QT as well but only like it for doing certain things, not everything.
Not to totally hijack this thread (apologies), but I just opened up my IB charts and the grid problem has been fixed for the moment. The true test will be tomorrow morning, but if things hold up, I will definitely give kudos to IB for fixing this problem so quickly, even though it shouldn't have cropped up in the first place.
Multicharts (MC) Tried this one too. For a long time I am trading only using constant volume charts (CVBs) and I must admit that I couldn't use others (except tick charts for fine tuning). If you want to use constant volume charts unfortunately there is only QT that does it's job with IB (though it has bugs). Multicharts as well as NinjaTrader are not suited for people who need this combo (CVBs and IB). And my impression is there are also quite some other drawbacks with MC.
It's because Ninja honestly loads the charct every time. On the other hand, MC saves the loaded history and keeps tracking the symbol so that when you want to see the chart again it already has the data. I understand MC was originally designed a TradeStation clone for IB. So, it is there to handle all the quirks of IB API. For Ninja IB is just another data source. Same goes here. Because IB doesn't provide true tick data but instead provides irregular snapshots a few times per second, most developers of charting tools decide to ignore this feature altogether. However, tools designd for IB like MC or ButtonTrader (or QT) take approach of trying to make the most of whetever data they can get... even of resulting charts will look somewhat different from those based on "true" tick data.
Well, for SierraCharts it is another source of data yet it does it very elegantly, indeed. I forgot it cost $18 per month, so it is not free. Perhaps, the previous contributor was right about the free lunch.
IB offers cheap comms & it has a reasonable API with a FIX interface accessible to retail. I think that's pretty awesome in itself. As for charts .. there are lots of specialist chart providers out there .. for those who want to believe that charts add value..