Looking for reliable and cheap combination of charting software and data feed for swing trading to start with. 1. Have heard many positive feedbacks about Medved QT, but as I understand it's for daytrading mostly because of historical charts. 2. e-signal and qcharts are too expensive for beginners. 3. what about Ensign? 4. which one is better for this purpose IB or IQFeed with Ensign? appreciate any help.
not sure what you mean in reference to QuoteTracker and historical charts. The live intraday charts can be set to show up to 5 days of data. Historical charts (not live) in QT can show up to 20 days of intraday, or any period for EOD. as for comparing IB with IQfeed/Ensign, thats really comparing apples to oranges since IB does not provide charting. Jerry Medved http://www.quotetracker.com
If IB does not provide charting, so what is the use of IB feed? Forgive me my ignorance. I don't understand the difference between 5 days of "live" intraday data and 20 days of "not live" intraday data. As I understand, live is only current day data. May be I am missing something here. Thanks Jerry.
IB data can be used by 3rd party software, such as QuoteTracker and a number of others. QuoteTracker can get the data from IB, and then chart it. IB's own tools do not provide charting though Live charts imply self updating - that you do not just get a static chart that needs to be manually refreshed. QuoteTracker charts let you have up to 5 days of data on them and they will update with every new quote that QuoteTracker receives. The histocial charts are delayed and you have to hit DRAW CHART Button if you want it to update intraday, so its not a live chart.
Can you explain how this combination works? What is the cost? Do I need a data feed extra? Thanks for your help.
When you say swing trading, I assume your trades will be based off a time frame other than a 1 or 5 minute......perhaps the daily, weekly, or monthly. Of course, I could be wrong. Personally, I use TC2000 ($29.95/mo), stockcharts.com ($19.95/mo), and Jerry's Quotetracker progam ($60/year if you wanna kill the ads and give you a tad more real estate on your screen). I look for potential setups I haven't yet identified with TC2000 twice a week....use to do it 3/4 times a day but got sick of it and it's really a waste of time. When I spot something I have an interest in, I pull up a chart through my stockcharts.com account.......fully customizable so you make 'em look real pretty......annotate it.....and save it to my account. I currently have 700 - 800.....can't stress how much time it saves me not having to draw all over them everyday. At night, I go through them......10 to a page so it takes some time (i.e. gotta be serious if you want to make $)......and I write down the one's that I like and are at or very near an actionable level. I then take that list and load 'em up in quotetracker.....with a note telling me my level in case I forget (i.e. after a few years, you won't forget).......then I set my alerts since I normally have 50 - 60 on my radar everyday.......then, it's time for bed. All simple but effective....for me anyway.
If you use your broker as a quote source, there is no cost for the data feed. As for QuoteTracker, the cost is optional if you want to get rid of the ads and have longer time frame intraday charts. QuoteTracker is a Windows program that is able to connect to various datafeeds - brokers, subscription, etc. It uses the data to show the quotes, create intraday charts, T&S, Level II windows, etc. We do not provide the data ourselves. Therefore, once you get QuoteTracker, you will need to select a quote source in the software. If you do not have a brokerage account with a firm supported by QuoteTracker, you can get a subscription to one of the paid data providers such as IQFeed, Marketfeed, Money.net, StockWatch, myTrack (and others to come) QT also has integrated trading through a number of brokers. Basically, QuoteTracker offers an alternate front end for their trading systems. In many cases, Quotetracker's integrated trading is much more advanced than the native system. In the case of some of the direct access systems, the trading itself may be on par with the native system, but the advantage is that its integrated with the rest of the features of QuoteTracker, such as click on quotes, Level II, Charts. Screen Shot: Jerry Medved http://www.quotetracker.com
QT is really a nice program but it's more suited for day trading as for swing trading. The problem is that QT doesn't download data. It must be collected on a local computer and this means that if I want to see a 2 day period chart, the data collection must run 2 days non-stop. If the trading process is similar as was outlined earlier in this thread: 1) Scaning for setups, may be daily or even weekly data 2) Execution of trades for a selected list of symbols using live intraday charts then collecting intraday data is simply waste of time. Data must be downloaded. I am using sometimes Scottrader for real time charts. They are free even if you are not a customer. One more feature that I was missing in QT is ability to create portfolio/watch list by cut and paste, say 50 symbols at once. In QT it's necessary to enter symbols one by one. Or my be I simply didn't find that feature !
a5519, you are wrong on both counts. 1) QuoteTracker has Backfill feature. It can be set to trigger automatically when you add a new symbol, or when you open a chart, or you can right click on the chart/symbol and select backfill. That will download the historical intraday data, assuming the data provider that you use provides that data. Scottrade can be used as a backfill and as a streaming source, though their data sucks. Some of the others are IQFeed, myTrack, Money.net, StockWatch, CyberTrader, Quote.com 2) You CAN copy/paste multiple symbols into QuoteTracker - right click on the quote table and select ADD STOCKS. then copy space or comma separated symbol list into the screen that comes up. You can also copy/paste the list into the WatchList screen. Jerry Medved http://www.quotetracker.com