I have an account with IB, and use Sierra Chart for my intraday charting. I had to collect several days worth of data first on the Mini Dow which is all I trade. My cost is $7.00 a month. Over the years I have tried them all, Nextrend, Aspen Graphics, Qcharts, Esignal, Investor RT, TradeStation (with an equity account). To survive in this business, or any business for that matter, YOU MUST KEEP YOUR COSTS AS LOW AS POSSIBLE. Over the past three years I have esimated I have spent over $5000.00 just on software, what was I thinking! JR
I disagree - to survive in this business you have to make enough money to cover your costs and make a profit that is acceptable to you. I don't care if I pay $1,000/month on RT, as long as I am making a profit using the tools. To me, the tools are one of the most important aspects of my trading - I will not sacrifice them for something cheaper, which will affect my profit. If your trading is not making you enough money so that spending $260/month on your tools is an issue, I would examine what is wrong with your trading, not try and find cheaper software. Peace and good luck.
There is no point for keeping the cost down too low. What's average price for good charting package, it's 150-250 U$D inculding exchange fees , and that the money you can lose in one day if you charting or data feed goes wrong.
I have not had any problems with QCharts in the last three months since I switched over to their service. I love the clarity of the charting and I really enjoy the QCharts T&S window look. So far no problems with data interruptions for me. Hope this helps. Chris
=== Wouldnt know if QCharts amazingly arrogant customer service has changed; they do give some sort of 30 day trial , which is a long overdue change. Esignal is worth it and actually is as good as Larry McMillian says; but still use Esignal & printed ,paper charts with handwritten notes. === The simple believe every word -Solomon, trader king
I also dumped realtick for their high price. Now I have IB and esignal for about a year and I am happy with this setup. I pay 115 for their unlimited plan being a IB customer. New esig 7.4 is awesome and charts offer anything you want. Lot of custom studies out there in their forums. If you want anything specific they will make it for you. There is a playback feature which has really helped me at the end of the day to review my setups. Backtesting is only for programmers in all softwares including tradestation, metastock and esignal.
Finding a cheaper alternative to Realtick is obviously easy. Qcharts, Esig, etc. are all out there. The problem many run into is integration of a platform into that charting software. The second part of this equation however is the platform provider for executions. This is where MBTrading comes in for me and most that I trade with. You can integrate several platforms into their Navigator program, making the overall cost lower, but still getting an efficient and reliable platform to trade with. MBTX route, universal account access, lower rates for traders and something that is highly important; excellent customer service, the solution to have MBTrading integrated into the provider's package makes a lot of sense for myself and those I trade with. Plus, with the activity of everyone's trading account, most of this cost can be offset anyway making the overall cost of the product irrelevant. MBTrading and an integrated provider, given the features offered by MB is a combination that I continue to recommend to people that ask. Chris