what would be the cheapest route to gain real time futures data (es)? just to start following the market? thanks for suggestions...
IB would be the cheapest if you have an account with them. You can use QuoteTracker for free (or $5/month if registered). If not an IB client, you can subscribe to a datafeed that supports futures: IQFeed - http://www.quotetracker.com/iqfeed Money.net - http://www.quotetracker.com/money.net Prophet.net - http://www.quotetracker.com/prophet Money.net is the cheapest of the 3 at $27.99 with futures + exchange fees. (They just added futures this week) Jerry Medved http://www.quotetracker.com
Unfortunately, QT does not track historical futures data unless you want to go through some hoops. This makes the use of indicators problematic since you have to begin anew each day.
QT tracks 5 days of data for registered users. All 3 of the datafeeds I mentioned have full backfill support for futures, so no hoops to jump through.
However, registration costs money, and SierraCharts will maintain historical data for as long as you subscribe: a year, two years, whatever. This is not to say that QT is not a fine service, and that it's not cheap. But there are tradeoffs.
there are advantages and disadvantages to Sierra Charts relative to QT. As for costing money, so does Sierra Charts. Also, QT registration is free for optionsXpress, CyberTrader and MB Trading clients
As I said in my first post, SC costs $80/yr. Again, I'm not saying that QT is crap. But 5 days of historical data, for a fee, doesn't do much if one is using indicators. And, yes, one can then subscribe to a data service. But by using SC with IB, this is not necessary. QT is fine for what it is, Jerry, but it is not all things to all people. Neither is SC.
is that 27.99 a month, and also with ib, you just need to open an account? what is the historical back data debate about, i dont follow. thanks.
IB - Yes, you need to be a client. Many of the futures traders are. Other brokers that support futures (and thus can be used as a free datafeed with Quotetracker) are: CyberTrader MB Trading AB Watley (not all accounts) Money.net - if you want futures, then its 27.99 per month, plus the exchange fees. Historical data - If you use IB as a datafeed with any program (QT, Sierra, etc), the charts will only show you data from the time you start tracking a symbol since they are built from the quotes coming from the datafeed. Some datafeeds provide Historical Intraday data (Backfill) that can be retrieved to show you the chart from the beginning of the day and for previous days. IB does not currently have that, though I hear that they are working on it. The other datafeeds I mentioned do have backfill available.