I asked a question about where to get cheap data service on another forum, and several people gave their opinions. One thing that I never understood, though often mentioned, was about using various datafeed for various charting service. For example, use IB data feed, Datek datafeed, etc. for Sierra charts, Qcharts, etc. How does this work, mechanically? Does the charting software somehow link to the datafeed from another entity and spit out the charts real time? How do I ask Datek, IB, myTrack etc. to send their real-time prices, etc. to these charting software, etc.? A very basic question, only because I'm new to receiving high-tech real-time data. (Even two months ago, I only used Datek's small real-time chart; I'm fascinated to see tick-by-tick intraday charts that I can scale to just few cents apart.)
For IB (and I assume the others) it's easy. You must have an account. You start the TWS and the charting application, click on the appropriate fields in the configuration and load the symbols into the charting/trading App.
Sierra charts will get realtime data from IB for free, history from Mytrack for $45/ mo., DB at dyanstore sells all sorts of interfaces for charting software to get data from several vendors, www.traders-soft.com and www.mechtrading.com offers some very nice products for getting data into various charting packages from various vendors and also downloading data in various formats for various charting apps, Wealth-lab is a web based application and they keep their own data, Tradestation6 runs on your own computer but they keep their own data. Data quality varies from vendor to vendor, some are first tier (getting their data directly from the exchanges) and some are second tier (getting their data from a first tier outfit). It is a complicated and ever-changing situation I'm afraid. Max