IB's charting is substandard indeed but frankly I have saved so much money trading through them that I would not mind paying for an other system. I personally know some other IB clients who maintain accounts at TS for the charting feature and throw enough business there to meet the free of charge threshold. I did the same after trying many other combinations: Sierra(by subscription,basically good), Medved (free, not bad), Ninja (by subscription, good if you trade one instrument), IBCharts (free and very good, no relation to IB they are an independent Canadian outfit) So, if someone is on a budget or they are not generating enough commissions to have TS the free IBCharts would be the way to go. Of course each of the programs have their particular strenght and weaknesses and heir suitability depends on the particular needs of the trader. There is a truly great program NeoTicker which is not quite good with IB if one trades many instruments because (at least when I looked it) IB provided streaming data but it did not provide historical data backfill. Regards, gc
IB could add value with a good integrated charting/trading system. OEC has done a lot in this area (too bad their system uptime is not as reliable). IB should be ashamed to charge for their lousy charts (even though free if you do a certain amount of trades). If you go on vacation for a month you will be charged for the worst charting system in the modern world of trading.
We are monitoring this thread and always open to constructive, detailed suggestions. You can post them to the features poll or PM me directly. DAV
Hi DAV, One thing that would be really cool, would be for stop orders in chart trader to always fall within the chart when first initiated for currencies. The present system is good for all markets but a killer for currencies. Also, just curious, will you guys ever get rid of the excess 0.0 JPY quoted ? An amazing waste of time imo. Besides that, chart trader is great and your product and offerings outstanding. Thanks for listening.
DAV..... Let's just start with having the charts update with each (IB) "last". The charts lag badly. Then, after we get past this initial hurdle, we can debate the "bells and whistles". But first, the charts should function properly just by updating properly. This has been going on for years. First things first. It simply doesn't matter how many "bells and whistles" are accessible if the chart isn't dependable!
Low commissions are redundant if you`re trading off of charts that are too slow. One would think that as part of a busines model, it would pay to invest in the charts as it would allow for more intraday/scalp trading which would in turn generate more commissions.