I just sign up with tradestation charting again after 1 year of absence ( I switch 1 year ago with esignal just because my mentor used esignal and I wanted to be on the same page). It 's like meeting an old friend ago ( used it for 2 year in the past) ... I really like their software. Very user friendly and very flexible. and the big plus for me is that they offer the simple option of adding a price tag to their horizontal lines. that might sound stupid to some of you but if you are trading off some support and resistance lines, just having the prices added to the horizontal line is a blessing... Esignal doesn't have that feature for I don't know what mistery. That alone made my switch back to tradestation worthwhile . the other reason is that I won't pay the 99$ per month subscribtion fee for their software and historical data use ( only if you make 10 round turns a month which is easy) . I will only pay the exchange fees ( i.e. CME emini $25 / per month ) which is also nice . ( I payed about 175 $ per month on esignal for software us + exchange fees ) . Another nice thing with Tradestation is that they offer a MUCH bigger hisotrical database than ESIGNAL. Esignal has 120 days of daily data available in their bank. Tradestation about 10 years or more... so to test and go back in time to see the condition before in different periods ( before and after 2000 ) is a + for me. The thing I will miss the most with esignal is their outstanding customer service and their REPLAY mode feature ( eventhough it has no multiple synchronized time frames when in replay mode). But I found a way around that to keep on training replay by looking for softwares that offer the multi time frame synchronization replay. I found www.tradingsimulatorsoftware.com ( RAPIDSP) which is a cool alternative and affortdable to back test live. ( the closed I found to real trading conditions ....) . Another one I found is the www.forextester.com which is real clean but it doesn't have the multiple time frame synchronization. ( I think neoticker offers a simulation but was too expensive for my pockets). Trade Navigator also offers a trade simulator going back in time but it's not mulitple time frame linked ( all good if you don't need multiple time frames synchronization) . Oh yes forgot ..their is also www.marketskillbuilder.com that offers sync replay but haven't tested that one so not sure how good it is..but worth to have a look ( didn't look has user friendly has RapidSP so went for RapidSR) Anyway this email is getting too long and I went a little off topic but that;s it I am not affiliated with any of those companies listed above...or maybe I am... ( that's for all the none believer to put a little doubt in their ever doubtfull minds ) see you all K extra tip: A great and free screen shoot taker is www.mirekw.com . One of the cleanest and most user friendly software I found ( their are many others but this one I liked best from the one s I have tested) . Good to take some screen shoot for your journal during the day.
oh yes one really cool feature I also like in tradestation is the GLOBAL cursor. If you move your cursor on the 4 min chart , it will also move it on the 1 minute chart. Esignal also has that but the big difference is that you have to scroll both screen separately until both are at the same time period. No with Tradestation. With tradestation, if you move your cursor way back in time on the 4 min chart then the 1 min chart will adjust to that 4 min chart by automatically scrolling to the right place in time. I hope it's clear enough..not easy to explain. Those are little details for some but if you keep on working on your charts all day, it makes it very user friendly and comfortable...those are the little pluses that I like a lot .
Thanks for that feedback since I am considering switching to 1 of the 2 mentioned. Does TS have access to HSI, Asian markets? Another TS question if I may. Does TS have alot of built in studies and such or does it requires all coding or EFS downloands? Is the scaling of price and time flexible? I just use pivots, previous day's high/low and volume bars that change color based on up/down volume.
All very good questions but which I have no direct answers for unfortuantely (calling them is my best advice). The only thing I know that every thing you can do with esignal has far as coding, you can do it with tradestation. Regarding the conversion esignal to tradestation coding, I am not sure off...I still have to test that myself but I think it won't be too hard. Regarding indicator and studies, it has a great forum support and also a very large range of already built studies which can be modified a bit to fit your needs. Their easylanguage programming is supposed to be very easy to master ( but since I am personally not a programmer, I ask help for what I need on the forums and I usually get it with their help. ( That's a big advantage also with tradestation and esignal that many other softwares don't have..it's their great forums with very knowledgable and helpful participants ) . I think tradestation offers a trial ( not sure though). You can test the migration of you coding during that time to see if the transition will be smooth or too rough to make it worth you while.