I used first alert for over a year at my old firm. I recently changed firms and I am trying to get first alert again. My question is to anyone who knows about the technical side of the program. I would like to know which data feed is the best (SP Comstock, Hyperfeed, or the Neovest direct feed.) I am being told that I need a satelite for the feed but I don't believe that is true. If anyone can help me out by describing exactly what is needed to run first alert it would be greatly appreciated. Does it need a satellite?? does it need its own T1??? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Just my experience, I worked for 2 years with FA and Hyperfeed and had very few problems. This year I am using FA with Comstock and never stop wondering what else can happen. I call Neovest every other week and the tech guy is fixing things like crazy. He himself told me that he thinks that Hyperfeed is more reliable.
Used Hyperfeed too. Can anyone confirm whether those guys are going to keep the full version down the road. I know they had not done an update in a long while and most of their efforts lately have gone into the thin product, but I have to think there would be some backlash if they got rid of the full version. Who wants to design filters and have them put them on their (FA) servers all the time. Sometimes you just want to tweak something in the Full version and would take 30 seconds on your end might take them 3 days.
If you're a standalone FA user get Hyperfeed. If you're using the thin version then Neovest provides the data (via S&P Comstock). Though I hear they're in the process of upgrading their feed, and considering direct exchange feeds. They'll probably drop the standalone version very soon however, which isn't all bad. Data maintenance with the standalone version really sucked. As far as tinkering with filters, you'll still be able to do it on your own computer. But if you want a custom input group (versus using one of Neovest's remote filers/groups) you'll probably have to type in the symbols manually on your PC.
From my experience it depends on what are you going to use the program for. The Satellite version is good for someone wants to filter on everything, but is it much more expensive and you have to maintain your own history data. I have to agree with a previous post it seems they are developing more of their thin product. I was told that they will soon be offering subscribe by exchange on the datafeed over the internet, which will allow for filtering on the whole market or exchange like the FAT version, I think they are going to call it IdeaStream feed. I was told that the IdeaStream will cost more. To clarify, I have learned that you can filter on any symbols in a Group Watch window or filter on any of their remote filters they send to users with their current directfeed date feed.