Clearly smart-arse-quant is trying to endear him/her-self to potential customers here. And lets not mention the shameless self-promoting signature. (But I did anyway). I can see a big career move for you in advertising. Been reading "How to win friends and influence people" again have you?
I've been trying the MultiCharts demo for almost a month. I found it very easy to use and pretty straightforward. For an indicator-based, discretionary trading it could be a good alternative, but at this stage it's definitely unsuitable for systems trading. Hopefully in the near future, since it looks promising.
I use TradeStation. The best thing about it is that TS has a large group of users---many functions, indicators, strategies have been developed and released. Your own strategies normally can be managed easily by picking pieces here and there. I heard it somewhere that Insightful-SPLUS is quite good. And I happened got a copy recently. I know nothing about it. I don't know if it is the same thing as TS when work it as backtesting tool. What are the good and bad aspects about it? What we traders can do with it? Any suggestion?
I would stick to TS unless you are a programming genius. As far as the expense, I think it is ridiculous to be a nit picker for minor fixed expenses when building a trading business. That's like opening a Walmart store on some country road because the property is cheaper. Looks like someone is fishing for a correct answer here. SL
SL, You do have a point. OTOH, the higher your monthly fixed costs, the higher the net profit required to overcome the costs and really have a profit. Sometimes it makes sense to walk before you run. No one answered my earlier post about what TS8 costs if you don't trade with them ... For the time being, I chose Amibroker which was recommended earlier in this thread. It seems to be very good for charting and backtesting. The support is amazing. Questions are thoroughly answered, many times within hours. There seems to be a good user community. Its only $149 or $229(?) ONE TIME fee. The programming language seems pretty robust. Thanks to all who posted. Brooks
I believe its $200 a month if you don't have an account (plus exchange fees). Considering Esignal is about that much if you get equities, futures and forex data, its not that bad of a deal if you can do everything you need in EL.
SL, BK, I see you guys point----SPLUS is the States secreet, you don't want to tell anybody. Cool. Thanks!