What software that allows trading on the internet is good for beginning traders? I want to start with a program that is helpful in detecting trends long and short-term, that's reliable and gives advice
First of all you have to understand teh difference between execution software and charting software. - execution software lets you trade over the internet - charting software lets you program your ideas / systems to give you an indication of market sentiment. There are some exceptions like Tradestation that combine execution and charting. Personally I use FibonacciTrader & eSignal for charting (PM me if you have questions) and I have multiple brokers / execution platforms.
For a start nothing gives advice (and if something does you don't want to listen to it anyway!). Lets assume that you want to start with some charting software - something that will let you look at the chart for a given market. NeoTicker sells a good product that will access data from the internet - find the End-of-Day version. Buy it and learn to use it. You can then start to define some rules and test them. Do not under-estimate this step - it may take from months to years ! When you have done this for long enough to figure that you might actually be able to make some money from trading you can then begin to look for a broker, who will more than likely give you access to some software that allows you to place orders. If getting to this point takes less than a year then LOL! Keep asking questions and pay careful attention to the answers.
Some of the tools I've used are neoticker eod and amibroker standard edition and stockcharts.com. I've used neoticker end of day but the data archiving is a little weak. It's possible to wait long periods for data updates of multiple time periods. In other words, if you look at a multiple charts of the same equity (daily, weekly, monthly) it could take a long time to download and update the daily chart, then just as much time for the weekly and monthly charts. As I understand it the software doesn't calculate weekly and monthly data off of daily, so you're at the mercy of significant download time if you're looking at say any list of more than 50 symbols. They have a neat feature called pattern scanner where you select (by mouse) a visual price pattern on a chart and by saving it so you can search for the same type of setup in other charts -- pretty cool. Neoticker has a lot of power and it's really cheap. I think they are looking into the data storage issue for eod, but keep in mind their bread and butter is the realtime version so the eod is always going to be the red-headed step child, last in line, etc. Another one to consider is amibroker standard edition. In addition to a much more intuitive layout than neoticker, it doesn't seem to be plagued with slow data download issues. It's got great power as well and there are very active forums on writing custom indicators, etc. I find amibroker much easier to code than neoticker and much easier to scan and have more control over your scans. I find the documentation better with amibroker as well. This would probably be my pick if I were starting out. One last consideration would be stockcharts.com - I keep this as a backup and like the basics that are available - they keep it simple. A nice feature there is to look at the stock voyeur page and see charts other users are requesting from their servers -- gives you an indication of what other people are looking at and what indicators they prefer. I also like the public charts area but anyone who's had more than a month of success there invariably creates a website and starts hawking their wares. It's still interesting to look over the shoulder's of people who are putting money on the line and taking positions and sometimes documenting them. I get the whole works there including Murphy commentary and realtime data. Murphy is good at reinforcing the obvious and sometimes not too obvious shifts in sector preferences, etc. Anyway, I think the voyeur and public charts areas are free for viewing so while I wouldn't follow any of them with my money, it's useful to see what people think makes a good setup and whether they stick to their stated stop loss etc. Anyway, that's my .02 -- good luck and good learning!
Medved qotetracker would be a low priced alternative while you go through learning pains...they have various datafeeds that you can use... Michael B.