I'm over Realtick - What next???

Hi there,

I have persisted with Realtick but have experienced so many bugs in the software and it really just can't do what I want it to. I'm sure it's good for some people but it just keeps crashing and stuffing up for me. Time to move on...

I don't use many studies I basically trade support, resistance and trendlines. My charts are simple (which leaves me at a loss why it can't work properly - how do institutions use it?!?).

Who the heck provides a good platform with direct access (plus options) and a choice of brokers??? I am considering:

-Esignal (not sure what their integration is like with brokers)
-Metastock- no idea what these guys are like but charting looks ok.

I live in Australia so don't have any US trading mates! Maybe my friends on Elite Trader can help!

I trade market on close with options and intraday with stocks so order execution is important. I also like using scanners and was using Trade Ideas but this may have to take a walk...

Cheers for any assistance.
SWAS

 

I had similar issues with Realtick and moved on several years ago. There is no right or perfect answer to your question, IMHO. You're going to need demos on multiple platforms to find what's right for you, and then pick the lesser of two evils.

I've been using Tradestation for the last four or five years now and for my purposes, it works fine. TS may not be the answer for you, you'll just have to try several.

 

I always though realtick excelled if you don't use a lot of studies... although the drawing tools are lacking.

 

The two you named are not brokerage firms from my understanding (unless they have changed recently). They are trading software and datafeed providers. You need to have your own brokerage accounts to trade.

I use both TradeStation and RealTick. TradeStation is great in their charting capability. They are a brokerage firm too so you can place orders through them. But their ordering mechanism is not very good IMO. So I use RealTick - which is very good in order executions but poor in charting - for placing discretionary trades. Between these two, I have what I needed and I didn't explore other platforms/brokers.

 

Cheers for the responses.

Thanks also Bolimomo you have answered a few of my posts! I really love Realtick and don’t really care of the limitations of its charting as I am a pretty simple trader on S/R and trendlines.

I have just found it to be such a buggy program and while I am in session it’s in the back of my mind. The last month I have lost 4 days trading due to it crashing and me having to completely recreate my Tabviews, my charts and all my analysis like TL S/R lines etc on all my watchlist charts as they get lost each time (as per their tech supports suggestions). I have to save my Pages each day as V1.2 V1.3 etc so I dont loose them too far back when it corrupts and can't be open.

Logic says that it is probably a combination of things I am doing and it all went to crap when I changed the prices to the right hand side of the charts which are all stacked in my Tabview in different timeframes. I'm sure it has something to do with that.

To Realticks credit their customer support has been great. You send them an email and you get a response fast and their guys go to work on it. But how can you run a business with a problem platform?

I’m going to go back to a previous Page version where the prices are on the left and see if I get anymore problems. I spent the majority of the day here to find a new platform but other than Lightspeed I can’t find any others which come close to Realtick. Lightspeed is definitely on the horizon as it links with Trade Ideas etc.

If you read this far you’ve listened to all my drivel! Thanks

SWAS

 

Oh and I downloaded and tried IB's platform which has something to do with Java. Unbelievably slow when you are quickly flipping between symbols (i.e. when loading on the chart) but the charting tools and graphics are amazing. I need speedy execution and quick flipping between screens. Hopefully Realtick sorts itself out.

SWAS

 

You may like http://www.zerolinetrader.com/about/index.htm
for order management.

 

swas - i've posted on here about some of the problems with realtick over the years. they bought this great feature called hottrend - and then couldn't properly support it, so it would be down for days on end. the eventual solution was to keep some of the basic hottrend features, but eliminate the hottrend summary because (according to one person) it required too much computer power.

there's now a data infrastructure fee of i think $5 / data fee. so if you get NYSE data on your realtick? you pay more as a non-pro to realtick for the data than to the exchange.

the customer service has ranged from some of the worst i've ever experienced to some of the best i've ever experienced - and, yes, i told mgt about both of those people.

that's a long-winded way to get to my answer - i haven't found anything that's better and more reliable than realtick, and i barely use any of the tools which they offer.

 

You are welcome SWAS and sorry to hear about these issues. I know RealTick is inferior in charting (e.g. compared to TradeStation) so I never really used that capability... therefore didn't experience the problems like you did.

Good luck in locating a platform that meets your needs.

 

Realtick is constantly posting up updates that resolve issues that clients like yourself have reported. The most recent build of Realtick addresses issues that were affecting client disconnect problems. If you contact their service number I am sure they are usually good about addressing it within a reasonable amount of time.