Interesting. I thought the point was that IB started this thread by asking for suggestions to improve their charting, and I (and others) listed some. Maybe I misunderstood and none of us should have posted any suggestions. Thanks for the clarification.
nah, it's not that. ib is very good at being a broker. And there are other firms that are good chartists. I just don't want to see them become a half assed broker and a half assed chartist. but you and I have posted suggestions that could make their charts better and it's comforting to know they are asking all I was saying is, I don't trade with them because they have good charts I can get that somewhere else from an expert
I think it's pretty obvious if you read the posts. Most like multi charts and a few of us like sierra. Why ib is beating their head against the wall trying to come up with something better than guys who devote their life to charting is beyond me. a better question to have asked is "What charting packages would you like us to offer?"
The ability to track the value of a secondary indicator, in the bottom pane, on the right/left axis, with the cursor. So many times I've wanted to just find out what the ATR was, over a certain period, on various instruments for testing purposes. That cursor window or whatever it is has always been cumbersome and overloaded. The ability to just resize any other indicator pane joined to a chart window. Even just highlighting the date value on the x axis, though, would remove a huge headache. This one is so rudimentary it's pretty remarkable IB has never implemented it.
First off, I don't represent IB. But all you folks suggesting IB buy or offer another charting package should keep this in mind. IB, from the very beginning, hitched their wagon to Java and that will never change. I don't think they would introduce a package written in C++ or any other non-java language. I'm pretty sure none of the suggested charting programs are written in Java. Next, IB's data is sampled/polled (not streaming). So if you want the best short term trading platform, I would suggest look elsewhere. Finally, I'm very satisfied using IB's charting with daily data to manage my stock portfolio. I like using (and trust) their version of chart trader to: Create, modify and cancel orders, see my average entry price and my current position directly on the chart. (IB please don't change this or screw it up!). regards, cT
yeah, that's exactly the way I see it, good post Charlie, this idea that they're going to suddenly start doing something they're not very good at and compete with people who have devoted their whole life to doesn't make much sense to me
typical butthead management they started off asking for suggestions and never once asked their long time customers what is was they liked about their charts
pretty much let's you know that just because you have generated revenue for them every day for years, they don't give a shit, they are looking for fresh meat nobody that's been trading with ib for years is going to leave them because some other broker has better charts
Let us click anywhere on the chart to input the symbol like all other charting software. Having to goto top left corner and clicking on the box and then having to verify weather(take for example AAPL) its a stock or future or option or another exchange or AAPL -IBIS. All I want is the symbol AAPL, I dont want to jump thru hoops to get the chart, miliseconds costs money in daytrading and the harder you make the software to navigate the more time it takes to enter a trade and you lose customers to better offerings out there. Also let the chart link to Trade Ideas, traders have been asking for this for years and IB is just about the only one that wont let Trade ideas link.
My number one request: Improve the time it takes to refresh a set of charts as you select a product from your watchlist. I'm new to trading with IB but one thing I've noticed is that the updating on charts is extremely slow. That needs to be fixed. As I click through my watchlist, it takes 6-20 seconds to update the various charts that I have (about 5 charts, news, and a few other windows of info). A lot can happen in 20 seconds! Several people have mentioned that IB's data is sampled which leads to inaccuracies. Especially in the lower timeframe charts. Is that true? I researched IB before choosing them but don't recall seeing complaints on their slow charting. Is that because everyone else is willing to pay for charting services from a 3rd party? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to get your charting and brokerage services from the same provider?