I like to try to be as cheap as possible when it comes to monthly fees so looking for help on choices. I'm using IB (well through venom trading cause I wanted to open the account with only 5k) and it seems ok but I hate the charts. Is there a way to resolve that for free? I found ninjatrader8 and connected the api directly but the chart is always 1 segment off so if I have it set to 1min it starts at 9:31am and so the whole chart will be a min off. I would like a chart that allows mouse scrolling and has a VWAP indicator option. For screening it seems like trade ideas pro is the best choice since it has a lot of short duration filters that seem pretty important for day trading but its 99 a month, any cheaper alternate that has similar features?
If you intend to use IB long term and trade a limited amount of tickers (< 75?) AND most important, have some programming knowlege, your cheapest "true cost to own system" would be Amibroker. Get a permanent license for $~350, get IQFeed for a month (~$70) to build up your ticker database reaching back 8 years, then patch the IB datafeed afterwards going forward. Learn its language (AFL) , then backtest & scan to your hearts content w/o paying for monthly data fees since IB and Ami "talk" to each other.
Why under 75 tickers? I do have some programming knowledge. You lost me at: build up your ticker database reaching back 8 years, then patch the IB datafeed afterwards going forward. Learn its language (AFL) , then backtest & scan to your hearts content w/o paying for monthly data fees since IB and Ami "talk" to each other. Edit: Oh wait i might get what you are saying, you use IQFeed to fill the ticker database because IBs datafeed doesn't go very far back?
sorry for being unclear rezo.. Yes! Precisely your reason...if you want to minimize monthly costs and stop paying for data from IQFeed, Esignal,etc to go into Amibroker, buy it for 1 month, populate your DB going back as far as what those services will give you, then go into IB mode. The issue with ib is threefold- they limit number of tickers and throttle them where you can only request x tickers per minute and it is maddening... It is not so much an issue if you login religiously every day once you built your DB from the paid services, the issue is let's say you take 2 days off and you now have a gap in data, now you have to deal with the throttling issue and it is a pain...I can bear with it coz I only have 20 ETF's ... hre is an excerpt from their help file. HTH.. How to use AmiBroker with Interactive Brokers TWS Note: the most recent version of this document can be found at: http://www.amibroker.com/ib.html . Please check this page for updates. IB PLUGIN FEATURES SUMMARY: supports upto 100 streaming symbols in real time (equal to IB TWS limit) supports all base time intervals: daily, hourly, 15-,5-,1-minute, 15-,5-second, tick automatic connection (no need to manually "accept incoming connection" in TWS) supports upto 30 DAYS intraday data BACKFILL in 1-minute bar interval upto 2000 bars backfill using 1-sec/5-sec/15-second bar intervals
Also, if you are a longer T'Frame trader and need EOD quotes only, I think that is free thru google,yahoo finance,etc..Now you are talking very reasonable... not to mention Amibroker is very robust in terms of b'testing and scanning.
im definitely going to play with this some, i've already found some vwap code but getting division by zero errors but maybe i need to get current data before trying it. I will keep playing with it and slowly but surely learn it. thanks!
I would start by creating diff watchlists and then entering your tickers in each list. After that, build the OHLC bars using whatever source you want- just pre-plan it depending on your budget and ticker list. As I told you if you are good with EOD, it is easy, use the Amiquote feature to download form Yahoo,google.... If you need Real time, I suggest IQFeed because the symbols mirror IB EXCEPT volume is cut by 1000.... ie IQfeed might have ticker X as 500,000 shares traded while IB presents it as 500. so if you need volume studies you might find it problematic. AB has a pretty extensive help menu. Here it is.. http://amibroker.com/guide/tutorial.html
There is vendor here called PTMC that launched a pretty solid platform that might be a good choice for budget conscious retail traders. Since you are starting, most trading tech can be demoed for 30 days. You can then pick the stack that fits you best. Here is their link https://protrader.com/platform/windows. For trading journal software, you can try our product at www.trademetria.com