The problem is that the ergotron brackets are the new style ones (stamped metal vs. the older more adjustable ones) so if you angle them down it makes those large monitors in a pretty big "V" which is less than ideal for the desk layout. It works - we just disabled the overhead light above the desk and the glare went away. Still waiting on the last two ergo brackets so I can finish the job. They are ASUS VK266H monitors - ok, not cheap but not great IMO. http://event.asus.com/LCD/VK266H/ They are set to whatever resolution W7 defaults to, I'll check today. The video cards are ATI Radeon HD 2600 X2 Series (just quad DVI with 1GB onboard DDR3). They are running on HP xw8600 workstations with dual Xeon X5460 cpus and 8GB of DDR2 RAM. Decent setup. I'd rather have six smaller monitors than four larger ones like that - but these were what they wanted so this is what they got. Its nice to have that much screen space but the glare and viewing angles are a real pain.
If you have more than 1 monitor turned on, you do not have an edge. Pretty simple. Better sell all that hardware.
I imagine you still watch TV on a 19" screen too, right? No need for one of new fangled 50" big screens. Common sense is such a rare commodity for people who aspire to be traders.
I could trade and make money with a 19" screen or with no screen at all, or from my cell phone watching TV in a stripper's arcade. Who gives a rats' ass about all that hardware?. I doubt your 50" gives you any edge at all, since they sell for a few thousand dollars. You say it does, ergo you have no edge.
I think it depends on your trading style. The more intense, the fewer monitors. Few of us can process more than that and worse, react when crisis comes. My trading is pretty relaxed so I have two monitors. One for trading and one for everything else. During a crisis I am focused on just the one. I conducted a class on trading decision support tools design among some retail traders and no one came up with a good arguement to convince the rest of us that two monitors would not suffice. I'm interested in how those who have more than two use them, process the information (scanning, alarms, warnings, etc) and how you focus to deal with a crisis.
I am planning on more monitors so that I can have more instruments on screen(s). For each I have 2 time frames - longer for judging market direction, shorter for timing entries and exits. So if I put 2 instruments on 1 screen (= 4 charts), there is no room for the DOM. Plus, I use the software to manage the trade once I am in, though I over-ride if I have reason to. So, primary reason is to allow me to follow more instruments, not necessarily trading all, but catching opportunity. If I were to focus on just one, like some do CL or ES, then 2 monitors is plenty. Like you said, boils down to how one trades.
More screens don't give you an edge if you can't use them, more screens allow an individual to multi-task and be more efficient. More screens are just more viewing area. The 50" was a reference to a TV screen (sorry you didn't catch that). I have 4 screens: 1 for my trading platform & alerts 1 for my primary intraday trading charts 1 for my swing charts 1 for browsing the internet and this site. I trade for about 4 hours a day max and that includes the time I spend managing my positions. Being efficient is an edge in itself. It's great that you can trade from your cell phone. I can too when I travel and log into my server remotely. Different strokes for different folks. Normal people don't require watching strippers in boxes.
i think 16 screens is good. I just put the same chart on all of them with big red alerts. This way there is no confusion as to which way the market is going