Opie, E-Signal sells a subscription to CME level 2, but to the best of my knowledge it is not accessible to coding. For some reason I thought you were an IB customer. IB has DOM for free in a very clean presentation. Considering the utility of DOM, free is the appropriate price.
OP, FWIW - I don't use esignal so I can't speak to that, but I use thinkorswim as my charting and trading platform. It does not support custom indicators (such as Str/Squ) so I use Excel for this. You've probably seen my charts, so you can see it does a decent job of annotations, and I like the fact that my charting and trading platform is completely integrated. I can buy and sell directly from a click within the chart. It also supports RT quotes which I bring into my Excel models using DDE. The best part of the TOS platform is it's price (FREE ) As far as color coding the annotations, I believe the consensus is green for up (forest) channels and red for down (forest) channels. I use yellow for lateral channels and light gray for tapes and less significant pt 3 channels. I'm not sure if there is a "standard." If there is, I'd like to know too. WRT your last point, I believe that one can be profitable with the ES using just channels, PV, and the YM. These other tools are additional icing, but I think Jack mentioned that one should continue to practice with all the tools. IMHO, the best thing one can do is annotate their ES and YM charts with accurate gaussians (at least the best they know how) every day, day-in and day-out, then layer in the other tools as they become available and you learn how to use them. I have been sim trading and consistently making money for almost a month now using just channels, PV and the YM, but I'm still holding off trading real money. I want to make sure I just haven't been lucky!
Thanks WG !! I think that if we are to trade from the chart directly, then it is imperative to move to a TOS style platform. (I am not sure if IB has that feature) Wonder what Jack or Spyder and the others think about this. Thanks for the heads up. WG in reference to your present results, are you entering and exiting the market or are you in the market at all times ? I think one of the reasons my results are not what they are supposed to be is because I am trying to trade from FTT to FTT, meaning..always in the market. probably that is my mistake...
you don't have to go far, just tell them you want to switch to qchart, same owner, then open the standard spyder template with everything in it. I can send you the template.
OP, I don't try to be in the market at all times. I don't have that much confidence yet. I have been trading more like FTT to FTT. I like to see clear signals and as long as the signals tell me I should stay in (continuation), I stay in. For example, I recognize flaws much better now and have learned (and am still learning) to continue through them. If things get murky for me (it happens a lot!), I get out and wait for better conditions. And If I pick up a point and volume is low, I don't get greedy, I take it and then wait until conditions are better. Here is my results for today which has been fairly typical for me lately. Hope this answers your question.