Stockcharts.com or Desktop Software?

Hi, I trade mostly stocks and have to look at many charts. I'd like to hear experiences of using StockCharts.com as opposed to desktop softwares such as Metastock, Amibroker, eSignal etc.... to trade...

I'm a swing trader... please share your thoughts on pros and cons... I'm confused.

Thanks.

 

I've used Stockcharts.com while on the road. It's a nice free alternative for EOD analysis, but I'd never do any intra-day work on it. Browsing the site will be tedious, especially if you're going to be looking at tons of charts.

Try out QuoteTracker if money is an issue.

 

Thanks ATLine -- money is not necessarily an issue here, it's more about establishing a quick process to analyze lots of charts every night.. I have a full time job.

I also find that desktop software is slow to go through multiple charts... one by one...

 

Here are some suggestions:

- Stockcharts.com charts are nice to look at, but I also found them very slow to go through.

- I have tried Quotetracker several times. While many people like it and it has it's benefits, I could never get it to look the way I liked, and I found it awkward to use.

- a good free web-based (java) chart is prorealtime.com. the charts are the nicest I've seen and very fast to scroll through - you don't even have to click, just use the scroll wheel on your mouse. their biggest drawback is managing large numbers of charts - watchlists are limited to 50 and there's no way to manage the order of lists.

- I'm currently playing with Amibroker trial. When you turn it on it updates daily data from free yahoo quotes, and from then on scrolling through charts is instantaneous. Stock symbols can be put in convenient outline lists. I think this will prove to be the best program for going through many charts every night.

 

Prorealtime is definitely nice if you're just wanting to look at some charts.

 

The problem with prorealtime.com is that they don't offer Canadian stocks...

 

I did most of my early exploration and paper trading on stockcharts.com, but trading in real time with any website like that really isn’t a serious option. You might be able to work it out if you are the type of trader who enters a few bracket orders and walks away, maybe --- but if you’re just using it to look through charts at the end of the day, stockcharts.com is fine for that.

 

I'm not looking to daytrade using Stockcharts... just trying to solve the problem of having to scan through multiple charts every day. Thanks for the input.

 

I've used Metastock for years. And while I check out some charts on Stockcharts.com, Metastock is much faster and smoother... you can just click one button and scroll to the next chart within a folder.

 

Thanks gnome.