Thanks voodoo for the "do-it-yourself" insight. Actually, I'm a professional programmer, and am gradually working my way back down from the high-level trading apps to C-based code, using the TS DLLs as a stepping stone. However, I'm also aware of how much work it is to produce major apps with extensive charting capabilities, so I would prefer some combination in which I could talk to someone else's UI without having to write all of that myself. On the other hand, I can also see your point where, eventually, after getting a reliable system going, one would be tempted to just say screw it, and write an app that does some form of automated trading. The next 6 months or so should be interesting.
Hello, I too am looking for other than TS software. I also was going to get a satellite dish from DTN. then I found out DTN was upgrading their technology to have better performance on data transmitting. Thats good, however Trade Station was at first not going to create a patch to keep it compatible with DTN. After much complaining from users and DTN they agreed to make the patch. The big problem is trade station is not looking to upgrade their technology to keep up with the times. I received an e-mail from a DTN user and here is what he said. Tradestation has suggested that even though there will be no more upgrades to 2000i, they will continue to issue patches to make the program compatible with the major date feeds. This sounds great until you talk to senior tech people at DTN. They explain that with decimalization of stock quotes, the addition of single stock futures and greater volume generally, the total tick volume transmitted across DTN and other quote services is destined to rise dramatically. This is the reason DTN moved to a new satellite with greater bandwidth. The weakest link or choke point now becomes the data interface in your computer. Tradestation supports only a serial card interface and not the much faster Ethernet or USB interface. According to folks at DTN, even with the latest box and the highest speed serial card with lots of RAM, Tradestation users will likely begin to experience delays in real time data, dropped packets, etc. I understand Tradestation has said it will not undertake a modification of the program to use an Ethernet interface. Unfortunately, I think the writing is on the wall. Tradestation is focusing on turning their company into a brokerage business with TS6 as the come on. Despite the hundreds of hours I have invested in the program, I believe I will be forced to abandoned TS2Ki for intraday trading in favor of software that is being actively supported and updated by its developer. I am currently looking at Fibonacci Trader, a program that supports DTN and Ethernet interface. I don't pretend to be an expert on these topics; these are just the facts as I understand them from my investigation of my own situation. Hope this helps. Better step up the look for new software! Regards Steve
@voodoo invest You do not need to start from scratch, there are some cheap packages available. Katz/ McCormick (Authors of "The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies") offer their C-Trader Toolkit, the package they used to test their strategies, along with a lot of libraries and the Source-Code. It is written in C with some C++, any standard C++ compiler (Such as the Borland Command line C++ Compiler) will be sufficient to include your ideas and compile the program. The program is geared towards EOD-Data, though the extension to realtime data is easy. C and C++ knowledge required. At www.smartquant.com you will find a complete package to analyse and test data, though this will test your C++ knowledge. someone who struggles with EL should not try it. regards Bernd Kuerbs