I use TOS, and think the charts are great. The trial is free. Go have fun! http://www.thinkorswim.com I'm sure that someone here will claim I'm Tom Sosnoff, but I'm not. He did email me once, and was very helpful.
I use a 3rd Party Charting program but find TOS charts to be quite adequate. Ver configurable, tons of indicators available. Now if they would a programming language.
TOS supports DDE, so if you want something special programmed, you can do it in Excel via DDE Linkage.
Could you provide me with a link.... I did a site search and cant find anything referencing DDE for automated trading..... or is this something setup through one those partnerships... (meaning I spend even more )
You misunderstood. There is no automated trading with ThinkorSwim retail edition. It's a Java app, but it provides a DDE DATA stream to the world of windows applications (like Excel). However, UNLIKE Interactive Brokers, there is NO DDE support for placing orders, receiving confirmations and all of that complex "stuff". TOS does have an institutional platform that DOES support automated trading. However, they have no framework created for Excel yet. Also, it uses the Fix API and they provide no sample code nor "wrappers"....and Fix is mombo complex. It would cost you your trading account to hire programmers to build an ATS under Liquid. Soon as I complete the current project I'm working on, I am going to approach TOS about building a TWS-like app for their Liquid platform. I don't think they'll ever provide automation for the retail platform.
Well that wont benefit me.... I am a MacUser also, not Windoze.. Sorry. For some reason my signature is not showing up.....