Dan. don't get sucked in by the 10 trade a month scam. this industry is about knowledge and the learning curve which will consume your most precious capital whichis your time. TS is OLD and OBSOLETE, just ask yourself why don't they offer a Demo????!!!! Wouldn't they if they were sure of the product they are selling? Invest in your time not in the TS junk. Good point. I had a futures account with them, and at one point was making very few trades, and even got charged the platform fee one month for lack of trades(under 10). Good charts, good backtesting, screwy customer service.
I started with Tradestation with a single core Pentium 4 a few years ago ('05?). A dual core would be more than sufficient. As for the previous comment on a demo--you can get a free demo if you chat with one of their salesman (not that salesman chatting isn't painful, but at least you can do it) I'd also second the other comment that the charts are the best I've seen. I ended up writing my own trading platform, and I spent a lot of time emulating many of the nicer Tradestation features in their realtime charts. One word of caution if you're trading futures--make sure Tradestation carries the specific contract you're interested in electronically. This may be a non-issue these days, but when I was a customer back in '05, things like Eurodollars and the grains were not available through Tradestation's platform, but through some lousy web app from a 3rd party with outlandish commissions.
I appreciate the feedback. Like any smart business I am doing my due diligence and asking questions. As mentioned there is a learning curve with any new product. I found that when I first started with Sierra it took me about 2-3 weeks to feel real comfortable coming from futuresource. I would rather research and ask first then go for it and waste 3 weeks to realize it won't work. On the pro side for TS the exact ELD I need right now is written and it's free, although I will give the developer a requested donation for his/her time. That's big and has me looking at TS. I read something awhile back about TS having some limitations for futures back testing as it was originally designed for stocks? I am going off memory so don't hold me to the fire on that one. Back testing isn't my main reason for using TS for that matter, but why not if I have a set of indicators based on fixed rule set right? I am mainly looking to this to make it easier to spot my signals, since there are 3 criteria that must be met to create a trade set up. As I mentioned I have considered paying someone to write code in C # for me for Sierra or maybe even Ninja. My concern is that with new revs of software that code may not be compatible. That and I have 3 definitions of 1 indicator which I want to test out and don't want to have to keep paying every time I want to tweak it. I even asked Ensign about writing the code, but it took them 3 weeks to respond. Doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me, plus their recent string of complaints. I was told it would be about $100 to do.
I tried and never got a demo, not even after having an account number but after funding the account. Let's say your're more persuasive and do get a demo, just what data are you going to test it with?! there is no way they'd give you data too. As for the charting, here are just a couple of points to think about: 1. THERE IS NO CHART TRADING, period. Now if you don't need the latest technological advances available, then fine. 2- I presume any desktop set ups you use will bear several little windows, each containing a chart, a Matrix or the whatever, right? Fine, now, all of those little charts are confined within the desktop and you cannot drag them to your desired screen location. 3- Every time you click on one of them, because you wanted to draw a trend line or whatever, the DAMN window will jump under your mouse as if you've give it a 380V 3 phase shock and mess up all your existing trend lines etc within it by having them selected and moved, like a ZZ leg or even clicking on the Matrix can cause other disastourous outcomes. Now you can get around this horro function if you choose in the set up for the none active chart borders and titles to show which will eat up your precious screen real estate like you have no idea? Additionally it'll move the whole darned window and now try to align it again without going through the most painful process. Aligning windows is one of the best kept secrets of the TS. You must click each window in a certain order known only to a few and the choose to tile them and they will be tiles in equal sizes which is exactly what you DO NOT WANT! 4- If you use charting then it must be because you need to place some indicators or trend lines in it right? Well get ready for a little time travel to the past! Because it is the 80's technologies when no one knew what ergonomics means let alone utilize it. But hey you end up with very strong index finger for all the extra clicking you need to do Vs. say Ninja Trader! Also since your time is not important what would you care when it takes you 5 times as long to do each set up anyways? not like in this business we care for speed now, do we? 5- Ask yourself if you'd like your charting program to be ergonomic and technologically advanced so if God forbid you needed to adjust the horizontal and/or the vertical axises of your charts? How about dragging your mouse over the desired axis to resize, zoom, expand, compact etc etc Vs. going through a hectic routine that you need to learn to achieve any of the latter mentioned functions? The disadvantages of the TS charting are too numerous to mention here Vs. other platforms but hey, if they would allow you a Demo you'd get to find out about all these now wouldn't ya. So you see the TS people are not dumb after all it's just that they take it for granted that their users are dumb! In simple plain words, you must be using if not Vista the XP right? Then if not just go back to the drawing board and should not be trading since trading is about learning and owning the latest technological advances or NOT? if that is the case then find a single soul who would tell you TS platform is not the most obsolete in the industry in ALL it's aspects. Remember, successful trading is only and exclusively dependent on the learning curve, the learning curve and more learning curve...invest your time in your learning curve wisely.
Never used Multi charts. As long as you can get a Demo. is all you should care about, because then you get to find out first hand for yourself. The EL has absolutely no edge, like I've said before, do you want to take a non safety rusted knife to a gun fight? you should ask yourself?! I'm into C++, C# and Matlab and you'll be going against me, so arm yourself adequately. In EL your editor is 30years old, in ML I run my mouse over any variable/array/matrix in my code and I get to see it's values, while I'm debugging! Trading is about Data Mining if you will and the programing language of it is Matrices and the secret key to that is the pointer functions, right? well here is the fun part, EL HAS NO pointer functionality! Trading is about speed, isn't it now? El has no time stamping less smaller than seconds....the TS disadvantages are numerous and trading is about the learning curve....and our lives and hence time limited, thus don't gift your lives and money to the TS brothers... lol. They don't respect their clients, or they would invest in R&D and arm them with the latest technology. All they care about is suck more people into their profit net and offer them less of everything. Why does TS with over 20k in users happens to offer the most obsolete platform in the industry? I find that an insult to the intelligence of those faithful users.
A demo mode is being released within the next 2 weeks, at least according to what they said on Tuesday's conference call. If I understand your complaint about the windows jumping around you just need to turn off the toolbars in the workspace setup. I've seen many complaints about TS customer service and some are valid. IMO it's not an issue of incompetence as it is for the employees having to work within a very rigid structure to get anything done. They must have the patriot act tattooed on their foreheads because transferring so much as a dollar is a pain in the ass. A little patience and persistence pays off when dealing with customer service. Granted there have been data issues over the past few weeks. We raised hell on the internal boards, they owned up to the problem and it now seems resolved. Iâm of the opinion that the introduction of FX used up a lot of resources but I am willing to stay on for now. I lived through the Cybertrader death march; at least TS is working to introduce new functionality to the system, whereas Schwab told you to hit the bricks if you didnât like the fact that they were gutting a perfect trading system.