Thinking about upgrading to either one. Pro's and Con's ? Who's better for daytrading stocks. I usually close positions intraday and trade channeling stocks. Don't hold position long term. Have been using Fidelity's Active Trader Pro which does a fair job but not beyond. I used it because its free but maybe its time to upgrade. Please give me your opinion or suggest another trading platform. Thank you in advance.
Randy, 1st you post this question in Trade Management forum - - then the next day you post the same basic question in the Automated Trading forum ... based on your question - it seems best suited to the Trading Software forum... no? The 2 firms in question have had a number of fairly recent threads about the pluses & minuses of each. When asking this question, you might want to say that you've at least done your homework & searched for posts on these firms. I suspect that some folks are reluctant to just rehash something they just posted a month ago - especially to someone who appears to have done no research at all (although you may indeed have done some - it doesn't show in your 2 posts). In addition, it's hard to really recommend a company that has so many issues ... I am a long-term eSig user who came over from Q-charts before eSig purchased them. I'm not happy with them as they have significant downsides. Otoh, I'm also not willing to change to another program which also has significant issues. At least I'm really familiar with the eSig program and don't need to 1) start at the bottom of the learning curve with an all new software & 2) recreate all my charts. Whenever possible, I prefer to place my energy in tasks that enhance my balance sheet vs playing with new toys that don't... If I was starting from scratch w/o my baggage - I'm not sure which software I'd go with ... I'd evaluate Ninja - especially if they ever actually release their new version / upgrade & the one other software that actually has multi-threading capabilities now (vs a promise to have it sometime in the future) - whose name eludes me at the moment ... R
Multicharts. I think RL0893 was referring to that in his post. Multicharts is an Easy Language compatible platform that runs much "leaner" than bloated old Tradestation and has a faster backtesting method as well.
The trading software forum escaped my attention. I will make a post there. Thank you for your suggestions. If you dont mind keeping this thread going, to answer your question about what I trade, I daytrade stocks and options only. Scalp is another more colloquial term. Let me hear from TS user please.
While people bag esignal, 10.4 was a big improvement in terms of data magagement. Data loads about 70% faster than version 10.3. Being able to use tick reply is also a huge plus. 10.5 is meant to utilise multicores fantastic advance. I haven't tested it yet but I'm hoping it works well. As slow as they are to add features, I think that esignal is probably evolving at a faster rate than tradestation. One thing that annoys me about esignal is having to pay for an api. I'm already paying for the data, I should be allowed to use it however I want. I think esignal is probably edging out tradestation these days. Runningbear
Thanks for the review RunningBear. After using esignal for almost 10 years the last straw was when (I think it was around version 8.X) I realized that esignal was often a half second or more behind other charting packages like ones based on the zenfire data feed. Are you saying that this lag has been remedied with this new version?
Thanks for your valuable comments. Are there TS users out there who like to comment on your experience. 1 thing i like to do - my main reason for switching from broker freeware is the ability to "program" my trading system so I dont have to do the work, literally. I dont want to be reading 7 or 8 charts all day long. If I can plug in my rules and let it wake me up when indicator patterns fit my match. How easy is that done on TS and eSig ? Thanks a again.
TS is a good platform, you should demo it, don't know about esignal, many complaints here about the data, TS drops from time to time, you may want to demo think or swim as well, I see you are an options trader. The thing I like about TS is the matrix for direct access trading, very helpful for certain instruments if you scalp. If you trade alot you can execute off of anything, time and sales and a chart, but I feel like I am trading blind with the old school cancel and replace.