BullCharts Trial

[GreatPig]

Got my trial BullCharts software yesterday. Am buying a notebook to run it on, but it didn't turn up yesterday as was promised so I've loaded it onto my desktop in the meantime.

Thought I would make some comments about how I'm finding it as I go along. Remember though that the only other charting software I've tried at this stage is the free version of FCharts, so I don't have much to compare it to.

My first concern on opening the packet and reading the installation info was that it's a .NET application, and consequently the minimum PC requirements are quite high. I've already noticed a few delays that may become annoying, and I'm currently running it on a 3GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM. The notebook will only be a 1.8GHz Centrino, so I'll be checking that out thoroughly when it arrives.

Second thing was the installation wasn't as straight-forward as expected. The notes said "If the setup programme did not auto start, please run setup.exe from the CD". Well it didn't auto-start the first time and damned if I could find a setup.exe on the CD. On removing and replacing the CD, it did auto start but then told me to install from Control Panel (since I'm running Win2K, not XP). Did that and it showed two install files. I selected the BullCharts one only to be told I needed to do the other one first. No problem, so did that okay then did the BullCharts one okay.

Then I ran the installed BullCharts application and it came up with a DLL it couldn't find. Okay I thought, what about the .NET platform that was supposed to be installed? Didn't see anything about that. So browsed the CD again and saw a couple of .EXE files that seemed to be the .NET redistributable and a service pack. Installed both of them okay (even though they weren't mentioned in the notes) then went to Windows Update and installed the version 1.1 upgrade.

After the couple of reboots, ran BullCharts application again and it seemed to work as expected this time, wanting to install the MSDE SQL database as stated in the notes. Did that, another reboot, updated the prices, and I was finally away.

So far I've just been through the few main features they highlighted in another leaflet. Primarly that's how to select charts, create workspaces and portfolios, and save templates.

Which is the first thing I'm finding awkward. The default screen layout is the prices chart using OHLC bars in black and white and a separate volume pane. It didn't take long to find out how to change the prices to candles, change the colours, overlay the volume on the price chart (to save space), and to add some indicators (currently RSI, MACD & MACD-H, and some moving averages - the first two in separate panes and the MAs on the price chart). Then I saved all that as the default template file.

The problem is if I want to, say, hide the MAs temporarily to better look at the price patterns. I can't find any way to do it. If I select the MAs then right-click, the only suitable option is to delete them. But if I delete them, getting them back requires going through the whole setup process for them again, which always starts at default values rather than the last ones selected. It works a bit like a CAD package, in that there are options to move the lines to the back, but that doesn't stop them cluttering the display. As far I can see so far, if I delete the MAs from the screen, the only way to restore them is to either reconfigure them from scratch or load the template file back in.

Reloading the template file is quick enough, but that means I'm going to need many templates: with the MAs, without the MAs, with Guppy MMAs, without Guppy MMAs, with this indicator, without that indicator, and so on - and then all combinations of those. What I really want to be able to do is have a list of all the indicators I've configured and then be able to show or hide them individually at will.

Anyway, I'll keep investigating that issue. Maybe I'm missing something.

And a few other little issues I've noticed:

- The portfolio I made up of my (paper) trades shows commission on sales figures that it's including in the profit/loss calculation. No problem with that, but I can't see how it's calculating those figures. I entered $30 as the buy commission on all my trades (based on the ASX game rules) but it's showing $21.89 as the future sales commissions.

- When I was entering my trades, I kept having to toggle with Alt-Tab to Excel to reference my records. Every time I toggled back to BullCharts I got a scripting error message (I believe it's using IE to display the screens).

- And a big PITA: the program help is a single PDF file, not proper online help, and it doesn't have any bookmarks or hyerlinked index! There's no way to quickly find what you want, and it's a 302 page document!! Apparently a printed manual costs another $20.

Well that’s my progress so far. I’ll let you know how it continues.

GP

PS: Wow - I just noticed we have automatic censoring! Damn, damn, damn! ;D - or is that perhaps just my browser?

 

[Joe Blow]

PS: Wow - I just noticed we have automatic censoring! Damn, damn, damn! ;D - or is that perhaps just my browser?

Automatic censoring was set as the default.

I have now turned it off!

;D

 

[GreatPig]

Joe,

Okay, but d**n - it's still doing it!

GP

(just kidding, that was me ;D)

 

[GreatPig]

An update after spending nearly the whole day playing with this program, and skimming through the manual.

I'm still concerned about the speed of the program. There are quite long delays at times, and this is running on a 3GHz P4 with cable Internet. I gather it works on line a fair bit, despite the database supposedly being local. Whenever I select a new stock it seems to access the Internet, presumably to get the latest data from their server. Even just making a change to the preferences or whatever can make it lock up for 15-20 seconds with a lot of Internet activity. And the portfolio stuff seems to only be on their server. If I kill the Internet link, I can no longer display my portfolio (which could be a pain if I want to review things somewhere without Internet access).

The thing I mentioned about the sales commission being a strange number has been explained. Apparently it's just a number they've pulled out of their hat as a "typical" value. Don't know why they don't use the buying commission instead.

I've gotten somewhere with this problem of showing and hiding indicators. I still think it's a bit of a pain, and that what I'm doing now is more of a work-around than how it should be, but it does the job quite well. What I'm doing now is effectively making my own custom indicators by copying their ones (a function they provide) and then editing the script code to default to the values I want to use (all their indicators are written in BullScript and you can view the code for them). Then I can just delete and insert the indicators without having to configure anything, since they now default to my values. Also, the indicator selection list can be set to show custom indicators only, so all the ones I don't want to use aren't filling up the list.

While I was on the job I improved a few of them, in the sense of selecting the colours and combinations I wanted. For example, they have -DI, +DI, and ADX as three separate indicators, and while you can overlay them all on the same pane, I just made a custom indicator with all three in it - and different colours to boot. Similarly, they only provided a dual moving average whereas I wanted four, so I just changed the script to add the other two. So despite this probably not being how it should be, I'm quite happy with this part of it now. And, being a computer programmer by profession, I quite like the look of the scripting. It seems like you can do a lot with it.

Another area I've found rather frustrating to figure out is the thing about workspaces and chart files. You can save individual charts to files, including all the lines and stuff you've drawn on them. You can also have multiple files loaded at once and then save the whole setup as a workspace. But there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the saved workspace and the saved chart files. It seems like the saved workspace has its own copy of the charts and doesn't use the saved chart files.

So if I have two different workspaces with one stock common to both, if I edit the chart in one workspace then later load the other workspace, none of my changes to that common stock appear in the second workspace. I have to remove that file from the workspace and manually load the saved chart file then save the workspace again.

And there's something of a battle between saved chart files and saved templates. If I save the current setup as a template then add a trend line to a chart, applying the template again will lose the trend line. If I then load the chart file back again (with the saved trend line), it goes back to the layout I had when I saved it (ie. not as defined by the current template). So saving templates seems rather pointless to me except for the one default one for new charts.

And finally, a few more niggles I've found:

- When you have multiple files loaded at once and tabbed at the bottom of the screen, the program lets you arrange the order of the tabs but doesn't remember that in the workspace. When you next load the workspace, they just appear in any old order again.

- When adding trend lines to a chart, since I have the volume superimposed on the price chart, I sometimes end up with the trend lines tied to the volume scale rather than the price scale. It's not possible to tell though (other than by looking at the line properties) until I compress or expand the time scale, and then the lines start jumping all over the place.

- That scripting error I mentioned when entering trade details, I get that all the time when entering watchlists as well.

So my summary of the program so far is that it looks nice and seems to have a lot of features, but the speed is worrying me. And I think I'd prefer to have a local portfolio that I can examine and edit without being online, especially since I intend to run this software on a notebook.

That's it for now. More later.

Cheers,
GP

 

[JetDollars]

GreatPig,

Your post was really good, much appreciated.

Will you be able to have screen shot of what it look like?

 

[GreatPig]

Will you be able to have screen shot of what it look like?

Your wish is my command! ;D

A few screen captures of the charting, portfolio, and scripting. I haven't played with the scanner yet.

Cheers,
GP

 

[GreatPig]

Summary of trades:

 

[GreatPig]

Script editing:

 

[GreatPig]

Market Depth:

 

[GreatPig]

News items:

 

[GreatPig]

And finally a couple showing a summary of the data available for a particular share:

 

[GreatPig]

<continued...>

 

[JetDollars]

Thank GreatPig....Look very impressive.

When you request a 14 days trial, they send you a package of the software and instruction....

What happen after 14 days if you are not interested? do you have to send the whole lot back?

 

[GreatPig]

What happen after 14 days if you are not interested? do you have to send the whole lot back?

Not sure yet. I presume they'll disable my access to their server, but I don't think I'll need to send anything back. All they sent was a CD and a few sheets of paper.

I'll have to see if I can get another program to trial as well, for something better to compare it to than just the free FCharts.

GP

 

[GreatPig]

Oh, and one final niggle for tonight:

When I went to shut down the program, it wouldn't close. I had to use task manager to kill it.

Cheers,
GP

 

[stefan]

I used bullstation for almost a year. It has set me back $149/month which I considered too expensive. It was working fine but I found the news section rather bad. They provided me with a beta version that had a real time news update section but it still had a few problems. All in all, I'd rather have a trading platform where I can buy/sell as well instead of only getting market data.

I used to trade with realtick for the US market and I wouldn't mind at all having a tool like that for the OZ market. Unfortunatelly I haven't found anything like it so far.

Happy trading

Stefan

 

[GreatPig]

Well I pretty much gave up on BullCharts today: the delays have become pathetic. Neary every time I select a different stock the program freezes for at least 10 seconds - sometimes more than 30 seconds - before the next chart is displayed. Many other operations cause multi-second freezes as well. I'm a computer programmer by profession and one thing I hate more than just about anything is software that regularly makes me wait like this!

Okay, the program looks nice and seems quite powerful, but how long will it take me to go through all the charts of my portfolio if I'm getting 20-30 second delays nearly every time I do something? I've got better things to do with my life than constantly twiddle my thumbs waiting for a screen to update.

Not only are there delays, but it's also using a lot of CPU time (and remember I'm using a 3GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM here). When just sitting there doing nothing it doesn't use much CPU time, but even a simple thing like just moving the mouse over the chart (with crosshairs) make's its CPU time jump up to 30%-35%. More significant actions take it quickly to 50% and higher. Many actions feel like swimming through treacle: viscous is perhaps a good description of the user interface.

And it now looks like it won't work at all if there's no Internet connection. I tried killing the link again, and after a minute or two it showed a loss of connection to their server, causing the program to lock up indefinitely. I couldn't click on menus or anything, and would have had to use task manager to kill it. After I restored the Internet connection, it took another 30-60 seconds before it started working again. Since I'm intending to install this on a notebook, I want to be able to study my charts and what-not without having to be connected to the Internet.

Anyway, since I've got it for another two weeks, I'll at least try installing it on the notebook when I do get that to see if it's any different. If it's the same or worse, then I wouldn't use it even if it was free (although I'll get on to Weblink and ask them about the problem first).

With that pretty much decided earlier this morning, I thought I'd try something else. So I downloaded AmiBroker and have been playing with that for the rest of the day. For the TA part alone, I can see some things are more flexible in BullCharts, like the ability to overlay custom indicators on existing panes, but AmiBroker has some better features too. And its scripting language looks more powerful. It's also much cheaper - the pro version being US$199 compared to A$795 for BullCharts (although I could probably get it for A$695). BullCharts does have online access to company information and news items though, and allows multiple trade portfolios (AmiBroker only seems to have one). OTOH, AmiBroker can import any type of text or Metastock data file, so I can use it and the free FCharts at the same time with the same data if I want to.

I'll play with AmiBroker some more (although the trial version doesn't allow saving of the database, which is a bit of a pain) and might go over that one in another thread later. If anyone else here's using it, what do you think of it?

Cheers,
GP

 

[JetDollars]

GreatPig,

Have to trial IncredibleCharts yet? if you haven't then I think you should because it give you 30 days free.

I am trialing it at the moment and found it quite good. The other good thing about it is that you don't have to buy the software. It's for free.

http://www.incrediblecharts.com.au

 

[GreatPig]

Thanks JetDollars. I'll take a look at that one too.

Cheers,
GP

 

[JetDollars]

GreatPig,

I take a look at FCharts this morning and download it. I will install and test it when I get home.

Which sit do you used for your free DATA? what is your rating for the data that you download?