Software for traders?

[jono1887]

What software do you guys use for trading, monitoring stocks, portfolios ect...

What are the main differences between the free software available out there and the ones with ridiculous annual fees?

Which ones have you found to be the most useful?

 

[alwaysLearning]

Re: Software

A lot of people on this forum use Amibroker and to a lesser extent metastock.

It depends on what kind of instrument you want to trade.

Others are happy to trade within their broker software such as Interactive Brokers etc etc

edit: ohh as for differences between them, I'd say a key difference is in their ability to 'back test' historical data.

The more expensive software have very good charting tools and indicators. The broker software is usually pretty damn good now as well though.

 

[jono1887]

Re: Software

A lot of people on this forum use Amibroker and to a lesser extent metastock.

It depends on what kind of instrument you want to trade.

edit: ohh as for differences between them, I'd say a key difference is in their ability to 'back test' historical data.

The more expensive software have very good charting tools and indicators. The broker software is usually pretty damn good now as well though.

I only trade basic shares right now, havnt started with cfds or futures yet...
my broker is comsec and they charge 80 a month i think to use their IRESS software unless you make 12 trades a month i think... i only average about 6 trades a month currently so i dont think its worth paying for it.

Are Amibroker and metastock free to use and do they have live data?

 

[MS+Tradesim]

Re: Software

Jono,

Look through the Trading/Investing Resources sub-forum. You will find plenty of info.

my broker is comsec and they charge 80 a month i think to use their IRESS software unless you make 12 trades a month i think... i only average about 6 trades a month currently so i dont think its worth paying for it.

IRESS is a trading platform which has some basic charting abilities. The only reason to subscribe to it would be if your brokerage will be sufficient to have the monthly fee waived and you are buying/selling frequently enough to have a use for intraday data.

Are Amibroker and metastock free to use and do they have live data?

You pay a one-off to purchase them and then you'll need to find a data provider elsewhere.

If you want live data (by that I'm assuming you mean intra-day and real time) for the ASX you will have to pay. There's no way around that.

 

[kam75]

Re: Software

Depends on 'what' you trade and 'how' you trade. I would not spend anything over a grand on software. It's just a tool that at best will help you identify potential setups for trades in the market. It won't make the money for you. I trade with end of day data with Protrader. I think software cost me like a grand but that was 7 years ago, data costs me now $55/month.

 

[jono1887]

Re: Software

is there a way of utilising the live data i can get from comsec into any software?

 

[wabbit]

Re: Software

The short answer is, yes.

What software, how it's done, etc etc etc is a much longer answer.


wabbit

 

[MS+Tradesim]

Re: Software

is there a way of utilising the live data i can get from comsec into any software?

Yes. The simplest use for it is to feed it into Excel. From there, what you can do with it, is limited by your abilities and imagination.

Edit: Wabbit beat me to it.

 

[jono1887]

Re: Software

Yes. The simplest use for it is to feed it into Excel. From there, what you can do with it, is limited by your abilities and imagination.

Edit: Wabbit beat me to it.

how do i feed my live data from comsec into an excel sheet??

 

[ginar]

Re: Software

is there a way of utilising the live data i can get from comsec into any software?

There is a software called quotetracker that uses broker data feed and will work with comsec data (or at least used to) , its a great software with neat charts with some great features , Worth a imo .

http://www.quotetracker.com/

 

[app2]

What software do you guys use for trading, monitoring stocks, portfolios ect...

What are the main differences between the free software available out there and the ones with ridiculous annual fees?

Which ones have you found to be the most useful?

Personally, I use AmiBroker with EOD data from my broker. AB is quite cheap compared to a lot of other packages (I mean REALLY cheap) and it is VERY good. I use it for TA work and have found it to be very flexible...I even figured out the AFL language to make my own indicators or tweak the standards. It also runs very quick compared to other packages I have tried (some are slower than a wet week!)

Another thing going for it is that it works well on Linux using WINE.

As for other s/w, I have moved to Interactive Brokers, their platform is well beyond anything I have used before (Comsec, BellDirect, IG). In a nutshell, IB is more awesome than I could ever envisage.

I use AB for EOD charting and explorations and IB's charts for intraday charting. AB can use a datafeed to get intraday data but I haven't done this (yet!)

If you are looking at TA, getting a good software package is invaluable (at any cost). It will make its price back in a trade (or two for the most expensive ones!)

Here is a pic of one of my AB screens:

The trouble with choosing a charting package is that they are all so different. You really have to spend a lot of time evaluating them.

A.

 

[johnnyg]

What broker are you using app2?

Edit - I guess your feeding Amibroker with your IB feed?

 

[app2]

What broker are you using app2?

Edit - I guess your feeding Amibroker with your IB feed?

I use IB and BellDirect. BD sends me an email each evening with the EOD data and I feed that into AB. Initially I scoured the web to get historical data for AB and now I just keep it up-to-date myself.

I beleive that you can import historical data from Yahoo into AB but the EOD data from Yahoo is a little tardy and not available until the following day...but it should be good to get your initial backfill of EOD data.

I am in the process of moving all trading to IB, it's about 50/50 at the moment but soon it shoud be 100% IB with BD as a fallback (and EOD provider).

I haven't had much luck populating AB with the IB feed.

 

[beamstas]

For data try premiumdata.net
Works with just about any charting software
It's great, easy to use and incredibly accurate

Cheers
Brad

 

[app2]

For data try premiumdata.net
Works with just about any charting software
It's great, easy to use and incredibly accurate

Cheers
Brad

Looks good but they seem to be a Windows-centric product.

 

[Richard Dale]

You can run Premium Data and AmiBroker using a Windows emulation software on the Mac (VMWare Fusion / Parallels etc.). We have quite a few Mac users that do this.

 

[IFocus]

You can run free trials with both AB and Richards Premium Data.

I ran my own data for years, once I trialled Richards service I gave up, its setup for AB is very good watch lists created for every thing you could need.

I subscribe for ASX and the US exchanges.

Any problem I have had Richard has answered within a couple of hours… the problems have only ever been my end

 

[app2]

You can run Premium Data and AmiBroker using a Windows emulation software on the Mac (VMWare Fusion / Parallels etc.). We have quite a few Mac users that do this.

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the tip but the reasons for not using Windows as a primary boot also apply for not using Windows as a virtual appliance. I have been working in IT for waaaay too long to entrust my online presence and financial transactions to such an environment.

I am using AB under WINE, which is a less than ideal scenario, but it is completely offline and the WINE directory structure can be nicely isolated using POSIX filesystem semantics.

I assume you are using a programme to hamper data copying through obfuscation, which is needed to protect your business interests (after all, you can't trust your customers). Unfortunately the risk/reward quotient of using Windows to get superior data is too low in my circumstances.

Cheers,

A.

 

[app2]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the tip but the reasons for not using Windows as a primary boot also apply for not using Windows as a virtual appliance. I have been working in IT for waaaay too long to entrust my online presence and financial transactions to such an environment.

I am using AB under WINE, which is a less than ideal scenario, but it is completely offline and the WINE directory structure can be nicely isolated using POSIX filesystem semantics.

I assume you are using a programme to hamper data copying through obfuscation, which is needed to protect your business interests (after all, you can't trust your customers). Unfortunately the risk/reward quotient of using Windows to get superior data is too low in my circumstances.

Cheers,

A.

Not one for going off half-cocked too often, I tried the trial of PremiumData under WINE and it all installed nicely. Unfortunately I get automation errors while trying to update from AB...WINE is far from perfect. This is an unsupported platform so I didn't have high expectations.

For the purposes of keeping this thread on topic (sorry for the detour!) I will say that PremiumData looks fantastic as a data feed for AB. Everything is neatly organised and the data is clean (I checked out some splits like IPL and they looked great).

GL Jono, let us know what you decide as many readers will be going down the same path as you and if you let them know why you chose one product over another, they will learn more with your insights.

GL Richard, PD looks like a very useful product.

A.

 

[Richard Dale]

Hi Richard,
Thanks for the tip but the reasons for not using Windows as a primary boot also apply for not using Windows as a virtual appliance. I have been working in IT for waaaay too long to entrust my online presence and financial transactions to such an environment.

The way the virtual environment works is quite transparent - and you don't need to connect to the Internet in the virtual environment other than to download your data and view your charts. There's no need to use it to connect to your broker etc - you can use your native Mac environment to do that.

It's certainly worth a try - especially to get away from the incompatibilities of WINE.