MC doesn't do a lot of basic things:
1) no bar magnifier with custom futures
2) multiple symbols trading - though they are working on it for v9
3) software hangs sometimes
4) different charts can't share information without using Global Variables
5) problem with weekly charts using custom futures
6) can't rank equities in real time and select from a list to trade
7) No pair trading - horrible
8) No basket trading - very bad
9) How to handle margin issues while trading multiple stocks - Amibroker is much better here.
10) Just read the bugs they fix with every version. The software is very buggy frankly.
11) No query language support - E.G. no way to query say returns following big range days
12) No functionality for options trading
13) Software is not smart enough to display FX PL in their base currency. Just do a backtest on a USD.JPY chart and see the performance report - you will see what I mean.
Limited GUI functionality
1) GUI has some good features but doesn't allow a lot of things - e.g. no place to display a real time PL curve while autotrading.
2) If you want to look at say 1 particular day across 5 charts - say ES, CL, NQ, Bonds etc. - no fast way to do it. Say, you want to select a fed day and want all these charts show that day. Can't do.
3) Can't do autotrading without plotting charts. Can't even backtest without a chart
4) Loading symbols and data on a chart is super slow. Compare it with bloomberg - just ask one of the people you know who works in financial service industry - how fast a chart loads on bbg - its instantaneous
5) Say you want to apply same strategy on 5 different markets and compare the result. Instead of having to set up a portfolio or apply the strategies individually 1-by-1 on each chart, it should be possible to select all the 5 charts by clicking on them+Ctrl. And then there should be a common strategy dropdown box listing all the strategies. Select the strategy you want to apply, it gets applied on all the charts and boom you have all the 5 performance reports open up at different places over their respective charts. So, that if you wish you can compare all those performance charts together. And since charts have been selected together so by default all performance reports should get selected together. So that if you click on monthly PL page for one chart, all other performance reports show you the monthly PL page.
Bad design of Quotemanager
1) You please tell me why should a user need a quotemanager?
2) A much better design would be user just types a symbol name in a chart and data appears. So, just type IB_EUR.USD and boom - chart should come in. Why do you have to enter it in QM first?
3) Current way of creating custom futures can be improved. E.G. Type IB_EUR.USD_CF_Ratio in the chart and boom.
4) It should be possible to apply same custom futures creation methodology to a whole group of symbols from CME rather than going symbol by symbol. So, ES and NQ - user need not have to create 2 different custom futures symbols. Just 1 should suffice. E.G. IB_ES_CF_BackAdj_CME_EQINDEX and boom you have a group now for all eq index on CME.
Again for GUI and QM
The whole design can be made much simpler and user friendly. Remember, a long left pane in many softwares (like the one we have in Portfolio backtester). Like the windows folder design. Design should be like this - you should be able to create whole lots of symbols and groups in the left pane and just select them.
Bad overall stability of database
1) It is a well known fact that many a times, there are data holes in chart.
2) Charts have weird big candles sometimes. And MC team many a time doesn't know what caused it.
3) Workspaces can get corrupted and can get lost.
4) Sometimes not often, software might just hang up or crash without too much load. Why in the world a serious autotrading software will crash? We are here not talking about microsoft products. They are better than TS though.
Powerlanguage limitations
1) Backtesting using PL is so slow - similar backtesting in C++ will be much faster
2) PL compiler sucks - compare it with any modern compiler (Visual studio e.g.)
To their credit, they do work on improvements but the pace is just so slow. Heard about placemarketorder and changemarketposition keywords. Helps in synchronizing while autotrading - they introduced these words so far so GOOD, but no documentation for them and more importantly they took so long to introduce these words!!
We know MC is way better than TS as far as functionality and bugs are concerned. And as I said, it is a good introductory software which gets a lot of things right. However, after using it for a while, you realize that there are a whole host of things that it doesn't do.
My intention is not to bash MC - afterall they are serving thousands of customers with different needs and different experience levels. I am just saying as a trader becomes advanced, the situation is not good for the trader. So, custom programming is the only solution left to an advanced profitable trader.
I hope MC team will read this thread and improve the software. I will do an update on Feb 5, 2014.
