Alternatives To QCharts

A

AAAintheBeltway

I've noticed that QCharts seems to be suffering a recurrence of its old problem, lagging data. It seemed fine for quite a while, but after the ESig takeover, things have seemed to be gradually getting worse. Given that there are several programs that can use the free IB feed and thereby avoid the rip-off for RT data from the futures exchanges, it seems like a good idea to evaluate them more closely.

Without having demo'd them, I can say that I like the look of Sierra Charts and find QT a little busy. For example, do you have to have a watch list running in QT to put up charts? Can yu delete all the various toolbars, etc in QT? They seem to take up a lot of screen space.

My primary concern however is backfill. I like to have a couple of years of EOD and several months of intraday, at least 60 minute data. I don't like having to store the data on my HD, and having to run the computer at all times to collect data is not going to work for me.

I know there are third party products that provide backfill, for a price. Anyone used them?

This is primarily for futures and indexes, as I use another broker platform for stock trading. I do appreciate the ease of displaying stocks in QCharts however. You can create several charts with different timeframes and fill them by clicking on a watchlist or one of their hotlists. Very useful, as are their proprietary indicators. And of course, anyone who has used the QCharts platform loves the intuitive interface and great charting.

I hate to replace them, but the combination of lagging data and expensive RT data is beginning to annoy me.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

I've noticed that QCharts seems to be suffering a recurrence of its old problem, lagging data. It seemed fine for quite a while, but after the ESig takeover, things have seemed to be gradually getting worse. Given that there are several programs that can use the free IB feed and thereby avoid the rip-off for RT data from the futures exchanges, it seems like a good idea to evaluate them more closely.

Without having demo'd them, I can say that I like the look of Sierra Charts and find QT a little busy. For example, do you have to have a watch list running in QT to put up charts? Can yu delete all the various toolbars, etc in QT? They seem to take up a lot of screen space.

My primary concern however is backfill. I like to have a couple of years of EOD and several months of intraday, at least 60 minute data. I don't like having to store the data on my HD, and having to run the computer at all times to collect data is not going to work for me.

I know there are third party products that provide backfill, for a price. Anyone used them?

This is primarily for futures and indexes, as I use another broker platform for stock trading. I do appreciate the ease of displaying stocks in QCharts however. You can create several charts with different timeframes and fill them by clicking on a watchlist or one of their hotlists. Very useful, as are their proprietary indicators. And of course, anyone who has used the QCharts platform loves the intuitive interface and great charting.

I hate to replace them, but the combination of lagging data and expensive RT data is beginning to annoy me.
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I used QCharts and now QT.

You can get and do all the things you want on QT. The only exception is that there are no "hotlist" equivalents in QT. I got around this by using IB's hotlists instead.
 
QuoteTracker has very few toolbars. Are you sure you are looking at QT and not another program? The ones that are there can be hidden by clicking on the vertical tab on the left side of the toolbar (top panel, indices, trading panels)

You do not have to have the symbol in the WatchList or portfolio to get charts. you can bring up a chart on any symbol in the WatchList or Portfolio, and once the chart is up, just type in the symbol

As for amount of data, on intraday it is max 10 days (assuming you are registered), so a bit less than what you mentioned you are looking for. Historical charts have as much data as the source you select provides (decades in case of some symbols like IBM)

As for it being busy, you can make it as busy or sparten as you want - QT is fully configurable.

If you have any questions on how to set something up in QT, please feel free to ask - here, email or on our message boards.
 
I think QuoteTracker is a fantastic tool -- only thing we're missing (mostly if you trade equities) is more than 10 days for historical intraday data...
 
Quote from 4XIS4U:

I think QuoteTracker is a fantastic tool -- only thing we're missing (mostly if you trade equities) is more than 10 days for historical intraday data...
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hey 4x: QT now supports IB Hist Backfill - I'm getting around 6 months now with historical...
 
AA - if you look at the list of servers, you will note that they do not alter their position in the list, as they used to. In other words they're fixed. And also, you'll notice that the server 'remembers' which server you were on the previous day, and allocates you a slot on that one.

Well, that is what I've noticed, anyhow.

As an example, I've been on the same server for the last four days, and have had no problem at all with lagging data - in fact it's been just great.
 
Hello:

I wonder if anyone has experience using DTN?

It would interesting to know what their backfill capabilities are
and whether they have a consistent feed.

Now that Esignal has bought Qcharts I am about to 86 them from my desktop.

Steve
 
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