Looks like I gotta put in a hard word here again... Hey Folks, Wake up!
So many ppl here with so many monitors... 8, 12, 14...? And less isn't appropriate?
I traded at a different place recently, with CRT's, two one of them burnt, I was left to trade with my old 15"TFT monitor.
I successfully traded the ES, NQ full-time on that 15" monitor for 3 months straight.
I had running:
-IB TWS, Futures-Trader
-eSignal with its various charts and windows (pop-outs are great)
-Trillian (if you're still using MSN Messenger / ICQ / IRC / Y! you're a lamer by the way)
-Outlook
-Firewall (ZAP is the best)
-IE6 and
-WinAmp3 for musical accompaniment.
Most of these programs use -minimal- system resources and tend not to share pagefile routines etc. and aren't likely to cause any trouble, except for eSignal, Outlook and IE (MS is the king of crap)
I ran (and still run) a single-CPU 2.6 MHz Athlon, with 120, 80, 40GB HDD and 1,024MB RAM (and a few mods hehe).
Trading was fine. Never before could I focus so much on what I was doing. I had my trading/scalping platform slightly overlapping when considering trades, while having eSignal up full most of the time, zapping between the windows (ALT+TAB) in real time with no delays if necessary.
Full control, no problems, one(1) monitor, fine.
I sincerely, and I mean -sincerely- believe that if you can't trade with one monitor, you're lame already and your chances of trading successfully -decrease- with any additional monitor. Start small, then upgrade if you really need to.
Regarding all that other stuff - ADSL broadband etc blabla is must bla bla... WTF?
In my current remote beach-suburb residence here I get 28.8K if I'm lucky. Often ~15K is what I'm getting.
It works fine for Trading. The data transmission required is fully sufficient for effective scalping, financial data takes minimum bandwidth.
If you want to argue any of these specs, go right ahead. I've been hacking all my life and know what happens how. I've set up networks at age 15 and I've set up, worked and traded on 12-monitor stations. If you're being told 500 monitors and a T1-connection are required for succesful trading, you're being sold something by somebody. It's all set up that way by consumer society. All you're really doing is depriving yourself of trading returns by drawing on them. Remember, "ROI" if so to speak, is deductive of all business expenses.
Besides, you're limiting yourself in an uncomfortable sort of way. If you can't trade with 1 monitor and a 28.8K connection, then how can you travel the world and trade from your laptop?
If you can't what's the point in the "freedom" of DAT for a living?
Look at how Nicholas Darvas traded, for dollars sakes.
Many people, today, still call their broker to trade SP contracts for Intraday Trading. Some of them very big traders. I can do it, no worries. Takes longer even than with a 4800 baud connection. What's the point here?
Talking of "pikers" that don't want to afford big equipment : Well man you're a sad case. You've probably never traded successfully. Buy yourself a muscle car if you need to pull chicks or sth. If you want, you can fly over here and see how a "piker" lives and what kind of car a "piker" drives etc. Get a grip man are you in for happiness or are we just talking about money here? How sad! :eek:
Here a little fact for a little piker like you, "Mr Piker-Hater"
If you save yourself $500 a month in datafeeds, monitors, high-tech gear, super-broadband, whatever stuff you're throwing your money out the window for, you're not only contributing to all our misery by enrichening the consumer sharks, corporations etc and effectively destroying our planet and our children's future (thank you very much btw), no you're also depriving yourself of a higher-equity future;
$500/month = $6,000/year = $1,019,970.00 over 10 years (@ a mere potential cumulative 50% annual return)
I bet that you, Mr. Piker-Hater are the biggest piker of all. You ain't got that million $, yet, either.
Bloomberg Terminal??? LMAO! That's for Fund Managers who don't know how to offset all their tax liabilities!
Don't you guys know that systems like TradeStation and eSignal have long outperformed Bloomberg? You should look at the stats and how their data routing works, rather than looking at prices for "sales gimmicks". Please don't be a victim.
By the way, I've never had a system crash in 2 years (WinXP- doesn't crash!), I use Norton SystemWorks, fixes all problems. I often run my systems for months without reboot, my brokerage software etc has never dropped out / failed in these 2 years.
Arguments for line reliability, 2nd phoneline to get out of positions etc are also again completely redundant;
If I am worried about my position, I use another broker to put a hedge straight away. I can go to bed after that if I want to.
Knowledge is power. Please don't confuse and milk newbies with all this crap, seriously.
You guys, everybody:
-Don't be a "Victim Consumer" - Eliminate Redundancy
-Use Protection (Firewall, encrypted Secure Tunneling)
-RELAX!
-K.I.S.S!
Yours Sincerely,
~The Scientist
