QuoteTracker To Be Finished End of 2011

garbar · Jan 12, 2011

Just got word from the company QT is toast as of end of 2011.

"Unfortunately, QT will be drawn down by the end of 2011 as TD AMERITRADE looks to consolidate its resources towards other platforms and projects."

It's gonna die.

Anyone want to buy it and keep it alive? Jerry should buy it back and make more money with it again.

intradaybill · Jan 13, 2011

The trading software market is dead. I have a friend who was trying to raise for a while some money for a project. Not even a dime. You can get 10 Million if you propose a new add-on for facebook or some social network. Nothing for trading. Most platforms provide most of the tools traders need. There is no need for anything else except maybe some AI or data mining. More importantly I think, there are not many traders around. What you see according to the research of my friend are people trading mini-lots and 2K accounts in stocks and futures.

I purchased years ago a license of Tradestation for real-time for maybe about 2K. I thought at that time 2K was a reasonable price for what the program did. Now I think 2K is a lot of money for anything. This is after about 16 years.

Have we all gotten much poorer? Has money lost its purchasing power while earnings have fallen?

Too bad for QT.

Trader KGB · Jan 13, 2011

Quote from intradaybill:

More importantly I think, there are not many traders around. What you see according to the research of my friend are people trading mini-lots and 2K accounts in stocks and futures.

Across just the US market? And did that research account for all equity traders?

intradaybill · Jan 13, 2011

Quote from Trader KGB:

Across just the US market? And did that research account for all equity traders?

Equity traders have been hit hard in the last couple of years by HFT robots and low real liquidity. Most traditional traders who started with futures, like me for example, have grown older and have become more risk averse. They understand the risks better. There is no new inflow of young traders because younger people are smarter nowadays and understand better the risk/reward profile of the markets. More importantly, Generation Y has no money to spend for trading, they spend everything in gadgets and good time. they have no time to trade because they spend a good part of the day in facebook and twitter. I think these are the major factors that force more software companies to stop development. There is no growth.

IMO, systems like facebook and the likes make young people to become inert and live in a virtual world. In other parts of the world, unlike in the US, young people work hard in real production, producing real goods.

LeeD · Jan 13, 2011

Quote from intradaybill:

The trading software market is dead. I have a friend who was trying to raise for a while some money for a project. Not even a dime. You can get 10 Million if you propose a new add-on for facebook or some social network. Nothing for trading.

Trading software is a saturated market now. With Tradestation still kicking and NinjaTrader and X-Trader and dozens of others you need to have a very strong unique selling point to have a chance. Making "retail" trading software is like trying to compete with facebook itself (and myspace, and linkedin) or with microsoft office (and openoffice). It's easier to have a "niche" idea, something no one else does, and build a small project with fast time to market. That's why facebook addon is an attractive proposition... and trading software isn't.

Quote from intradaybill:

More importantly, Generation Y has no money to spend for trading, they spend everything in gadgets and good time. they have no time to trade because they spend a good part of the day in facebook and twitter.

and on this forum.

Quote from intradaybill:

In other parts of the world, unlike in the US, young people work hard in real production, producing real goods.

Does tarding software fall into category of "real goods"?

Quote from intradaybill:

IMO, systems like facebook and the likes make young people to become inert and live in a virtual world.

This a big topic. You should probably open a new thread if you want others to discuss it in-depth.

Facebook and the like by design serve 2 purposes:
1) A time sink (provides on-deman entertainmet)
2) Surrogate for meeting people in person
Further, there is a risk that a facebook user will finally meet friends in person and won't come back to facebook for a while. So, it's filled with addictive activities that require action literally every day. `Do you want to meet up for a coffee?' - ` I can't. I need to water my FarmVille plants.'

nltro · Jan 13, 2011

Quote from garbar:

Just got word from the company QT is toast as of end of 2011.

"Unfortunately, QT will be drawn down by the end of 2011 as TD AMERITRADE looks to consolidate its resources towards other platforms and projects."

It's gonna die.

Anyone want to buy it and keep it alive? Jerry should buy it back and make more money with it again.

Well, hopefully it becomes an opensource project. Would be a superb move.

LeeD · Jan 13, 2011

Quote from garbar:

Anyone want to buy it and keep it alive? Jerry should buy it back and make more money with it again.

Quote from nltro:

Well, hopefully it becomes an opensource project. Would be a superb move.

I doubt any of this is feasible. During good times Ameritrade paid through the throat to get QuoteTracker. I doubt they will sell it now for a fraction of the price they paid a few years back. Any gain from prospective sale is immaterial on the scale of Ameritraid revenues and losses. Further, by letting QuoteTracker die they kill off the competition.

goodgoing · Jan 13, 2011

Too bad if true, I like that program.

uexkuell · Jan 13, 2011

Quote from nltro:
Well, hopefully it becomes an opensource project. Would be a superb move.

It's written in Delphi.
Not so many people around that are still familiar with the language.

pescador · Jan 13, 2011

That's very bad news, QT is one of the best programms I have found until now, both in terms of functionality as of efficiency.

It is also one of the few charting applications that one can connect to IB and work well on Linux.

Actually I would pay a higher monthly fee in order to be able to continue using it.
I am sure there are a lot of people who would do it, just because it is a superior program
to many others. So maybe Jerry could still make some money with it buying back?

Lately I began to have a look at AmiBroker. Seem also good, but a very different beast.
Does anyone have experience with both? How does its charting capabilities compare to QT?
Is it worth to make a change to AB, or are there better options?

I also tried Ninja some time ago, but it does not run on Linux, and even on Windows it is much slower and clumsier than QT. And it has no free floating charts... :eek: