Hi guys,
I just wanted to start a thread that compares these 2 products, and spurns some debate over their merits/flaws. I am an equities Day Trader, who trades listed issues only, and who uses RealTick Pro Plus. Although I don't use an overabundance of RealTick's charting capabilities, I went for Pro Plus since I needed to subscribe to this level of service in order to get NYSE Open Book. I pay Townsend Analytics $ 260/mo of RealTick Pro Plus, and I pay the NYSE about $ 54 per month for NYSE OB, for a total of $ 314/mo.
The features that I use the most on RealTick are:
- Time and Sales
- Market Maker (both Montage (inclusive of regionals) and NYSE
OB).
- Ticker
- RSI chart
I tried eSignal 7.3 several months ago (comparable product feature set) and paid a grand total of around $ 180/month - significantly cheaper.
However, due to some dislikes that I had with eSignal, I have decided to stay with RealTick for now (see below), even though eSignal's interface is significantly slicker. I would love to hear from people who have used both products, and would love to hear about the things that they like and dislike about each.
Here are the things that bothered me about eSignal:
1) I have built elaborate spreadsheets using RealTick's DDE API
interface, based on their Level I data. I use these
spreadsheets as my screening tool. eSignal has an equivalent
DDE interface, so I converted my spreadsheets over to use
them. Lo and behold, on eSignal, I found many instances
where the Level I data was not in synch with their Level II
market depth data - only for illiquid stocks. This drove me
crazy, and happened many times.
2) Which leads me to problem # 2. The telephone support is very
bad. Had to wait on hold for almost 40 minutes once during
the trading day, and when I finally got through to someone to
complain about specific instances where the data was out of
sync (problem above), the guy on the phone new nothing at
all. Very poor customer support. Contrast that
with RealTick - I never seem to wait on hold more than 15-20
seconds, and a good number of their staff is knowledgeable.
3) I have dual internet lines at home (broadband and a backup
dialup line), both of which are always active. If my primary line
fails, RealTick always detects that, and automatically
transitions over to my secondary line. With eSignal, if my
primary line went down, the application would attempt to re-
connect on my other line, and I would get a "DUPLICATE ID"
error, that would prevent my connection. I had to exit the app,
and re-start to get it working. Hence, eSignal's failover
algorithms are inferior to that of RealTick's.
4) You may think this is stupid, but RealTick has an audible
indicator that can be invoked, any time the book changes on
the market maker screen. I have become totally reliant on
this indicator to alert me to a change. eSignal does not have
this - I requested it as a feature improvement.
I found it very hard not to have this indicator around.
I just wanted to start a thread that compares these 2 products, and spurns some debate over their merits/flaws. I am an equities Day Trader, who trades listed issues only, and who uses RealTick Pro Plus. Although I don't use an overabundance of RealTick's charting capabilities, I went for Pro Plus since I needed to subscribe to this level of service in order to get NYSE Open Book. I pay Townsend Analytics $ 260/mo of RealTick Pro Plus, and I pay the NYSE about $ 54 per month for NYSE OB, for a total of $ 314/mo.
The features that I use the most on RealTick are:
- Time and Sales
- Market Maker (both Montage (inclusive of regionals) and NYSE
OB).
- Ticker
- RSI chart
I tried eSignal 7.3 several months ago (comparable product feature set) and paid a grand total of around $ 180/month - significantly cheaper.
However, due to some dislikes that I had with eSignal, I have decided to stay with RealTick for now (see below), even though eSignal's interface is significantly slicker. I would love to hear from people who have used both products, and would love to hear about the things that they like and dislike about each.
Here are the things that bothered me about eSignal:
1) I have built elaborate spreadsheets using RealTick's DDE API
interface, based on their Level I data. I use these
spreadsheets as my screening tool. eSignal has an equivalent
DDE interface, so I converted my spreadsheets over to use
them. Lo and behold, on eSignal, I found many instances
where the Level I data was not in synch with their Level II
market depth data - only for illiquid stocks. This drove me
crazy, and happened many times.
2) Which leads me to problem # 2. The telephone support is very
bad. Had to wait on hold for almost 40 minutes once during
the trading day, and when I finally got through to someone to
complain about specific instances where the data was out of
sync (problem above), the guy on the phone new nothing at
all. Very poor customer support. Contrast that
with RealTick - I never seem to wait on hold more than 15-20
seconds, and a good number of their staff is knowledgeable.
3) I have dual internet lines at home (broadband and a backup
dialup line), both of which are always active. If my primary line
fails, RealTick always detects that, and automatically
transitions over to my secondary line. With eSignal, if my
primary line went down, the application would attempt to re-
connect on my other line, and I would get a "DUPLICATE ID"
error, that would prevent my connection. I had to exit the app,
and re-start to get it working. Hence, eSignal's failover
algorithms are inferior to that of RealTick's.
4) You may think this is stupid, but RealTick has an audible
indicator that can be invoked, any time the book changes on
the market maker screen. I have become totally reliant on
this indicator to alert me to a change. eSignal does not have
this - I requested it as a feature improvement.
I found it very hard not to have this indicator around.
