Recommend A Solid Charting Program?

A

achilles28

I am about to venture into the 'dark world' of technical analysis and need help locating suitable charting software.

I trade forex and need a higher-quality clone of fxcm supplied charts at www.dailyfx.com

By 'higher-quality', I mean:

1) software enabled saving of charts to MY harddrive.

2) highly accurate trendline projection to lower time frames. For instance, higher time frame (monthly/weekly) trendlines drawn on dailyfx.com supplied charts will indicate inaccurate trendline positions when projected to lower time frames (daily/subdaily).

3) ability to color code/trendlines and change trendline thickness

4) programmable 'alarms' indicating when real time price is close to trendlines.

5) ability to draw parallel trendlines.

6) ability to import real time data feed from third-party vendor. (looking to trade with ).


Thats it. Ideally, the program should allow a 'sweeping' type lookback period similar to charts found at dailyfx.com that do a great job encapsulating the broader historical picture.

Metatrader is out of the question - trendline drawing/parallels don't meet my needs.

All I plan to use are trendlines and parallel trendlines. No indicators.

Any recommendations? I've heard aspen charts are good? Don't know. Totally new to this.

Any help appreciated!
 
Don't know if TS2000i would do the job for you but Alpari has a 'GlobalServer Update' utility that provides realtime data from MT3, see under 'Omega Prosuite 2000 Service Pak':
http://www.alpari-idc.com/en/download/

I use MetaStock myself with a feed from MetaQuotes/Alpari, MS doesn't meet your TL criteria as it creates individual charts for each timeframe. You might look at AmiBroker and Ensign for Windows.

All datafeed prices are fairly close but most none fx specific charting programs generally use the eSignal fx feed, tho differences can and do affect how some indicators and trading system signals respond. Some fx brokers do provide the means to use their feed but there's a limited number of charting programs that can link with such feeds.
 
Quote from achilles28:

1) software enabled saving of charts to MY harddrive.
More...
Do you mean simply saving a .JPG or .PNG, etc., image? Most do this.

2) highly accurate trendline projection to lower time frames. For instance, higher time frame (monthly/weekly) trendlines drawn on dailyfx.com supplied charts will indicate inaccurate trendline positions when projected to lower time frames (daily/subdaily).
More...
This one is most interesting to me. I thought about this extensively when using eSignal. (I wasn't happy with how the trendlines would move around when new data came in, much less not maintain accuracy throughout changing timeframes). There is a big consideration when moving to larger (e.g. 60 min to daily) timeframes. What if, for instance, on a 240-minute chart, you connect the lows of yesterday and today, and the low occurred at 10:00am yesterday, but 2:00pm today? How would a daily chart represent that? I can imagine that moving to smaller (e.g. 15 minute to 5 minute) timeframes could be accurate in this regard, if implemented correctly. However, another consideration is whether the platform inserts 'spacer bars' when there are no trades - Ensign, for example, allows you to toggle spacer bars on and off - this would be very important when considering your request, since this will determine whether changing timeframes maintains constant time distribution among bars (ignoring quantization error). If I remember right, eSignal did (does?) not insert the spacer bars, but used blanks - essentially the same thing. Regardless, this requires having a 'schedule' of all opens/closes for a given market, including holidays.

3) ability to color code/trendlines and change trendline thickness
More...
Most do this. Ensign has nice trendline tools.

4) programmable 'alarms' indicating when real time price is close to trendlines..
More...
Nice idea.

5) ability to draw parallel trendlines..
More...
Would simply being able to copy a line be sufficient? I am guessing you would like to be able to change the angle of one trendline, and have the other follow automatically.

6) ability to import real time data feed from third-party vendor. (looking to trade with )..
More...
This is pretty common, no?

Thats it. Ideally, the program should allow a 'sweeping' type lookback period similar to charts found at dailyfx.com that do a great job encapsulating the broader historical picture.
More...
I visited the dailyfx.com site and clicked on 'charts' - could you be more specific on this or provide a link to the page on the dailyfx.com site that demonstrates this feature?

Thanks.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys.

I demo'd ts a while back and was moderately impressed.

Ideally, I'd like to purchase a suite outright and not have to pay monthly fees. What is it for TS - 70$ a month?

Bit of a rip if you're looking to trade for a few years = several thousand dollars for charting software...

Any other recommendations?
 
Quote from EliteInterest:

Do you mean simply saving a .JPG or .PNG, etc., image? Most do this.

This one is most interesting to me. I thought about this extensively when using eSignal. (I wasn't happy with how the trendlines would move around when new data came in, much less not maintain accuracy throughout changing timeframes). There is a big consideration when moving to larger (e.g. 60 min to daily) timeframes. What if, for instance, on a 240-minute chart, you connect the lows of yesterday and today, and the low occurred at 10:00am yesterday, but 2:00pm today? How would a daily chart represent that? I can imagine that moving to smaller (e.g. 15 minute to 5 minute) timeframes could be accurate in this regard, if implemented correctly. However, another consideration is whether the platform inserts 'spacer bars' when there are no trades - Ensign, for example, allows you to toggle spacer bars on and off - this would be very important when considering your request, since this will determine whether changing timeframes maintains constant time distribution among bars (ignoring quantization error). If I remember right, eSignal did (does?) not insert the spacer bars, but used blanks - essentially the same thing. Regardless, this requires having a 'schedule' of all opens/closes for a given market, including holidays.

Most do this. Ensign has nice trendline tools.

Nice idea.

Would simply being able to copy a line be sufficient? I am guessing you would like to be able to change the angle of one trendline, and have the other follow automatically.

This is pretty common, no?

I visited the dailyfx.com site and clicked on 'charts' - could you be more specific on this or provide a link to the page on the dailyfx.com site that demonstrates this feature?

Thanks.
More...

Hi Elite,

1) No. I mean saving a working template that preserves all trendlines drawn and allows further alterations to be made. Technically, the program could just save trendline locations relative to a fixed data set yielding the same result.

2) I understand your point and have thought of this too. Projecting higher time frame trendlines on lower times might yield crooked trendline positions if intraday highs and lows dont occur at the same time. I'm assuming quality charts are able to minimize this disparity whereas the free charts im usign don't do a good job at keeping this crookedness to a minimum.

3) Copy line would be sufficient.

4) Go to dailyfx.com

At the top of the page, click box that reads "Charts"

Click on any free charting service. I use the top left - Netdania charts.

A javapop up will open to your chart.

Do you trade fx?
 
Quote from achilles28:

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I demo'd ts a while back and was moderately impressed.

Ideally, I'd like to purchase a suite outright and not have to pay monthly fees. What is it for TS - 70$ a month?

Bit of a rip if you're looking to trade for a few years = several thousand dollars for charting software...

Any other recommendations?
More...

Just rent the mutha fucka. $150 or so per month with radarscreen. If you trade enough with them it's free. I don't trade with them, I use IB.

Its the only one worth having out there.

John
 
John.

Have you tried x-tick, aspen or neoticker charts?

I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

Also, are your trades more indicator driven or s/r trendline driven?
 
Quote from achilles28:

John.

Have you tried x-tick, aspen or neoticker charts?

I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

Also, are your trades more indicator driven or s/r trendline driven?
More...

Neoticker is terrible. It doesn't even work. I tried Neoticker 3 different times and I could never get it to work. Huge data handling issues. I spent all my time checking to make sure the data was right. Don't waste your time.

I haven't tried the other two. I tried them all that were existing two years ago and settled on TS.

It doesn't do anything great but it does all you need ok. Radarscreen is a good screener. You can do stratgies, test stuff etc. Data works great. Sometimes a couple seconds slow but they all are from time to time. You can do multiple time frame stuff with TS too.

John
 
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