Software for Beginners (recommendations pse)

[mcwyuma]

Hi Traders,

Wife and I are looking for feedback / info / recommendations for software that would meet our needs.

You guys have all been through your various learning curves, making mistakes and profound discoveries along the way : we would appreciate a gentle "push in the back" in the right direction to get us into trading.

Our short- to medium-term requirements are to acquire and use software to aid in our equity selections (at the moment we are looking at stocks only, not too concerned about futures and options at this point in time --- these can come later on).

Ideally looking for a real-time version (not end-of-day), with a view to using it while we learn (sim initially, then going live when we feel comfortable). My wife would be doing the actual trading, my role would be to learn the nuts and bolts of the different charts, measurements, screeners, bands, ratios etc etc. A definite PLUS would be software that has a great "help" or tutorial section decribing the function, origin, meaning and utilization of each of the various measuring and screening tools available. I have always had an inclination and keen interest in charting, math, and all that it entails, and my wife has always had this love of money (hmmmm, spending it , mostly) so it just kind of made sense that we tackle this togteher : me on the analytical side and her on the action side.

Some names that we have tripped over in our browsing include OmniTrader, Ensign, Metastock Pro etc. Also any recommendations on the data services and brokerage providers .... eSignal, Qcharts, IB etc etc?

Soliciting your honest feedback only, pro's and con's of each recommended program, what you love, what you hate, and so forth. Any brand, any vendor, anything at all. We just want to short-list some of your favorite recommendations and do our DD from there.

I realize you guys might be sitting there rolling your eyes and thinking, "Great, just what we need, another newbie..." but in all honesty, what's the worst that can happen from me asking you guys who have been there and done that for yourselves? I have nothing to lose except some dignity and some money .... and it looks pathetic when I'm grovelling, according to my wife anyway ... the worst that can happen to me is that you all give a collective "Yawn ...go away" to us.

Cheers, (and pre-emptively) thank you for your time and advice in responding.

Mike

 

[cmk]

Quote from mcwyuma:

Hi Traders,

Wife and I are looking for feedback / info / recommendations for software that would meet our needs.

You guys have all been through your various learning curves, making mistakes and profound discoveries along the way : we would appreciate a gentle "push in the back" in the right direction to get us into trading.

Our short- to medium-term requirements are to acquire and use software to aid in our equity selections (at the moment we are looking at stocks only, not too concerned about futures and options at this point in time --- these can come later on).

Ideally looking for a real-time version (not end-of-day), with a view to using it while we learn (sim initially, then going live when we feel comfortable). My wife would be doing the actual trading, my role would be to learn the nuts and bolts of the different charts, measurements, screeners, bands, ratios etc etc. A definite PLUS would be software that has a great "help" or tutorial section decribing the function, origin, meaning and utilization of each of the various measuring and screening tools available. I have always had an inclination and keen interest in charting, math, and all that it entails, and my wife has always had this love of money (hmmmm, spending it , mostly) so it just kind of made sense that we tackle this togteher : me on the analytical side and her on the action side.

Some names that we have tripped over in our browsing include OmniTrader, Ensign, Metastock Pro etc. Also any recommendations on the data services and brokerage providers .... eSignal, Qcharts, IB etc etc?

Soliciting your honest feedback only, pro's and con's of each recommended program, what you love, what you hate, and so forth. Any brand, any vendor, anything at all. We just want to short-list some of your favorite recommendations and do our DD from there.

I realize you guys might be sitting there rolling your eyes and thinking, "Great, just what we need, another newbie..." but in all honesty, what's the worst that can happen from me asking you guys who have been there and done that for yourselves? I have nothing to lose except some dignity and some money .... and it looks pathetic when I'm grovelling, according to my wife anyway ... the worst that can happen to me is that you all give a collective "Yawn ...go away" to us.

Cheers, (and pre-emptively) thank you for your time and advice in responding.

Mike

I think you need a bloomberg

 

[mrvizion]

If you're willing to deal with the learning curve go with quant studio... Although all products of those sorts have a learning curve... You might find that what some of the uses of Quant Studio are for are what will lead you to become a better trade. But ultimately if you go learn a programming language you could get some of the features available to you in it out of some of the more typical platforms like tradestation using DLL's. Try learning Python or C# (C sharp) in .NET to get you going...End the end, to be honest with you, you'll be much more satisfied learning a programming langauge, especially if your trading will be based on team efforts. Datafeed wise most of the standard ones will be pretty good. Just make sure they have an API (application programming interface). I'm not sure if you mentioned DTNIQ... You might even want to think about going with a satelite datafeed . All the same most of what you find available to retail trader's won't get much better than what's already heavily advertised... But if you do go with standard trading platforms make sure it can use DLL's. PM me if you'd like anymore advice....Good Luck ;-)

Vizion

 

[Runningbear]

It's really a question of budget.

If money is not an issue, have a look at tradestation. It has pretty much everything and their are a lot of coded strategies already out there for this product.

If budget is an issue, look at ensign with IB backfill.

And if you don't want to spend anything, look at Sierra chart or quotetracker with IB.

Bloomberg is probably a few years off yet


Runningbear