Stockwatch Pro vs. Investor RT

[bungrider]

Hi,

I can't take the SWP bugs anymore. I spend approximately one hour each day dealing with either SWP or quote.com issues, screaming at my computer, and I'm sick of it.

Despite the fact that SWP is a powerful program, it has a long way to go before it actually works like it's supposed to. I'm tired with linked windows displaying the wrong symbols when I launch the program and having to put each chart window, T&S window, and L2 window on a symbol that I never look at before I shut the program down otherwise they get stuck on the wrong symbol. I'm tired of having to delete the "TEMP" folder every time I launch the program. I'm tired of quotesheets randomly adding and losing symbols.

I'd move to realtick, but it has no scanning, and 30% of my trading is based on scanning.

Has anyone made the switch from SWP to Investor RT? If so, can you do everything that you could do with SWP, especially with regard to scanning?

I'm looking for the following things-

-ease of running 5 scans at once on lists of approximately 50 symbols, with scans running once every 30 seconds or so (I don't need anything more frequent than that)

-ability to use custom formulas on quotesheets

-ease of doing pairs trading

-straightforward formula language (the RQ/EQ/SWP language is very easy to learn, whereas languages like that provided by ensign are too much effort for this guy)

-no bugs!

-I don't care at all about backtesting

I'm going to give IRT a try for a month, but I was hoping maybe I could hook up with some other people who've made the switch, and learn a little bit about their experiences with both programs, specifically the learning curve for the program, as well as the formula language.

Thanks in advance,
-bungholio

 

[GATrader]

Hi Bungrider
i switched fro RQ to I Rt and am pretty happy with it. As far as learning curve if i were to scale it out with Ensign being 1 (hard) and 10 (Rquote) Investor Rt is an 8.5.

Pretty robust formula engine since they have been around for a while unlike the new ones like RQ and SWP.

Only thing I don't like is the prepay for 3 months. One big difference between RQ and I RT is that the data on I RT is saved on YOUr hard drive which means scans are quicker but there are some data maintenance/setup.

Pairs between stocks can be setup as indicators as well.

Good luck

 

[Robert Weinstein]

I too use SWP for the scanning. As I use multiple monitors I have found for me the best is to use qcharts for the level II, charts, T&S and well basically anything it can. I also use on another monitor SWP scanners ONLY.

I have found that combining scanners as much as possible has helped me. i.e. a formula that looks for the same move either up or down compared to two formulas( one looking up and one looking for a down movement)

It could also be your operating system. If your not using Win2000 you should be. At the very least XP and never even consider 95 or 98.

Next issue is your UPS, and I dont mean "brown". voltage plays a big part on data integrity and if your machine(s) are plugged straight into the wall that alone could be your problem.

I know you should not have to but I have found that having SWP on its own machine that does nothing else has helped as well.

Finally you memory. You could have say 256meg of ram and it could have a couple of "bad chips" that only show up when you are at over 200 meg or something stupid like that. this is a very frustrating problem as it does not happen enough to easily be seen. You can test this one with some software downloads that SHOULD pick it up.

Along with memory the heat of the computer(s) can be an issue. a hot computer will have more errors. You may want to take the cover off the box and see if the problem goes away ( very cheap fix too). this is usually not the problem but I have seen some people put the computer in a place that does not allow air flow and it simply heats up.

A SWP running computer should be in a minumum of a mid sized case and a full size with multiple cooling fans is ideal.

Hope this helps. I like SWP and have been very frustrated with the buggy issues as well.

Best of luck to you

 

[Neil]

Originally posted by 1Reason
Along with memory the heat of the computer(s) can be an issue. a hot computer will have more errors.

Gawd.. and I thought my problems were limited to a combination of about only ten major issues.. now the poor thing might be too hot as well!! lol

I am pretty well convinced now that my pc is too slow, lacking in memory.. hard drive.. initiative and also ambition to get on in life, my isdn too snail-like, my box too small.. etc etc..

Re IRT Bung, I tried that too in my hopeless quest for something that works.. only a trial I think.. (I am losing touch with where I am with all these trials and trials subscriptions) It seems good for many things, but the bit I did find a problem with was the way it handled data as was pointed out above. It was probably developed from an eod system since it has to stash all data on hard drive. This is supposed to make it very fast, and I am sure this is true for many purposes, however, if I did not go on-line until a couple of hours of the trading day had passed, it meant it spent a LOT of time having to download all the days data to that point.. no streaming live data like qcharts... found that very awkward and difficult..

I have been running esignal lately and am at my wits end.. head thumping on desk stuff.. I will probably end up with Realtick damit.. but like you I like my scans.. oh well..

Neil

 

[bosstin]

Originally posted by 1Reason
I too use SWP for the scanning. As I use multiple monitors I have found for me the best is to use qcharts for the level II, charts, T&S and well basically anything it can. I also use on another monitor SWP scanners ONLY.

1Reason, am I understanding you correctly? Are you running Qcharts & SWP concurrently? Is this possible considering Qcharts does not allow multiple connections, or do you have two Qcharts subscriptions...

Qcharts interface is much more polished than SWP but its the SWP scanners that are the money makers.

I run SWP on a dedicated Win2000 computer with cable connection and have no major problems, so far. There are bugs, like what bungrider mentioned but as I said, the scanners make up for all its other shortcomings.

bosstin

 

[bungrider]

My PC is definitely not the issue. 512mb DDR, no overheating, win 2k pro.

About 30sec ago I got the "swp.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows" message that appears once every 3 days or so.

This program is such a piece of #@!%!!

Frankly, the worst thing about trading is all the shitty software you have to sift through.

Does RealTick have a DDE link? or activeX control? If RT could be linked to excel, it would be a decent compromise.

 

[daniel_m]

Originally posted by bosstin


1Reason, am I understanding you correctly? Are you running Qcharts & SWP concurrently? Is this possible considering Qcharts does not allow multiple connections, or do you have two Qcharts subscriptions...

I used to run qcharts and swp concurrently all the time. Guess you can.

 

[snorton]

bungrider,

I suggest you email your workspace to support@crontech.com. Our developers will investigate all issues you mentioned and will fix them if they indeed exist. Without your workspace, they can't reproduce the problem and therefore can't fix it.

As far as the Quote.com issue with the Temp folder, create swp.cmd file in your Stock Watch Pro installation directory with the following content:

cd "C:\Program Files\Cron Technologies\Stock Watch Pro 2.0"
del /Q temp\*.*
swp.exe

To start up Stock Watch Pro, simply run this file from Stock Watch Pro installation directory. It will delete all files in the Temp folder and then start up Stock Watch Pro.

 

[snorton]

Originally posted by bosstin


1Reason, am I understanding you correctly? Are you running Qcharts & SWP concurrently? Is this possible considering Qcharts does not allow multiple connections, or do you have two Qcharts subscriptions...

bosstin

Quote.com allows multiple logins from the same IP. Therefore, you can run QCharts & SWP concurrently from the same computer.