I don't know how you work, but when I am trading I
like to watch
charts. If I have to switch back and forth between TWS or some other
order entry package and my charting package, I will lose valuable
seconds and make mistakes (like manually entering GG when I meant to
enter GGB, for example). Scottrade Elite, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, E-
Trade, TradeStation and as far as I know just about every other
broker has an integrated charting and order entry interface. IB
offers trading options and advantages I can't get elsewhere, but
their charting is terrible. QuoteTracker is too limited and
alternatives like eSignal are too expensive. I just know switching
back and forth is going to be a lot less efficient than keeping one
screen open and clicking on a chart to execute a trade. I think
AmiBroker is great in every other respect. I just wish I could get
this manual entry screen to work. I'm so busy I don't want to spend
any of my spare time to try to figure out how to get it to work, but
I guess that's my only option if I want to trade through IB. I might
just buy it and play with it, but that's a couple hundred bucks down
the drain if I can't get it to work right. What I'm really worried
about though is screwing it up and accidentally cleaning out my
trading account. That would be a real drag.
Chuck
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED]ps.com,
"scourt2000" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]..> wrote:
>
>
> What do you have to substantially gain by manually entering trades
> to IB through Amibroker? Why would you discount its use in trading
> just because of this? Do you realize that its capabilities to help
> you backtest trading ideas far exceeds the trivial kind of
> restriction you're placing on its use?
>
> I cannot name another piece of software that even comes close to
> what Amibroker can do for what you pay.
>
> There is a SIMPLE answer to your problem. I'm assuming that you
> abhor the TWS interface to placing trades manually, including the
> use of BookTrader. If that's the case, then just use a free IB
> front-end like TSIM+:
>
> http://www.tradingsimulation.com/index.html
>
> IMHO, the problem is not with Amibroker. It's that you have not
> sufficiently researched your options. There are plenty of front-
> ends to trading with IB. Some are free, some want a one-time
> donation and others have a monthly fee. I think that the one
above
> is the best no-strings-attached interface which is completely free.
>
> If this is still not acceptable, then get TradeStation and, if you
> meet their minimum monthly trading requirements, their platform is
> free. Of course, you'll have to place all trades through their
> brokerage firm but trading is completely integrated into their
> charting package. TradeStation has an excellent intraday database
> going back years. However, their porfolio backtesting is
> dramatically inferior in speed and options to what Amibroker offers.
>
