>From a cost perspective, I think the best deal out there right now
for a real-time trading platform is TradeStation. They require
nominal amounts of either options/futures contracts or shares trade
per month to have the $99 platform fee waived.
Amibroker has the superior backtesting capability while TradeStation
has an enormous database of intraday data that you can import into
Amibroker. So, that would be a good combination to have if there's
not something compelling in Amibroker's real-time features that
TradeStation already does. Use TradeStation for real-time trading
and Amibroker for offline research with TradeStation's data. Of
course, the catch is that you have to trade through their brokerage
firm but their commissions are are still reasonable in relation to
Interactive Brokers.
Right now, I use eSignal charting for real-time trading (stretched
across 5 19" LCD screens) and have Amibroker Pro for secondary
charting needs (much, much faster to develop my charting ideas with
AFL) and long-term intraday data storage. I'm probably a little
different in this group than most because I exclusively trade the e-
minis so I have no need to scan the markets intrday while many here
would because they trade stocks and want something behind the scense
looking for alerts/signals from a stock not currently on the trading
charts.
I consider full-time trading a very low overhead business in
comparison to what the average small business has to pay just to
keep their doors open. I think that one's perception of what is
reasonable and what is not comes down to how monetarily successful
you currently are as a full-time trader. If you make 6 figures then
you wouldn't think twice about using eSignal if that's what makes
you feel more comfortable in trading. If you're making somewhere
between 30-50K U.S. per year, then $1200 vs. a one-time $229 for
Amibroker Pro is going to seem like oceans apart where Amibroker is
the obvious choice.
Amibroker is getting better and better with each release. Tomasz
has put a tremendous effort and a lot of conscientious thought into
improving the real-time aspects of his product. As long as I am
trading, I will always be renewing my subscription to his updates.
For me, it's a personal choice. In a real-time trading environment,
I just feel better and more efficient when using eSignal charting
over Amibroker and I like the way the eSignal charts look compared
to Amibroker even if I can do a lot of the same things in both
packages in similar ways. Some things aren't just about money. The
aesthetics put me in the right frame of mind about the tools I'm
using and that's an intangible aspect that is also important to me.
Eventually, I will add TradeStation to the mix on a separate
computer for just the cost of monthly exchange fees.
I don't think anyone can go wrong using eSignal for just the
datafeed and Amibroker as the charting package. It's certainly
powerful enough to get the job done. I was just mentioning
TradeStation as another alternative because that platform is also
solid and free for all intents and purposes.
The end result is the same...you need Amibroker Pro in your tradign
toolbox whether you trade real-time with it or not.
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