Starting out, looking for the right platform..

Hi all,

Im totally new to this game having read books and poked around on the internet for severval months. I want to get my hands on a reasonable trading package for what I intend to do. Does anyone have any recommendations...Im in the UK and want to trade EOD US and European equities. At the moment Im not interested in futures forex etc. I intend to mostly swing trade 2-3 times a week.

Im after good technical analysis tools and something that allows me to scan fundamentals for longer term trades.

How does tradestation compare esignal say? Esignal appears pricey (for me) if I want to trade both markets. Tradestation has an automated buy/sell feature and can be used with a third party data feed - I believe - how much does this all cost? and what about commission. Really would appreciate some advise..

Thanks
Simon

simonb1965 said:

Hi all,

Im totally new to this game having read books and poked around on the internet for severval months. I want to get my hands on a reasonable trading package for what I intend to do. Does anyone have any recommendations...Im in the UK and want to trade EOD US and European equities. At the moment Im not interested in futures forex etc. I intend to mostly swing trade 2-3 times a week.

Im after good technical analysis tools and something that allows me to scan fundamentals for longer term trades.

How does tradestation compare esignal say? Esignal appears pricey (for me) if I want to trade both markets. Tradestation has an automated buy/sell feature and can be used with a third party data feed - I believe - how much does this all cost? and what about commission. Really would appreciate some advise..

Thanks
Simon

Click to expand...

My suggestion would be to approach it from a slightly different angle. I would look first at brokers and their platforms.

I use Interactive Brokers and they provide a universal platform from which you can trade many different instruments, including US and UK equities from the same account which you can fund in any currency and buy/sell any instrument in any currency.

They provide market data feeds and the fees for this are listed on their site. Their trading and technical analysis platform TWS is free. The charting is not the best in the world but you may find it adequate at first.

Now the important thing is that it provides an opportunity for expansion, because TWS will integrate with other software such as Esignal or Amibroker via their Application Programming Interface (API) allowing orders to be created outside and passed to IB or for information about the market and trades to be exported out to 3rd party software in realtime.

Finally on commissions you can find all this on their site under fees. You can also find video training courses etc or attend one of their evening sessions in London.

If you want to read boh the good and the bad about IB you will find a thread devoted to them on this site.

Charlton

You might also want to have a look at Sharescope (you'll need the Plus version to include US prices). There's also a forum on this board discussing different packages under "The Tools" section.

Also take a look at Sierra with a My Track feed, very cheap