Cqg

Can someone give me the approximate monthly cost for a basic CQG service - internet delivery, Eurex only, basic charts (no TA).

To get this from CQG I need to fill out all my details, and I really don't want to hassled by 'phone calls every month from a Sales Rep

Please note, I am not interested in alternative quote vendors.

Thanks in advance.

Grant.

Grant,

I had CQG for some years, but that's quite a while back, anyway, if I remember correctly, costs were around €400 or €500 / month for indices & FX.

Great service, superb charts, features without end.

But seeing as how I didn't use more than say 5% of their functionality at some point I cancelled my subscription, reckoning that I'd be getting a bigger bang for my bucks investing em in drinkable liquids ;-)

Another idea might be tradestation.com.

Great charting too (plus backtesting which might be interesting for programmers like yourself, and free if you open an account and do a token number of trades / month.

Or have a look at abnamromarketindex.com, biggest bank in Holland, and they have Oanda's platform & charting.

OK, the last are CFD's, but, contrary to an erroneous initial impression of mine, prices seem pretty accurate.

But, if CQG is what you want, you definitely will not regret that either, they are great.

I'm using CQG through the firm I'm with, I understand the lease costs to be around £500 a month retail price, possibly plus VAT on top.

I'm pretty sure you can get a free trial for a month with them if you sweet talk the rep.

I've never really used CQG until fairly recently since I didnt use to trade off charts, but although its taken me some time to get used to the interface as it has a few quirks of navigation that irritated me to start with, and their DOM order entry is different enough from TT to also take a bit of getting used to, but stability & data speed is exceptional.

I'm running it parallel with TradeStation, and there is a noticeably visible difference in the speed of data delivery for Eurex - if the market gets quick and there is a sudden burst of ticks, TS can often be behind by as much as a couple of seconds when compared with CQG.

Markus,

Thank you for the info, mate. I think CQG is what I will aim for. However, unless I'm mistaken , there doesn't seem to be too much difference from a basic Reuters system (a friend has one). I'll check.

Grant.

Arbitrageur,

£500 + vat? Flippin' 'eck. Some serious thought called for.

I've found a contact no in London - I'll give them a call

Grant.

Arb do you use the CQG DOM to trade? How is it?

black-star said:

Arb do you use the CQG DOM to trade? How is it?

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Quirky. If you're used to something like TT then you'll probably hate it, at least to begin with. I personally find getting used to any new software irritates me... eg: upgrading from MS office 2003 -> 2007, stuff that I know how to do intuitively is suddenly different and I have to take time to re-learn things I could do in an instant before.

Same with CQG DOM. Just little things like, for example, TT one left click on the ladder to work an order, in CQG its a right mousedown which opens a circular "pie" which you hover over the type of order you want, stop, limit, mkt etc.

Nothing wrong with it, and if I'm being objective, the whole platform is well thought out and eminently useable. Its just takes some getting used to initially. Without wishing to look too stupid, it took me weeks to figure out the right click on the ladder thing. I stubbornly refused to read the manual and instead was using an order ticket, grrr!

Arbitrageur said:

I stubbornly refused to read the manual

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Yay

I was flipping through a car magazine the other day and the journos couldn't figure out some feature intuitively either, and explained why they didn't read the manual, saying that that refuge of last resort is reserved exclusively for shadow parkers.

:cheesy:

Agreed,

Reading manuals is for pussy's, it ruins my ego

"Good" software is something you don't notice as it's intuitive and you don't have to read the manual.

DB,

That's true. I trialed Metastock's QuoteCentre. It took around four hours to retrieve a futures quote;
I also trialed a Dutch programme (all in Dutch) and it took 10-minutes.

"Intuition is the last refuge for women, illiterates and illiterate women" (Tacitus).

Grant.

grantx said:

Arbitrageur,

£500 + vat? Flippin' 'eck. Some serious thought called for.

I've found a contact no in London - I'll give them a call

Grant.

Click to expand...

I am also using CQG through my company - it costs me around £800 a month, but I have access to lots of markets and features.

One of the things you can do with CQG is "build" it. You pay for individual features so if you only want to trade a couple of markets and use bar charts with no indicators it won't cost as much.

I'm also using the trader feature, although I've only been using it for a few weeks. If you are looking to scalp then it's probably not for you.

If you want to contact them, the switchboard no. is 0207 827 8270.

Tick,

Thank you for the details (my tel no had an extra digit somehow).

When you say "If you are looking to scalp then it's probably not for you" do you mean CQG or just the Trader feature?

I've also enquired re Reuters today. We'll see how they compare.

Grant.

I think Reuters and Bloomberg are around £1000 a month, Grant, though don't quote me on that.

CQG's speed and data quality is excellent in my experience. You have to look at the cost as a business expense - if it pays for itself then it's worth the asking price.

Sam,

Where abouts in Cheshire are you?

A friend of mine has Reuters 3000 (?). I think he pays around £600 pm.

Whether Reuters or CQG, speed, quality (and reliability) are key, aren't they? It's OK having a cheap system (like my current) but it's unstable and slow.

As you say, Reuters, etc are expensive but I reckon you could cover the costs (hopefully) just by the improved efficiency and quality.

Grant.

grantx said:

Tick,

When you say "If you are looking to scalp then it's probably not for you" do you mean CQG or just the Trader feature?

I've also enquired re Reuters today. We'll see how they compare.

Grant.

Click to expand...

I meant the trader feature. The depth of market on the ladder is only 5 pips and the variety of different ways to enter, alter and pull orders is a bit confusing and makes the system overall a bit user unfriendly - although as I said I am new to it and it will get easier with more use. However, it does have a number of features not available on many other platforms, such as OCO (Order Cancels Other) and they are developing bracket orders, which will allow trailing stops to move automatically rather than constantly re-entering.

The charts are clear and easy to use, though, and being able to add only the features (ie, chart types, markets, TA tools) you want allows you to keep control of costs. Call them with an idea of how many markets you will want to look at, how many charts you want (ie, do you want multiple time frames - it's quick and easy to switch between them, but some traders prefer to put a 15m, 30m and 60m side by side) and what analysis tools you would need. If it's not many. you will probably be better off with something else as the costs soon escalate.

I don't know anything about Reuters, but the TA on CQG is IMO much better than Bloomberg, though that could just be familiarity.

Hope this helps.

Tick,

Thanks for info. Great help. I'm awaiting details from both. Will let you know the results.

Grant.

This is very interesting information. Thank you for sharing it. My business has grown to the point where it is time to take it to the next level from an infrastructure standpoint and CQG is definitely in the running. Again, thank you.

jj

TheTick said:

However, it does have a number of features not available on many other platforms, such as OCO (Order Cancels Other) and they are developing bracket orders, which will allow trailing stops to move automatically rather than constantly re-entering.

Click to expand...

If you have an IB account you get this stuff (eg OCA order groups, trail stops, brackets etc) and it's a whole lot cheaper. It's all held server side which I think is far preferable to client side.

dcraig1 said:

If you have an IB account you get this stuff (eg OCA order groups, trail stops, brackets etc) and it's a whole lot cheaper. It's all held server side which I think is far preferable to client side.

Click to expand...

Didn't realise you could get all of that with IB. May be cheaper, but direct access gives you minimum increment spread, and this is currently free if you subscribe to the charting package which is IMO excellent.