Charting & Data Feed Requirement

[tonydero]

Hello all, I'm seeking advice regarding the most cost-effective and simple combination of charting software and data feeds to meet my requirements.

I take medium term trades (i.e. weeks to several months) on UK stocks only. My main objective now is to replace and improve upon my current set up (combination of Portfolio Advtantage &/or Sharescope for portfolios and end of day charts, ADVFN for realtime prices on my watchlists and monitoring trades) by providing what I need in as simple a package as possible. My current approach means I have me watchlists duplicated in ADVFN and my end of day chart package; I'd like to rationalise this if possible so I'm not maintaining similar stuff in multiple places - I hate redundancy and wasting time.

I've no plan to trade US markets. But I do have a growing interest in UK indices and commodities futures, so although I don't currently have any data requirements in this area, an upgrade path that allowed for it would be useful.

So, the main requirements are:-
(i) Portfolios and monitor/watchlists, with realtime prices and ability to see individual trades (similar to ADVFN)
(ii) Relatively simple charting requirements (I don't use indicators), but allowing for fairly flexibile annotation with trendlines and text in varying colours, widths etc.
(iii) Realtime update of charts during market hours, as well as update at end of day.
(iv) RNS data by stock.
(v) Data provided via Internet, not dish or other.
(vi) Reasonable cost - a few of the options I've seen all offer much more than I require, and thus would entail me paying for stuff I don't need.

NB: I don't use the fundamental date provided by Portfolio Advantage / Sharescope, since I get this elsewhere (REFS).

It may turn out that a combination of Sharescope and ADVFN are the best fit for my fairly simplistic requirements.

Any suggestions for other options I should consider? Thanks.

 

[tjbw]

Check out the real time version of Sharescope, the demo should be available in the next few weeks.

Barry

 

[eli]

Have a look at http://www.ird.com or http://www.esignal.com - they cover all the points above.

I prefer the IRD one as it has the best streaming charts but both are excellent for realtime quotes.

 

[neil]

data and ccharts

Not too expensive is www.sierrachart.com which is linked to Mytrack data Feed and soon to be linked to US brokers|: Interactive Brokers.


Neil

 

[troyresearch]

Tony

You may already have considered this but any type of data feed is only as good as its error correction functionality (ie to filter our erroneous price information, splits etc). I spent about a year using myTrack and in the end gave up in frustration, having spent weekend after weekend, night after night, going through its data checking it for errors (and there were many, particularly with UK prices). I can't speak for a package such as Sharescope, but from the little I've heard about it the reports are good. Updata also has a new TA package, available for just south of £500 if you're trading in from an existing package and this includes the first year's UK data feed. NB This isn't a recommendation, as my first impressions of Updata's sales team hasn't been altogether positive. Good luck.

 

[ChartMan]

I'd second that. MyTrack EOD data is appalling and cannot be relied on, especially UK Data. I think most UK traders pay for a prestel EOD feed at about £90 pa, and is 99.999% correct, with the odd error being corrected at the weekend with AIQ UK's weekly update files.

 

[tonydero]

Thanks for the input.