MP Charting Software


What MP or TPO Charting Software do you guys recommend? I've been considering Investor/RT.
quote:
Originally posted by Rocky Mtn Trader

so iDoc,

Explain the entire setup you currently use for your MP? You bounced around a bit trying different things...thanks.
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I'll try to explain why I went back and forth.

The old version of Ensign didn't have a very good price histogram study. My brackets were always off compared to other software MP studies. So I gave I/RT a try. Awesome MP study but weak charting features compared to Ensign. So, when Ensign released their new version with an updated price histogram study I started using it again.

With I/RT you had to pay a subscription to use MP. Ensign's Price Histogram study is included at no extra cost. I/RT also slowed my computer down. It uses a lot of computer resources. Ensign takes less resources to run.

I use www.infinityfutures.com and use their emini data feed from TransAct with Ensign. Also, TransAct feed can be used simultaneously with other vendors feed like IQfeed or Opentick. I use Opentick for my indices. You can't do this with I/RT. http://ensign.editme.com/setupeds

So that's my setup.... Ensign (new version) with TransAct and Opentick. And I saved about $125 a month with this setup.


I hope this helps, iDoc.
I just received an e-mail from Chad from development at Linnsoft. He says that they will be beta testing a new version of I/RT that will support TransAct data feed. Testing to begin in a few weeks.

iDoc.
thanks idoc for the info...

So what is the total cost each month with all the charts, feeds, exchange fees, etc. from Ensign?

Also, with this setup, is there anything missing that you would like to use?

Thanks again
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Rocky Mtn Trader: Think or Swim has free charting when an account is open. I'am
just a client there I'am paid nothing to tell you this. Just information to help
you make a decission. They also have live education every Wed. after the market close
4:15 EST
quote:
Originally posted by Rocky Mtn Trader

thanks idoc for the info...

So what is the total cost each month with all the charts, feeds, exchange fees, etc. from Ensign?

Also, with this setup, is there anything missing that you would like to use?

Thanks again
.



Ensign is $39.95 and Opentick is $1 for NYSE. Total = $40.95 each month. There is no extra fee for Ensign's Price Histogram study. The Price Histogram is their version of Market Profile.

I just trade ES. I get my emini feed from TransAct and my internals (ADD, Tick, Trin) from Opentick.

Rocky, check your e-mail.

iDoc
As promised, I put together an unofficial review of my early impressions of WINdoTRADEr. ** Be advised - They will be rolling out their new website very soon **

I’ve been with or tried out several charting platforms. In chronological order (for the most part): Prophet.net (before I discovered market profile), esignal, ensign, quotetracker, marketdelta, IRT, and Sierra. I can't think of any others off hand, and it doesn't really matter because had it left much of an impression on me, I would have been with them long enough to remember to include them here today


Through them all, one thing has been constant: Market Profile was kind of an after-thought, a bolt-on to standard charting (marketdelta the closest to an exception). After esignal, a second theme emerged: fantastic customer support. And, while not a theme, a third realization emerged: price is relative. Addressing the first theme, retaining the second, and balancing the third is what brought me to WINdoTRADEr (WT). I wanted something that was born from MP, I wanted stellar customer service, and I wanted a good value (yes, I agree, 'good value' is very vague). I think it ends up falling in line with the notion that when offered Good, Fast, or Cheap, (or some variation of characteristics) you can pick two. I wanted more 'good' from my MP charts.

I’ve known of WINdoTRADEr for a few years, but just never really heard much feedback on them. I knew that the screenshots looked great (they seemed to have disappeared from the site; I'm certain the new website will have lots of pretty pictures though
), that MP had always been a top priority, and that pricing was closer to an Esignal than an ensign. So I start poking around and I get in touch with Richard over at WT. He offers to setup a time to do a no-strings-attached walkthrough via gotomeeting. It sounded good and I was already getting the impression that customer service/support was on par with what I had grown accustomed to having. The day/time arrived, Richard gave me a call, and we logged into his desktop via gotomeeting.

He pulled up the charting platform and I noticed it was connecting to Esignal. Currently this is the only data provider WT uses. That was a minor hitch because I currently use my broker's feed which, along with being $0/month, means I don't have to do deal with esignal. But, and I fully acknowledge this fact, I have never had issue with their data. That's not to say they have never had issues, it just always seemed as good as any other data provider I had used. Okay, so I would need to get the data only package and add eminis to it (which comes out to $115/mo ... $50 for data + $30 for eminis + $35 for some other esignal-y fee). Richard also advised that the development team is testing a couple of other data providers, so there may be some more data options sooner than later. Either way, no worries.

After the data connection completed, we were looking an empty, gray application window. We stepped through setting up data preferences (i.e. Days to display and so forth) and then created a time template. Easy enough. And this would pretty much be the last non-wowing screen. We selected the option to create a chart, selected our time template, picked our market (ES #F), and away we went.

It pulled all the data for our market and then displayed our chart. Sweet. Very nice, clean display. Richard then proceeded to show me some of the many MP charting functions (merging, hard splitting, soft splitting, duplicating, expanding, timeframe formatting, and VA/POC calculation methods). Then we went over some of the general features. Want to zoom out? Scroll-wheel forward. Zoom in? Scroll back. Want to move the chart around? Left-click on it and drag it to where you want it. This type of functionality and operation was very, very impressive. Even with a very zoomed out view, the text was clean and legible. And the clicking-and-drag was surprisingly responsive. Everything was just ... Clean. Nothing felt or looked bolted on. Then Richard let me take it for a spin and create some charts from scratch.

Now, WINdoTRADEr is a windows-based application, so the overall environment was obviously going to be somewhat familiar. But, nearly every windows app still has its own way of doing things within a Windows environment, and I had only seen this one for a few minutes. I know this is not news at all, but I add it because after one demonstration and a few minutes, I was creating charts in 1-2 minutes. It was just that simple to learn and use.

After about an hour, maybe hour and a half, I wanted WINdoTRADEr on my trading desktop. I told Richard I wanted it, that I would sign up for at least one month, and that I would get my esignal data feed. Richard kindly suggested taking esignal up on their 30-day trial, but since I am a former customer I didn't qualify for that promotion. Regardless, I got my data setup, got things squared up with Richard/WINdoTRADEr, and would be up and running very soon. Richard suggested I take a couple of days to get acquainted with the software and that he could call me by week's end and see how things are going for me. Seriously? Yeah, Richard told me, they like to take care of their clients and make sure everyone is happy - with the product and the service. Before and after you sign up.

I got my login info, got my install package, got my esignal install package, and got to it. Installation was a snap. If you can double click then single click several times, you're golden. Started data manager and WINdoTRADEr, let it download the quote data, and was ready to go. Created my time template, created a chart, edited a theme, did some format changes, and I was good to go. That took all of about 5 minutes. I know there is a lot more tweaking available, but to go from zero to operational, that's all it took. And I love these cleanly presented charts. I honestly haven't seen anything quite like it. So I poked, prodded, and tweaked for a while, tore everything down, redid it, rinsed, and repeated a few more times. I got it back to the way I liked it and left it alone.

Overnight, my charting PC installed some updates and automatically rebooted. I didn't save anything, so I knew I was going to be starting from scratch. No worries. Logged on, setup my chart, and within two minutes I was back to an 'all good' state. This time I saved my setup
- I also decided to shut it all down properly and restart it to see what that brought. It came up gray, which was no big deal, because I knew I could just load my saved chart. I loaded it, but, apparently, not everything saves (namely, the timeframe formatting). No worries, it takes less than a minute to finish setting up.

Friday rolled around and, as scheduled, Richard gave me a callback to see how things were going. We opened up a gotomeeting session, this time viewing my desktop, and he gave a refresher on chart setup. He also went into configuring themes and a few other things I hadn't really gotten into yet. We talked for a while about WINdoTRADEr, charting, MP, and trading in general (Richard does trade as well as develop/support for the charting software), and wished each other a good weekend.

Though I’m early into this, I can say I have not used or seen a more versatile, more responsive incarnation of MarketProfile charting. It is, for the most part, exactly what I have been looking for. Richard was a pleasure to work with and made the task of getting everything up and running a snap. Since this is my first month using WINdoTRADEr, I will also add a 'month-in-use' post after my first 30-days. In the meantime, I have marked up some screen shots to give a visual idea of what they have going on.

Click image for original size
I run WINdoTRADEr on vertical 19


Click image for original size
with the price interval set to 0.25 and nearly 50-pts of range, the profiles are still clean and shapes discernible.<br>


Click image for original size
zoomed in to show 'only' 25- to 30-points


i hope this has helped everyone get a better idea of what WT brings to the table with their MP charts. i'll also be posting screenshots to my DLC Profiles journal.

Enjoy!
Just a quick update that the new WT site is up and running. It's got quite a bit of product info, a demo video, and clearly establishes theirs as a Market Profile based application.

Kudos to Richard and Co. on the revamp