Technical Analysis Software - Recommend?

padzster

Hello
I'm currently "educating" myself in TA and was wondering if anyone could recommend any free/cheap TA software. I'm not planning to do anything more than paper trading at the moment. Will not need realtime feeds, but would like end-of-day feed and good analysis tools but with ability to add my own indicators.
Any advice appreciated!

tradetime

QuoteTracker has an in built charting package that can produce charts like this one, it is free with small banner ads or you can register it for a one off fee I think. I have no idea how comprehensive their technical studies are, but am sure they will have most of the major ones. Then you will need a data source, I think this can be used in some way with ADVFN, but not sure of costings, the chap who posted that chart would know more.

turbobob

Hi, yes that would be me using Quotetracker In the UK its able to take live data feeds from ADVFN or Money AM as well as a few brokers such as E*Trade. I also see an option to get delayed data from The Motley Fool. Any of them should do the job for end of day work.

If you want to do analysis on greater than 6 months historic data (which I did) then you need to register it.

I also tried a package called Simply Chart https://www.simplychart.com which I found OK, but not as intuitive to use as Quotetracker. Its purely for EOD charting. They have a free demo.

Sharescope Gold https://www.sharescope.co.uk is another option - haven't tried it, but it does other stuff as well as charting and again there's a free demo.

sabretoothtigger

Double top at 108 on the sp500 this dude says. He is using realtick in this video which is usa based i think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIPTSLJA7R0&feature=sub

padzster

Thank you for the advice.
I've started looking at QuoteTracker using ADVFN live feed, though feed does keep breaking up. Also, although I've had data coming in all day my intraday chart is totally blank. Do you have any tips/tricks for this package?

PS.Surprised to see it had Elder Ray

turbobob

padzster wrote: »

Thank you for the advice.
I've started looking at QuoteTracker using ADVFN live feed, though feed does keep breaking up. Also, although I've had data coming in all day my intraday chart is totally blank. Do you have any tips/tricks for this package?

PS.Surprised to see it had Elder Ray

Hi, I've not used the intra-day charts extensively yet and am using a paid for Money AM feed.

What I've found is backfilling intraday data (right click the intraday chart and choose "backfill" - 5 days maximum intraday data with Money AM) is a bit hit and miss. It works but I think its not backfilling details of every trade. I've found line charts seem to work better than candles for this purpose. If you right click choose raw data time and sales (IIRC) that lets you see exactly what data its basing the chart on.

The intraday charts drawing as it happens work perfectly with my setup.

I wonder if the issue could be with the free data feed from ADVFN. They don't allow unlimited real time access for free from the website so probably don't allow it through wherever QT streams it from.

padzster

Right-clicking intraday isn't coming up with a Backfill option.
I'm not really bothered about intraday, but I don't like things not working, if you know what I mean. I'm finding the software quite annoying - what are your experiences with it?
I'm now thinking of going down the Excel plus Add-Ins route.

I'm still at the reading/learning stage, but would like to put some of the stuff I'm learning into practice, and get used to researching, TA and then checking my work.

turbobob

Haven't found it annoying at all TBH. Once familiarised I found it very easy to use. Only downside for me is that I wish I could link it to my trading account (it mainly works with US brokers). It allows me to do studies to the level I'm at for the moment (drawing trendlines, identifying patterns, and so on). It also has alerts, and it offers a good range of indicators.

Intraday works, e.g.this chart I've just pulled up now with backfilled data from the last 3 days (10 minute candles). I think your issues may be with the datasource rather than the software.



Does it work OK for you on historic prices?

sabretoothtigger

I gave this quotetracker a go and considering its free its pretty good. Best thing is that it does Vwap and price by volume on the top indicators, most places wont show this state but its an industry standard for relative strength of a share.

At the moment isf or ftse is below its vwap so its a nice quick decider for immediate direction


With advfn they do provide real time data but it wasnt working out of hours for me and it only seems to show data for when I was actually logged on and monitoring those shares.

I cant get it to work with SL on an intraday chart for some reason, maybe that will kick in tomorrow and also its stopped showing me anything from 12:57 for no apparent reason

but anyhow straight away it was useful even if slightly iffy. Just showed me the ftse vwap was 5175 roughly and the market just bounced off that level . Always nice to have a separate confirmation / sell signal available


I suspect the paid for data would be a bit more reliable. Anyone know if any of those other providers are any good, like the indian one, etc

turbobob

I haven't tried the other feeds. I get the FTSE indexes from ADVFN and its a bit unreliable. But I'm not paying them anything so can't complain too much. Money AM which I use for share prices works fine for both Level 1 and 2 in real time. I'm not sure what (if any) free service they provide though.

IMHO if you pay nothing you can't expect too much in the way of real time data. Its got to be paid for somehow. If you are paying then there is a certain obligation for the other party to supply the agreed level of service.

On a side note sometimes the spreadbetting companies can do good deals, e.g. Digital Look was recently offering "free" level 2 access when you opened a spreadbetting account with them (really CMC Markets).

sabretoothtigger

Just started it up and its working again now with advfn

Which symbol do I use for indexes, Im just using the etf at the moment

It wont quote Standard life intraday but will show the current days price on the historical chart. It does show Lgen intraday though, which is a pain as I dont even follow lgen normally :laugh:


Looks like it might even quote me american stocks at the moment, have to wait for the open



spreadbet companies are what I often use for a realtime graph but its not exactly the real price and they wont give volume data or show a vwap of course.
yahoo give real time and some level 2 on american stocks