Forex

Hello,

I would like to bring up a crucial question: what do you think is the best trading platform for a full time forex trader and strategy backtester?

Tradestation 8.1, Meta Trader 4, Wealth-lab, Amibroker? Any other?

Please don't respond to this post like "this XYZ platform is best on the planet", but rather state the EXACT advantages of your preferred platfrom over another. I believe that a serious forex trader should consider mainly:

1. reliability (datafeed, crashes in the middle of the trade..)

2. backtesting quality and comprehensiveness (most fx broker-provided SW lacks this. Output equity curve charts, strategy statistics..)

3. easy and powerful charting (the best in this case may be Xtick, but that is not quite a trading software. You should consider being able to easily resize the charts horizontally/vertically with your mouse to best suit your point of view, apply indicators easily, draw trendlines, channels, triangles and stuff easily and quickly with your mouse, preferably with "sticky candles", being able to display all available sorts of chart types, ie bars, simple line, candles, point & figure, renko, kagi..)

4. power and versatility of its programming language ("may I program this SuperDuper new indicator which utilizes data from different timeframes and futures prices in this language?", for example Tradestation doesn't allow more than 4 plots in one indicator etc.)

4a. ease of use of that programming language? not sure if this counts since sooner or later you learn any language and not going for the best language in the industry just because it is hard to learn is a looser's game.

5. community involvment (you may have best trading software, but no one will post new indicators, ideas, strategies written in its language. No one will post tips on how to work with this SW efficiently etc.)

6. strategy automation and reliable automatic order execution (well you have done your homework, done testing, testing, testing, done optimizing and evaluating so that you want to run this strategy automatically. You are confident enough that based on positive mathematical expectation your strategy will make you $$$ in the long run and you want your trading SW to be able to generate your market orders realiably and automatically and you don't want to miss a single trade. It should run even when you sleep, so that choosing the right SW package ensures your sound sleep

7. customer support (try to write to xtick programmer, he will add your suggested feature in a matter of days!)

8. I don't think that serious trader will be much intersted in price of the software nor its language localization possibilites nor its colorfulness nor anything like. This simply doesn't matter as long as you want to make money.

Please write about your recommended software and try to include your opinions based on the question above.

I am using the combination of CMS fx broker's Visual trader (fairly good, but no strategy testing nor automation), xtick (state-of-the art charting, but nothing else) and Tradestation 8.1 (just subscribed 14 days ago due to the necessity of having a strategy tester, looks good, but I am inclined to switch to Meta Trader, we will see based on this survey .

Great Charts
Accrete back testing
Speedy execution
Programmable
Automatable
Easy programming langue
Farley good data on the demos, given the fact it’s supplied for free, it's fantastic.

Well, I wrote to the TradeStation rep asking what makes Tradestation superior to other trading/backtesting platforms and I received this. Could you make any comments on that?

I was asked to contact you in regard to your questions on the software packages. There are many packages out there so your confusion is fairly common. Everyone makes claims they are good and to some extent, many do most of the basic things people want but what separates TradeStation from all the others is it's customization, scope and features.

You can also check out our pip rates which are as low as 3 and since we soon will be offering full automation from our platform I think you will then see a mass migration of many FX traders to TradeStation as well. In short, no other firm can give you the caliber of trading software and low rates as we offer so hopefully you will continue to work with TradeStation.

And this is another post with information from Tradestation rep. I asked about strategy automation and Tradestation not being able to plot more than 4 plots in one indicator. Any comments?

We are still working on the ability to automate FX trades and when this comes out we will be one of the first FX firms to have a fully integrated FX automation platform. Some firms offer automation now through third party tools but this is less than ideal and complicates the process.

It's funny that someone would say that TradeStation has limited programming because it is perhaps the most prolific trading platform for system developers in the industry. There are thousands of third party developers who develop complex trading systems on our platform and most trading books and magazine use EasyLanguage as one of the standards for coding. This is in part why we have such a large following and is the focus of our annual conference in Vegas.

While not a programmer I know that our indicators have up to 16 sub plots you can work with. In fact, I speak with close to 100 traders a day and have for nearly 6 years here and don't think I have ever heard of anyone using MetaTrader. MetaStock yes but MetaTrader no. Maybe you have them confused but it is well known that TradeStation's language is far more advanced than MetaStock so either way I am confident that TradeStation should have more than what you need. At least when our automation comes out.

Please keep me updated with questions like these because there is often a lot of bad information that goes around and I am always happy to set the record straight.

Now it seems that the only options left are Meta Trader 4 or Tradestation 8.1. Again, I don't care about the price. If the software makes you money, there is no such thing as a dear software I think.

What did you expect TS to tell you some other platforms better then theirs? TS has-been around quite a time while there are some new kids on the block "MT4" witch I believe is a better platform.

I use TS, MT4 and Amibroker. MT4 wins this race, it’s like comparing the new ZO6 corvette to a stock corvette, it’s faster and much easer to work on. Once you learn the MQL4 language and options you will soon know why it’s the best

Thank u Bruce,

I have successfully traded the forex markets for 12 months now on a live account. I have used all of the above-mentioned software/ platforms and I can tell you that my preference above all of them is esignal for charting software and refcofx for my trading platform.


Just my two cents worth

hi guys ...

regarding to your question about the best trading platform , i think one should have more than one software at his disposal , well consider this
1-FXCM demo account .
2-FXtrading Station 2 provided by FXCM .
3-DynaOrder .
4-MT4 for chart analysis .
one should connect DynaOrder with FXCM (one should use the options provided at FXCM software as well as using the options provided with DynaOrder) to have the option for Automated trading , Dont forget MT4 to do all the neccesary chart analysis before posting your trade or creating your automated trading program .
one should practice this combination system for at least 3 months , then he/she could open a live trading account .
iam open for any comments ....

I hate Metatrader myself. I've tried both vers 3 and 4 for 2 months on a live account, and they are both terrible. There's got to be a better free automated system.