December 9, 2008 The most important part of your brokerage firm’s online trading platform is the charting. What information does it display and how easy is it to setup and change for different looks is the question that comes to my mind. For example, I like to use a lighter background with a darker price chart, green for fast moving average, red for slower moving average, orange for On Balance Volume (OBV), red and green for the MACD signal lines, red and green up and down volume bars, candlestick style price chart, yellow for %K and medium blue for %D, and possibly an orange histogram with the MACD signal lines overlayed on top of it. To get the full set-up instructions step by step, click here to receive the stock chart set-up instructions for all 5 brokerage firms from Schwab, Fidelity, Etrade, Ameritrade and Scottrade. Some people like a black background and that works too. It comes down to what you get used to and what suits your tastes. It is the reading and interpreting of the information is what is of prime importance. As I mentioned in the last blog post, Schwab has a tick chart available, the only large online brokerage firm that offers tick information at the moment. But it is very likely other firms will add that feature in. This can be set for 1 tick or all the way to 25 ticks. A 1 tick setting means that you want each and every order to show up on the chart, 1 tick for each order that goes through time and sales. See time and sales in glossary. To be continued . . . . . Time and Sales: The official record of all executed trades during a trading day. Each stock has time and sales and this is provided by most brokerage firms for no charge. You will see a window showing every order displayed with the time in hours, minutes, seconds and fractions of seconds. (hh:mm:ss.x), 12:31:06.3)

Stock Trading, Stock Trading techniques, stock market education chart setup, Stock Charts, stock market educatino, stock trading strategies

Online Stock Trading Software

I am going to discuss in a series of blog postings and articles about the subject of online stock trading software.  What is day trading software or stock trading software and what does it do for you?  Well, there are several different categories and many providers of software…..let’s start with what the 5 major online brokerage firms offer.

Most of the brokerage firms provide their trading software to their customers for no charge if they have certain amount of assets, balances or incur a minimum number of transactions that are done in a time period, usually 30 trades per calendar quarter.

Charles Schwab is the largest of the online brokerage firms and their trading platform is called Schwab StreetSmart Pro (Schwab Online Stock Trading Software).  I have used this trading software for years and their latest upgrade continues to improve their platform.  They recently added tic charts, which means that the stock charts can show every trade of a stock as well as other time sequences (1 min, 2, 3, 5, Daily, and so on).  Schwab, as well as most other firms now has a strategy tester, using previous stock history as well as a screener and scanner.  Their strategy tester is weak and difficult to understand but Schwab StreetSmart Pro is one of my favorite stock charting for real-time intraday charts..

One of the most important aspects of any trading platform is the charting system.  You want to have many technical indicators (also known as studies), programmable time sequences, easy to change colors, and sizes.  Every trading platform has its advantages and disadvantages.  You will have to weigh all factors such as the brokerage firm’s execution and reporting speed, commissions, customer service, features of the trading software and any other benefits of that package and firm.  Tomorrow I’ll talk about other features of a trading platform as well as other firm’s stock trading software that I’ve used or tested.

To be continued . . . .

Mitch King
www.TradeStocksAmerica.com

Uncategorized online trading software, Stock Charts, stock trading software