Price Hike on Qcharts!

Qcharts just raised their prices. Now, I am paying roughly $200 a month. I am GOING TO try another trading platform. I am hearing good things about Think or Swim and Strategy Desk. I would love for someone to give me a little feedback on some of your trading platforms. Please let me know if there are hidden fees associated with your platform. I absolutely love Qcharts, but there comes a time when enough is enough. I would rather find another system before I am with Qcharts for several years.

What is the cost of each trade through Ameritrade (TOS)?
What is the minimum amount needed to open an account?
Is it true that Strategy Desk is free? If so, what is the catch?

If you do not use Qcharts, Strategy Desk, or TOS, I would love to hear about your trading platform.

Thank you very much!
Rookie

I am currently using Tradestation and am very happy w/ it. They do have a platform fee but if you trade a certain amount per month the fee is waived. I have also heard they are running a promotion w/ free platform fee for life. I have used Qcharts and also Strategydesk and in my opinion Tradestation is quicker than both of them. I have heard some people complain that TS is a resource hog but I havent had any issues w/ them. I do pay a data feed fee; I think its around $30 per month and I also dont have futures. I am able to get futures on the TOS charts which I have as well but honestly seldom use them. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll try to answer. As far as Strategydesk goes while I dont use it every day to my knowledge it is still totally free although I dont know how long they plan on supporting it. I know TOS is supposed to be their premier charting program I believe.

Thank you very much for your feedback. I have gotten feedback from a few people through PM. I really appreciate your help. I have chosen to go with TOS. It is totally free-with or without funds in the account. My brokerage account was Scottrade. I have been happy with them, but I love the idea of being able to trade from my trading platform.

TOS is very extensive. The platform has so many bells and whistles (most of will never use). The biggest issue was incorporating Gary's charting parameters. I reluctantly purchased the rights to a website of a gentleman who has tons of settings for all of Gary's technical indicators. I just did not want to go through and figure all that out. The gentleman has also developed scanners that recongnize HRFP's on the Daily Chart. The information was very inexpensive and works well. It has been well worth the money. He includes easy to follow instructions. So far I have about 85% of his indicators done. I am pretty happy about that. Futures also come with TOS. At this point, I do not see any major drawbacks to the platform. I can think of about 200 reasons why TOS is working well!

I have used Think or Swim, and I was not able to use it as well as QCharts. I went back to QCharts. I couldn't figure out how to slide the chart to see past time periods. It is free, but I am addicted to QCharts.

I heard this weekend that there may be another option for charting in the near future, but it is not available yet. If I hear anything, I will pass it on.

Donna

There is a playback feature in TOS That allows you to look back more than 20 days. It is called Think On Demand. You can access it by clicking the "OnDemand" button in the upper-right corner of the live trading application.

Thanks for that info. I am a sponge right now. I am gaining as much information regarding this platform as possible. I need to get back to trading "real money". One other thing that I have discovered is, if you save the TOS Program File to an external drive, you can access it on any computer that has online capability. Well, let me back up. I have been able to access the platform everywhere I have attempted (as long as I have my thumb drive". I am talking the full TOS platform.

I had my first successful practice trade using TOS on yesterday. That was good for me because based on the close relationship I had with Qcharts, I tend to go through seperation anxiety at times-lol. I am more afraid of losing my basket again, so I will practice until I feel confident trading real money. Does anyone use the news feeds from TOS to replace Briefing? I am not trying to be too cheap, but I am curious to know if anyone use the feeds.

I am addicted to Qcharts. My S/O uses Strategy Desk. We bounce off each others charts. I like my Qcharts because I have 8 years of study on them. I like that I can scroll forever and add as many charts as I like as well as quote sheets. I also like my quote sheet gainers and losers. I also like the ease of the tools.

I had thought about changing over to SD but I just couldn't make that move. My S/O doesn't use the Think or Swim futures charts since I have Qcharts.

Wow, 8 year! I have struggled after switching to TOS. I am working hours a day, trying to get a good handle on what I need from this platform. I still have the service until the end of the month, so I am trying to replicate as much as possible.

I made my first "real money" trade on appl this week, using TOS. It spike in after market hours on Thursday morning based on news regarding iphones being supported at some level from china, and a couple of other small things. I felt it would be short lived, so I watched the open and waited for the continued movement up, but I felt it would most likely plummit down. I established support at about $522, and waited for the break. I lost the 3 or 4 dollars as it came down, but it had to break my support before I would consider entering. It broke support, and I entered a PUT play, feeling strongly it would give me a few dollars going down. It went down another $4 in the next 45 minutes. I sold the position for a small profit. My rule is, when I sell, I close up shop until 3:00, looking for a possible entry for an AM pop.

The play was more art than science (charts). I guess this trade could have been made without charts. Wow-this is starting to sink in. Gary said trading is 90% art and 10% science. I love when he says, "It is not a art Thang!, It is not a art Thang!"

This is an interesting discussion and I'm glad I happened upon it. My problem is that my computers are Macs and, though I also have Windows 7 on mine, I'd rather not run it. Plus, the cost of QCharts is q little much. I've spent the last couple of hours trying to get my setting/studies on ToS to match QCharts. I'm having trouble with the ADX portion (only getting one line, not two) and also some of the timing things straight. The other thing is that I can't tell if I actually have it set up correctly. I guess the best way to tell is just to try it out for a while with some practices.

I like your rule about closing things down after a trade until the last hour of the trading day. I know after a trade I my heart is going and my feelings are all over the place. I'll have to that rule onboard.

Good luck.

In TOS use the DMI instead of the ADX and it will look just like Gary's.

Have fun.

I allowed my emotions to take control today! I jumped a trade and lost $150. AMZN gave me a "headfake". I bought puts at around 11:00. I thought it was going on down based on candle formation, RTT, and previous FP. Anyway, I should have never bought a put so close to the bottom BB, and NAS and DOW were on opposite sides of of the track. Not smart! Woa!! That was not good enough for me, so I went out and bought more Puts on CRM to be help overnight. I just lost my cool today! I share this with you fairly new traders, praying you can learn from my mistakes. Honestly, I need to vent a little because I am disappointed in myself.

Get this, prior to deciding to drop Qcharts, I was making 2+ trades a week (about 10 a month). I was trading very well, but since that period of time, I have been like a fish flapping around out of water. After well over a week, I finally found a charting platform that I like, and I have set all my charting parameters consistent with Gary's parameters. Today, I heard that little voice saying, "find a trade, find a trade. You are good at this". Well, I found out really fast that I need time to get my bearings again, and I am not that good. After having a few successful practice trades, I resume trading and trading well. Thank God I lost less than $200. This other position could crush me in the AM, but we will see.

Yep I have waited all week (since Jan 14) for a trade and the charts are simply telling me 'NOT NOW'!!

Everything is on hold. To be honest I am wondering if AAPL doesn't have some of these traders a little shaken. (Check out Blloomberg video "How much can Apple affect the markets"

Also look at the bank stocks....They aren't exactly setting the world on fire.

rookie30, how did your other trade go?

dmkratzer,
I lost money (about another $125), but I got out before getting crushed to bad. Again, God was looking out for me. I will practice with the new charts ( Strategy Desk) until I am very comfortable going back out with real money. After the loss, I have set up about 10 practice trades. I did well with 4 that I practiced. My problem is I am pulling the string so fast right now. As soon as I get a 15% profit, I am out! I am still a little afraid, so I need to continue practice. My other practice trades are looking good as the charts are turning over and heading in my direction.

Well, 15% isn't much to sneeze at.

Hi Rookie30,

Kars is right ... 15% compounded over time is a pretty decent return.

Good job getting out before you were crushed.

Donna

Thanks for the reality check. I want to follow that money progression plan that Gary included- in Class One I think. Gaining 20% on 8 trades a month keeps me on track. I am going to get that plan out of my head and just take what the market gives me. Again, I appreciate the reality check. Why am I complaining about 15%.... Sorry guys, I am not greedy. I am just trying to follow this plan. I tend to feel I am falling short if I do not reach those marks laid out in that program. If I earned an avg. of 15% opposed to 20%, I am still retiring well before I am 50. I am early 40's.

Cut yourself some slack. You are still learning (as we all are). You will get to 20% (and beyond) before you know it. If you can get 15% each trade for 8 trades per month, that is pretty fantastic.

Gary William's is a great teacher.

Yes, Qcharts is expensive; therefore, I'm using OptionsXpress with the exact same possible layouts. Click on blue toolbar Quotes, then Streaming Charts. You need the latest Java. Then once a chart is up, click the Detach arrow by the question mark at the upper right corner. Set up your layouts and desktops. They have custom times: 233...but you cannot use more than one custom time per layout.

I use Full Stochastics with a near exact trigger. I have requested to them to implement StochRSI. MY HOPE: To get enough people to rally and have them add StochRSI as an indicator. The ADX can have a different setting as the DMI when overlapped on a separate chart.

I use their Indices Futures, but their policy is you need to enroll (simple process) in Futures and Margin with OptionsXpress; of course I don't trade Futures or use Margin, but I did sign up.

Call OptionsXpress: "They're very, very customer friendly".