I've noticed a couple of traders using Mac's. I've always been fascinated by Mac's but never owned them. Since OS X and when the switch was made for Intel procs, I have really wanted to own one.

I'm very familiar with Parallels and VMware and VirtualBox and all that. But I wondered how much of the native OS X experience really still shines through for a professional trader who lives inside a VM most the day.

Mike

I have a 13" MacBook and a 32" Apple Cinema Display off to my right.

I run parallels full screen with my charts up during the day on the big monitor and when things get untrendy I'll head over to my mac and work on other stuff.

The transition is seamless and my mac is more than powerful enough to run XP. (Windows 7 is an option too as is Vista).

There is even coherence mode, but I don't really have a use for it (and I loathe windows.)

Not sure what else I could tell you, other than I love this setup. Now if somebody could just make a charting application for OS X native

I use a 20" iMac. When I run VMWare on it, you can still see a lot of difference in the speed.

The OS X takes some getting used to but I love it. Shut down or start up is almost instant. Everything is just much smoother.

dave

I'm using a Mac. 24" display. Running both OS X and VMware, under which I run Windows XP. Ninja looks & runs just like it does on my Vista (PC) laptop at home, but the MAC has a MUCH LARGER display, which makes it much easier than looking at charts on a 15" laptop screen, especially if you have 2 or 3 charts up at the same time. It would be nice if Ninja ran natively on OS X !

It is very fascinating to know that traders in this forum use Apple MAC. I have NinjaTrader on Windows XP running under VMware Fusion in my MacBook Pro 17" and a MacBook 13". I also have a 42" Philips LCD TV which I connect to the DVI port on my MacBook Pro 17" using a DVI-to-VGA Adapter. The LCD TV has a VGA port. It also has two HDMI ports. The quality of the display on the LCD TV is not satisfactory even with my installation of the SwitchResX software on my MacBook Pro 17" and MacBook 13". A DVI-to-HDMI Adapter is required to obtain a high and satisfactory quality display on the LCD TV. Meanwhile, I'm OK with the LCD TV display until I purchase a DVI-to-HDMI Adapter. I shall appreciate it if TheWizard would share his experience with me on this forum.

I have a 15" MacBookPro, and an Mac Mini w/22" LCD.

I use NinjaTrader under VMWare/WindowsXP for non trading stuff and for trading I use hosted NinjaTrader / Win Server 2003. The Mac Mini is mainly used for displaying the hosted copy of ninjaTrader.

Apparently parallels is better option than vmware comparing its last modern versions in modern macīs.

Very interesting comparison.

Head-to-Head: Parallels Desktop for Mac vs. VMware Fusion

Greetings.

I use Macs too, but I wouldn't trade with one in a virtual machine, I'd only use NT on Windows on a Mac with Bootcamp. I don't want to take the chance of missing a trade because a virtual machine slowed me down. I have to say my MacBook Pro is 3 years old, so it's not as fast as some of these newer ones, but I'd rather be running Windows directly on the metal if I was trading. I have traded on my Mac with Java-based trading platforms (thinkorswim, IB's TWS) just fine though.

BTW, I do most of my trading on a Quad Core dell on Vista, with 2 25.5" Samsung monitors and a laptop on the side as well, usually running thinkorswim for streaming commercial-free CNBC, longer-term charts, news feeds, and occasional options trades.

I've owned several Macs and liked them for "general" use. I would not use one to trade with. I know that Investor/RT does native Mac charts, not sure about execution with a futures broker. Forex should be fine just find someone like dukascopy that do java charts and execution.

You could always get an iMac and dual boot it instead of using a VM. Windows will then run natively on the Mac, but then what would be the point? I use a homebuilt PC now with 2 Apple Cinema equivalent displays. I am using the exact same screen as they do in a 27" iMac (but I have two). Looks freakin' awesome.

keymoo 

I've owned several Macs and liked them for "general" use. I would not use one to trade with. I know that Investor/RT does native Mac charts, not sure about execution with a futures broker.

I am a veteran Mac user since 1985...
As you state right - Investor/RT combined with eg. IB is all it needs.
Fast, reliable and straightforward.
Depending on your needs for calculation / screens etc. one can already trade
on a very mobile solution like a MacBook Air.
Positive about it: there is no need to be at a fixed station to fire your trades.

GFIs1