Dear all,

I recently quit trading US bonds for a large institution to pursue a variety of projects. Part of my plan is to cover basic costs of living using the skills I developed over 7 years of watching the markets. My personality type is best suited to long-term macro investing and I engage in that separately, but I intend to initiate some shorter-term trades (1-6 month holding horizon) based on technical and sentiment analysis. My general strategy is to locate value opportunities in the context of trends - to buy on emotional dips in bull trends and sell on emotional rallies within bear trends, using minimal or no leverage. I will not day trade, but will look for a few opportunities per year to trade in any given market (bonds, stocks, gold, etc.).

The next step is to figure out what analysis software and data package to use. It needs run on a Mac, and I would like the ability to do basic line and candle charting for daily, weekly, and monthly horizons, as well as MACD histogram analysis. Interactive charts with the ability to draw trend lines is also needed. I am looking to contain costs as much as possible, as I only intend to trade a handful of times per year.

I am completely new to trading from home, and would appreciate any input that can help me get set up.

Thanks and I look forward to contributing to this community!

Motivewave runs on Mac natively. I tried it out and it worked fine.

They have a list of brokers that offer motive wave on their site but I know Optimus trading group offers it and I know those guys pretty well.

Thanks PandaWarrior

It looks like the Analyst edition of the Motivewave software could be sufficient for my needs. So Optimus specializes in futures trading? The data I would want for charting is daily closing levels preferably back 30 years at least for spot gold, S&P 500, and US 10y yields, as well as open/close high/low for candle construction. Is that something Optimus would provide?

Thanks for your help

@tokyobondtrader

You might try InvestorRT from Linnsoft - the full package is not necessary after your checklist.
The basic one is sufficient and much cheaper.
There is a trial version to get from their hompage.
Runs of course smoothly on OSX as it is written for it.

GFIs1

Hi GFIs1,

Thanks for that - I will check them out also. Any thoughts on sourcing the data (historicals for gold, S&P, US 10y, JPY, EUR, etc.)?

Thanks

tokyobondtrader 

Hi GFIs1, Thanks for that - I will check them out also. Any thoughts on sourcing the data (historicals for gold, S&P, US 10y, JPY, EUR, etc.)? Thanks

You can get historical data from DTN when getting a contract with them - price is 15$ monthly for historical if
I remember right.

GFIs1

OK DTN is DTN Interquote? Will check them out. I would then need a separate broker to place trades it looks like. I am still deciding whether I want to use futures or just trade etf's from a margin account. Much to contemplate here!

tokyobondtrader 

OK DTN is DTN Interquote? Will check them out. I would then need a separate broker to place trades it looks like. I am still deciding whether I want to use futures or just trade etf's from a margin account. Much to contemplate here!

DTN IQFEED - will be integrated in your contract if you chose it.
Of course the main question is about to trade etf's or futures - you have
to check the margins as well as the leverage.
Good trades!

GFIs1