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Used eSignal charting for a year back in 2009, mainly for trading stocks. While the charts were nice and clean, for some reason they would always be lagging, even with a 20 Mbps connection. No other charting program before or since had any lag. I didnt give up on it for a full year. But after the first couple of months (paying for mistakes before I realised it was a lagging) I didnt use it any more. The support wasnt helpful either - they were just adamant that it was upto the minute and I even sent them screen shots of my Schwab chart and eSignal side by side.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Maybe you got unlucky @garyboy275, I have used eSignal for many years now and it just flies for me, on a variety of different 2,3 and now 5 Mbit connections, if you monitor in the task manager it rarely needs more than 8-12Kbit/s for the remote link anyway, more on the localhost connection to other programs but that's memory based.
What mix of symbols/etc are you using?
I have had mine with eSignal layouts, Ninja, MTPredictor, TradeGuider, SentientTrader all going on one box 250 active symbols and no performance issues at all. In fact eSignal T&S make many (e.g. TOS) look sick in comparison.
Nowadays mind I just use Ninja and a couple dozen symbols but that's for my brain limits not connections or platforms.
I know it supported over 200 symbols but I wasnt using more than 20 at a time. And all were stocks with high ATR, high vol (over2 mill/day) and like I said it was always lagging 5-10 seconds. I trade off candlesticks but when setups occur and say a candle stick is closing at 11 am-you'd get a massive move in 1-2 secs cause algos pick up same thing. SO I started front running the algos cause the moves were massive and I didnt realize it the delays in eSignal until I saw that front running before the cande closed(watching all charts at 10:59:55 for a candle closing at 11 am) and even then I was missing the move. Then I paid close attention to what price my schwab charts were showing and what eSignal was showing and there was clear lag. For sure the lag couldnt be at my end-why would I get right price for schwab and not for eSignal ? I still kept it for a full year trying to work with their support $120/mo wasnt big deal for me if it works but finally I couldnt justify it anymore. Cant be the computer either - always have had a top of line and upgrade everything every 2 years.
Sorry to hear your experience Gary, I cannot think of a good explanation. I am in UK and use the eSignal European servers to access Xetra Dax data plus NYSE/CME/Nasdaq and its always instant, that is a mystery.
I did a ton of research before picking a front end platform and demo tested just about everything out there except CQG/Bloomy/Reuters due to them being cost prohibitive at this stage in my career.
I do agree with the OP about that the cost of the best possible tools in this business is absolutely essential for success and should be a predetermined cost added into a traders business plan. That being said my price range for my data feeds/clearing/front end for my account size and average monthly return was set at $250-350.
I trade multiple instruments with specific strategies, and am a discretionary supply/demand price action trader. I am not a programmer or a quant trader although I am proficient with excel for managing data.
I day trade ES/spy during New York hours when I am at my home in California and I day trade KOSPI futures during the winter months when I live in Hawaii due to much better hours. Year around I swing trade a selection of FX and liquid futures contracts as well as various longer term option plays on a basket of stocks/ETFs.
In order to have access to accurate data across all of these exchanges and good charting I found Esignal floated the bill the best.
Im able to easily create dedicated pages for all of my instruments in easily managed hotlists
The docked windows make managing multiple charts/options chains very nice
I don't consider esignal to be any better than ninjatrader, multicharts, etc. It's definitely a step down from TT, CQG. Now it doesn't cost as much as TT, CQG, but don't expect something that is a professional level product.
eSignal should really re think their pricing imho. They are still pricing it like it was 1996 and real time data feeds were $1000/mo or more. Bandwidth is cheap nowadays. Computing power is absolutely amazing and cheap. I am sure if they offered competitive package say all in around $80 or so more people would sign up.
first off, NOT affiliated with eSig...just a user.
over 18 yrs using eSig...still using 10.6. I make my primary living trading securities Long...usually 10-20 blocks. I usually have 5 positions open at one time.
annual fee is $1,900...so why don't I look for a cheaper platform?
in the last 3 mos. I had 21 trades with profit over $1,900... that pretty well covers my fee until 2035.
eSig has what I need to be successful. IF I was a better EFS programmer, I would be doing better. but it would be at the expense of my focus on trading strategy...I modify existing EFS files to help identify nuances. these IDs quickly identify opportunities occurring at the hard right edge making screening for candidates easier.
don't use multi-monitors. only price, OBV, and a pane that contains dual CCIs. (eSig supports this).
respectfully,
PeterJerome