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One 30 inch dell HD monitor thats probably 6 years old at this point and a 15 inch Dell Latitude E4300 laptop. I keep all the charts hidden in the task bar except my trading chart and the DOM.
If traded Forex, I'd have at least 6 monitors....otherwise, this is enough at this point.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
I use four 24" monitors in my setup with only one single chart per monitor.
Two of them are reserved for the two instruments I usually trade, one only for convenience to pull up any chart for comparison purposes or just to get another picture of the market I'm actually trading, and the fourth is for Email and of course futures.io (formerly BMT) stuff.
In former times I used to look at at least 8 charts or more, but the result was that I missed the really good trades on nearly EVERY instrument way too often...so I decided to focus on mainly two markets which fit best to me and let the others go in order to minimize all the distraction.
Sometimes less is more, and my results so far did prove me right.
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
I'm up for trying it but my situation is very mobile so I need a laptop and it's hard to hook more than 2 monitors to a laptop. I have two offices at home, each with one external monitor waiting for me. Then I have an office at one of my client's offices with another monitor. Other times I'm working at a free WiFi spot (Starbucks, Panera) and there I'm just on my laptop. I don't doubt I might enjoy or be more productive with >2 monitors but in the short-term at least, I'll never know.
You did this on purpose to make me go spend some money didnt you thx for sharing photo and how you use your setup in trading multiple instruments I like your setup ALOT
@sandptrader... I have decided for me the ideal setup is (6) 27" monitors stacked over and under with the right and left facing 30-45degrees inward toward desk chair. i will have (2) 22" monitors mounted over top of top left and top right 32" facing downward. 20ish degrees. I will probably go with 32's just because its my preference... For now my setup is shown in pics. (2) 50 left right facing inward, (2) 32" center over and under with a 22" under bottom 32" which is used for surfing during trades.... I can trade 2 instruments and never close a screen and surf on the 22" while my eyes can easily glance to trades in progress.....
@shodson- I have a buddy he trades from a 17" laptop from coffee houses, he has done this for 17 years he trades multiple equities,options and ES all from that damn little screen, so whatever works use it. But he's not a scalper either
LOL, honestly, I would have gone for smaller monitors (4 or 6 arranged vertically) like BM has or this guy KickMic (that is a nice setup). But all the smaller ones are not viable in WQHD. The future belongs to 2560x1440 and 4K (I wish!). 1920x1080 is no longer interesting. Besides, my business can afford this setup, and so it is.
There is a small issue of minor back-light leakage in one of my new monitors. It's the price one pays for not buying the Dell or the Asus WQHD ones. These Korean direct ones can be like that. The current difference in costs between mine and the Dell WQHD is quite a lot at this time (which is sure to come down when WQHD becomes the norm).
As we've seen mentioned, required monitor real estate differs vastly depending on full time vs part time trader, intraday vs swing trader.
For a swing trader I wouldn't think that anything more than 2 monitors is necessary. For intraday trading however this probably differs a lot from trader to trader. However there definitely is such a thing as too much information. Having 10 monitors up is absolutely useless if you spend most of your time looking at 2 of them and miss the information on the other 8. Why bother.
For me I have found 2 monitors per instrument to be a nice fit. I have my main trading timeframe up on one monitor (using up the whole screen). Then on another, I have various timeframes up for the same instrument. Not every timeframe is up at the same time. Why do I need to have a dedicated monitor for weekly and monthly charts? I look at them in the morning, make my notes, then bring up more relevant intraday related charts on the same monitor. So for me,....2 monitors per instrument.
Oh and one other thing,...in my opinion the purchase of additional monitors should come from trading profits. If you are unable to generate enough money through trading to purchase additional monitors,...then additional monitors are not going to help your trading.
Run 4 monitors on trading computer with a beater lap top for email, and other non trading activities. Always trade CL, and TF. Pick the other 2 from 6 other markets the nite before What works for me is having the two markets most likely to be traded on the bottom monitors. One market per screen, do use mtf. If day trading slower markets like grains, they go on the upper screens. Only allow myself to trade two markets at one time. Make sure you know how your mouse is set up for navigating screens. More than 4 screens is brain overload for me. Usually trade only 2 markets in reality. Sometimes the other markets are doing anything, not moving as well, don't have the R/R or whatever your priorities are.
The strange thing is that I have the patience to watch 4 markets do nothing. But no patience for watching one do nothing.
vertically.....awww thats ur secret to trade top to bottom Im still old school looking left lol.........Vertical has benefits such as programming where they use top to bottom for more continuously screen lines, many legal professionals use vertical, reading pages and pages of case reports. But I still need my wide screen Ive tried vertical in past and even the other day looked at it again. But for me I m happy with my setup, tested the waters friday watching and tweaking layout,today net 109 in CL and 3 pts in ES, havent got used to both instruments together. ES I will bring up Im new to CL few weeks trading it so im focusing on it hard
oh and I figured out Elliot wave added that to my toolbox I ll hit u up soon