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"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
I, too, have used StrategyDesk for over a year and love it!. I am now in the trial period of TC2000 to see if I can gain any advantage over SD. I wanted to point out that in TC2000, you can sort your columns in descending order to bring any matches to the top of the list. You had mentioned that you did not like having to look thru your entire list to find a match.
I only trade stocks and use the five minute charts. I use a simple formula with a quick exit strategy that makes me about 1-2 hundred per day.
Thanks TechTrader for your comments! I have many questions for you regarding your experiences using the StrategyDesk alerts/screeners and of course...if only TC2000 did what you suggested it does! In fact, it does not automatically sort or scan the market in real time for easy scan conditions. You have to periodically hit the Re-Scan to resubmit your easyscan to Worden servers and yes it does return a static list. It does not dynamically stream updates to your computer. This was confirmed by Worden technical support.
Also, the stocks already in the watchlist after doing a scan do not automatically re-sort. This was also confirmed by technical support. Like a lab rat you must continuously hit the Re-Sort button at the bottom of the watchlist in order to sort your conditions.
Honestly thats really lame. geez...after making such powerful scanning software they force the user to have to hit a button to re-sort over and over again. What an easy piece of software coding they left out.
The other just insane thing they left out is any really useful alerts feature...another easy piece of coding they left out. It has alerts, price alerts and a silly 'reminder' alert. Great for people who trade the same stocks day in and day out but that's not how I work! I scour a large universe stocks for signals. I want to be smacked over the head with an alert to let me know that my conditions have been found. I DON'T want to have to hit buttons all day long and have my eyes glued to a 4 x 4" section of my computer monitor all day long in the hopes of finding a signal.
I find it very disappointing yet, so far my experiences with StrategyDesk have shown that it cannot generate valid signals quickly enough. I know this because at the end of the day, I backtest using the same conditions and it finds those conditions after the fact. Why can't SD screener find them in real-time? It's just not responsive enough to catch them. this is disappointing considering my conditions are on the 10 and 60 minute time frames. 10 minutes should be plenty of time to cycle through 500 stocks (I trade the S&P 500.
A perfect piece of software for me would be - a blend of StrategyDesk and Worden TC2000. Wow what a combination that would make!
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
I have worked with StrategyDesk, Tradestation, NinjaTrader, Worden TC2000 and Now Multicharts and none of them seem to be able to accomplish what I want on the short time frames i want to trade at. I cannot trade without a powerful screener in place.
I am defeated.
My best luck was in the longer time frames using Ameritrades StrategyDesk. I am one step away from calling it quits as a day trader and switching to the longer time frames.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
I have officially given up on trying to find short term signals using any particular software. I am back to using Strategydesk even though Ameritrade is no longer my broker. Spent the last few days re-configuring my setup. Added a second computer as a backup in case I get a crash during a trade. Also, I have decided to focus on a single stock. Currently watching SPY for my signals on the 5 minute time frame in the hopes that I can find a way to do without any real time stock screener. the shorter time frames should allow a greater number of signals per day while I watch fewer stocks.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion
Hey ShruggedAtlas, I was in the same boat as you. I opened an account with TDA and used their Strategy Desk a lot. Since it was the first platform I used to start trading, I was afraid to venture to a new platform. However, I started noticing inconsistencies with the Level II screens and their less-than-stellar feeds. I switched over to the Think or Swim platform through TDA and fell in love. However, they did not give me a margin account to go short because I did not reach their margin requirements or options trading so I had no way of hedging positions or participating when the markets were heading lower.
I removed all my money from a TDA based Think or Swim account and put it all into an account directly with Think Or Swim and never looked back. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Think or Swim thus far. If you open an account directly with Think or Swim, you get automatic options trading, tutorials, access to learn thinkscript and the ability to link your commission structure to your trading size. The best part is, Think or Swim is free!
What makes Think or Swim a great alternative as well is that they have tutorials for everything all over their platform. There is so many options that it becomes overwhelming at a glance but after a few hours, it just makes perfect sense and you will begin to wonder how you put up with StrategyDesk
As for alerts, I cannot speak too much for alerts on indicators. I believe they have them and do recall trying something that took too much effort for me because I don't have a heavily based trading strategy. However, I often set trading alerts for breaks of support/resistance and they are for the most part instantaneous. I have mines set so that I get an email and the email I have listed is my phone's email. There are also preset sounds that will play if you have the desktop platform open (you can also customize to play an .mp3 or .wav file of your choosing when an alert is hit or trade executed)
I included an intro link to thinkscript which is Think Or Swim's custom indicator builder. If you like writing custom indicators, I think it might be right up your alley.
thanks for your suggestion about TOS. Only problem is that it doesn't have a real time screener at all. It's scanner is not what I need. I need a real time screener that can dynamically filter a large number of stocks based on my custom criteria. I know I sound like a broken record since i've been lamenting about this problem for some time now, but the funny thing is that no one has been able to suggest a platform that has the screener that I need. Even the dedicated screeners out there such as Trade Ideas and Madscan are not suitable to the way I trade. Personally, I found TOS unnecessarily complicated as to it's layout. It has many outstanding features but it's put together in a way that just doesn't work with the way I trade. I'm not a big fan of the general layout but even this would be tolerable if only it had an effective real time screener capable of doing what StrategyDesks screener does.
The nail in the coffin for TOS/Ameritrade for me now is the recent poor customer service I received and of course the high cost to trade. I am now using Lightspeed which truly is wickedly fast and while it's platform is incredibly basic allows me to trade for .005 cents per share. In this initial stage of development, this is exactly what i need from a broker...super cheap trades so I don't get constantly beat up by $20 round trip commissions.
I am a rules based trader and my signals won't show up often enough in any individual stock often enough for me so I prefer to apply my strategy to a large universe of stock. out of the S&P500 there are only a few stocks on any given day that will signal a trade. this is why I need a screener that is constantly looking for opportunities.
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan, 5-Time NBA Most Valuable Player, 6-Time NBA Champion