Hi guys,

As part of my research for the upcoming " Where to start as a trader (Part II: Trading Platforms)" webinar, I want to solicit input from members about the platforms they use.

If you could give me some information I would appreciate it.

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?

Even if someone before you has said something similar to how you feel, please reply anyway. I am gauging response by popularity so need to hear from multiple people even with similar feelings.

If you have any other thoughts to add please do so. Let's try to keep the thread on-topic, focusing on why you use the platform and leave all other discussion to other more appropriate threads.

Thank you,
Mike

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
1 year

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
Its flexibility, its low cpu and memory usage - means I can run multiple copies on one PC.

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
I just dont know any other trading program that allows you to configure so many components. I particularly like the chart based trading tool.

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
Sim and live

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
Discretionary. Sierra hasnt helped me in trading in a way that I can easily articulate, but I would say that I would never trade without it.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
Its not particularly intuiitive and the software design standards are very poor but once you spend some time looking at the menus and help videos you realise just how powerful it is.

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
I have never needed to use it! Which reminds me that I have never had a problem with Sierra freezing or crashing in the whole time I have used it.

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
Extremely and with some brokers you can get it for free.

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
I havent really had a need to use it so cant really comment.

Hope that helps

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
3-1/2 yrs

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
Overall flexibility. It is very easy to quickly prototype most kinds of indicators and alerts without any programming and then be able to follow up with the programming if desired.

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
Reliability. I don't need much to trade, but I cannot tolerate downtime.

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
Live trades

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
Discretionary. See #2 and 3. There are a lot of nice features, but it all boils down to reliability and flexibility for me.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
Easy, but there is a lot of depth, so learning new features and tips/tricks is an ongoing process.

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
Excellent. Very knowledgeable as they are the programmers and can often make decisions on features immediately. Some of the turnaround on new features has been amazing and the platform has evolved a great deal in the time I have been using it.

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
Yes.

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
Good, but this isn't really an important factor for me.

...

If you have any other thoughts to add please do so.
Great platform if you like to dig in, explore and learn. Probably not as much for those that want a lot of help and individual attention. As frustrating as trading can be, it is nice to at least have a trading platform that is a pleasure to work with everyday.

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
10 months
2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
ChartDOM - one click can enter limit order or stop order. Some may argue that other platform DOM can do the same, NO. For example, if you want to enter a stop order 1 tick above previous bar high, in SC, your put cross hair 1 tick above the bar and click, done; if you use other platform, you have to find the high price of last bar in chart, and then look for the price in DOM, if market moves fast, you will miss the entry.
3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
ChartDOM
4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
Live
5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
Discretionary trader, enter order quickly.
6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
It is hard at the beginning, but once you get used to, you will never go back to other platform.
7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
Service is great! Some may argue that SC needs to learn to please customers. SC service people are programmers, they know what they are talking about, if you request a feature, they think this would improve the platform, they do it very quickly, some can be done in couple of days with new release. In other platforms, they will forward your request to develop team, and you may not have that done in 2 years or forever. SC never responses like other platforms "Thank you very much for contacting ......," but they provide solutions quickly.
8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
Price is very good.
9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
Great community support too.

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
-I started using Sierra in Nov 2008, so that's 4 years. (But I used Ninja for about a year in between)

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
-I'm a chart trader and I love the ChartDOM, a Sierra exclusive.
-You can run multiple instances on up to two computers, with one license.

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
-Spreadsheet studies. You can use them for simple things like coloring and alerts, or for complex autotrading systems.

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
-Both. I use the ChartDOM.

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
-I'm a discretionary trader. Sierra is very configurable and flexible. You can make it do what you want and look how you like almost all of the time without programming.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
-It's no more difficult to learn than other charting feature-rich programs. IMO the menu tree is not intuitive but after a while you remember where everything is.

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
-Sierra Support is very responsive. They will fix a bug quickly, sometimes within hours. They will implement suggestions quickly, if they deem them valuable. Support is handled only by engineers and primarily on their forum, and it is well moderated. They don't tolerate abuse, bad attitudes, repetitive posts, or any nonsense. They can be curt sometimes, but engineers are not known for being good at public relations.

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
-It's the best bargain out there! Feature-rich for much less. They have 3 packages: $19, $26, $45/mo, with discounts for purchasing multiple months. It's lease only; you cannot buy a lifetime license.

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
-It's not extensive, but growing. Approved user-contributed studies are integrated so you don't have to go find them on forums.

More comments:
I really like that Sierra is stable, and lean. It never crashes for me. It does not use the Windows Registry, so it is contained in one folder. Next year the main version will no longer require .NET so it will be even more stable.

Hello.

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
1 year. I've migrated from Investor/RT.

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
- Open format for an intra-day db;
- ACSIL;
- The ability to run multiple instances;
- The volume studies;
- Look and Feel flexibility;
- Chart DOM;
- The ability to get rid of MS in the future.

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?


4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
Both. As well as for a semi-automatically analysis National Exchange w self-made adapter.


5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
Both. SC is reliable and predictable.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
Very easy.

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
Professional. Adequate. Pragmatic.

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
Yes.

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
Proportional to the client base.

gd lck

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?

Less than 1 year.

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?

The Market Profile/Volume Profile tools are excellent. I really like the ability to overlay a study from one chart to another chart as well.

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?

This again would be the Market Profile/Volume Profile/Numbers Bars (Footprint) tools.

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?

I typically don't execute trades through Sierra. I use X_Trader for OE. I have made a few trades (live) with the Sierra DoM to see how it goes and it appeared to be fine.

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?

Discretionary. Sierra helps by providing excellent charting and tools.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?

I had no problem adjusting to Sierra. Very user friendly but like all platforms, you just need to learn the ins and outs of everything.

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?

They seem to be very responsive. The support forum is good. They can be a bit dry with some of their responses on the forum but considering the amount of requests they get, its understandable.

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?

Absolutely. Priced way lower than their competitors. They appear to cater to the Market Profile/Volume Profile traders and the competing platforms are priced way higher. So yes, the most cost effective platform out there in this regard.

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?

It appears to be great. There are some great user contributed work and Sierra has a custom studies section for user contributed studies.

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
- On and Off. The most recent usage started 3 months ago.

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
- Run different copies even on same PC
- SIM trade as long as you wish
- Recently added step trail stop
- Extremely flexible

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
- The only independent platform for CTS T4 feed. If you trade with CTS but disappointed by CTS' lack of support for multiple targets, then SC is a must

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
- Live and SIM

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
- Discretionary

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
- Hard. So many features are buried inside deep

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
- Not the most friendly but get things done
- Responsive and fast to user suggestions and feedbacks

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
- A bargain

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
- Not sure on this one

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?

Three years by now.

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?

I like the built-in Cumulative Delta Studies and the flexibility the Spreadsheet Studies offer.

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?

The Spreadsheet features or an comparable easy-to-use language.

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?

I use Sierra for charting only. Order management is done via ButtonTrader.

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?

I'm a discretionary trader. The charts are nice and very flexible.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?

I have been using other platforms before, so getting started was no problem. But I think that learning how to fully exploit the features of any platform takes several months.

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?

Responses are usually fast. Though indeed they are lacking in basic politeness and one of them is down right offensive.

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?

I think it is too cheap ;-) Maybe one day they will understand this.

9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?

It's ok. There are some user supplied studies which are integrated into Sierra.


I think there are several areas where Sierra will have to improve:

• Organization of charts and spreadsheets. Currently you have charts organized into chartbooks with spreadsheets dangling around somewhere. There is lacking a layer of layouts/pages whatever you call it.
• They will have to merge trading capabilities into the pure charting instances of Sierra. Having to run a second copy causes some headaches in configuring it and is lacking in functionality.

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?
almost 6 months
2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?
The speed is fast and memory usage low
3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?
DOM
4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?
Live trades
5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?
Discretionary. Sierra chart is good at charting and the dom and position management is great too.
6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?
Rather easy, the program seems to be well thought out and most things are logical and works as one would expect.
7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?
I used them once, and they were excellent.
8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?
Yes, at the current price its a good deal.
9) How do you rate the community support that exists for Sierra Chart?
Did only look for community support here at NexusFi (formerly BMT), and there seems to be not very many users here. that said it seems most questions about sierra are answered here - so here at NexusFi (formerly BMT) the community support is good