March Madness

That's what it feels like right now...madness.

I downloaded and signed up for a new charting service with a free 30 day trial. I also upgraded to the highest end trading platform that Questrade have, Questrader Elite. Elite and Pro I am sure are just canned platforms from somewhere else as they seem familiar from elsewhere.

So, on scales of 10 the Questrader Elite gets a whopping 0, yep ZERO. I could not find a manual for it anywhere but a lot of the features were in the Pro manual so I just checked it out there. I found it cumbersome and difficult and I could not find anywhere that let me place stop orders. I blew about $60 in commissions and small losses in order to figure out how it works. I ordered a downgrade back to Pro before lunch anyway.

Esignal on the other hand....


The charting package on trial on the other hand is great. I spent the last few days just concentrating on setting it up. I felt that it was important to get it looking good first, playing around with options second and perhaps trying some trading from it last.


I cannot trade directly using it so I still have to use Questrade's platform, which is no big deal. As long as I have either dual monitors or two computers it is good to go.


Functions that I wanted and found are:


- audible adjustable alerts, more than I care to try to list here
- lots of lines
- formulae for auto daily, weekly and monthly pivot point plotting
- formulae for custom applications or modifying existing ones (I already have two mods)
- multiple pages setup for particular purposes, custom as well
- templates for default charts for various purposes
- longer intraday data archiving
- easy chart replay
...and more


The downside are some of the fees that go along with it. $125 per month plus data fees of about $40 for what I need...or want. I think I will be fine with these as I am sure that the functionality with pay for itself over and over again. I had pretty much decided that I needed better data anyway and also that better then I had was not going to be free.


Fee justification.


How's this for justifying the extra fees:


Commissions for a month at 60 trades per = $297
ECN fees, guesstimate = $70
Charting package fee = $125
Data access fees approx = $40
Total monthly costs = $532


Given 60 trades that is $8.86 per trade rather than just the $4.95 from Questrade or if I consistently hit even my 1% average daily goal I have covered the entire costs in two weeks of trading. Later as 1% is a larger absolute gain it will be easier to swallow.

So, here's to getting serious as serious is needed when te costs go up.

Jeff.