Which Charting Package?
There are more charting packages being peddled than one can shake a stick at. Though there are many choices not all are created equal and what will work for you depends on what you need.
Personally, my needs are quite modest…give me candlestick charts in an easy to use customizable layout interface and I’m good to go. Additionally, if I can create price/technical alerts with relative ease to help me stay on top of the market this is always a huge help. When you trade as many pairs as I do it’s a little challenging to monitor all 20+ pairs constantly at all times of the day so alerts functionality is a plus for me.
For those of you that require a bit more professional functionality and are still looking for the “right” charting package/service, consider these things:
- should be intuitive to use and easy to learn
- supports wide range of functionality/customization
- layouts/workspace should be portable (accessible from any computer)
- stable and reliable
For these reasons, my package of choice is ProRealTime. Even though I don’t personally use technical studies there is an impressive roster of studies available for those of you who do use them. I especially like the fact that I create multiple layouts that I can access from any computer because it’s all online and server based. The chart images in my posts are all generated by this package.
In any event, you’ll need to try out various packages until you find one that meets your needs and will allow you to develop some level of basic proficiency relatively quickly. I don’t know about you but I’d don’t have time to read a 300 page instruction manual just to learn how to use a charting package…all my extra time is spent on perfecting the trade.