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Is MultiCharts still current and a valid platform to use?
Is it still maintained?
Is the company likely to be around in a few years?
Some background:
I hope that the title and my questions do not offend anyone.
I'm very new to trading and a relatively technical person. I have been looking for a platform and I believe that Multicharts will give me the most important things that I am looking for if you are interested here is my list:
flexibility to connect to different brokers like Interactive brokers and Binance
and flexibility to create and test strategies.
My main concerns are because there are plenty of a lot more popular web based platforms, it doesn't look like Multicharts is a common option and a lot of the content on the web site and links to videos is relatively old. I have come across some online content that has mentioned that Multicharts might have been created or previously owned by the chaps that created TradingView and MultiCharts may no longer be maintained.
I am running a trial at the moment and it is not the simplest to use, but so far so good, but I am concerned about the time that I am committing to the software and potential money.
Any information would be appreciated, and suggestions to look at other platforms also.
Thanks.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
They are not only have many users in USA or Europe, but also famous in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Let you know that every Taiwan local brokers support Multicharts, no matter you bought from US website or bought from local provider(Traditional Chinese version), or you can lease from Taiwan local brokers(monthly about 35USD including data feed).
Since their market is worldwide, you don't need to worry about this question.
By the way Multicharts support multiple different data feed and brokers connection, you can use CQG or others supported data feed with interactive broker.
And Easylanguage is much more easy than C++ or C#, also there are many informations about Easylanguage on internet.
I wanted to share some further finding on my trial, as it might help other people trying to make a decision on investing on this platforms.
So far I have NOT yet made a decision on based on pros and cons if it will use it or.
From what I have been able to find and it is also supported by your links for PM and new features, and I agree that there is some work happening on MC, I am not sure if a lot of work is happening but there is some dev work going on, based on linked in info I would say there could be one dev for the c# version and one for the easylanguage version. I understand that it is a mature product and that having a large team of developers is not practical.
It is great to hear that in Taiwan and Hong Kong there is a big number of users.
I am still working with support during my trial to try and solve some issues, I have used both emails and live messages, I have been very polite and friendlly and responsive I normally get a 24 hour turn around for emails.
But on the other hand,
If I understand correctly, it is also recommended to use Visual Studio 2010. Which is very old and no longer appears on micosoft's Visual Studio Older versions download page, but it might be available from MSDN or it's new name.
For the dot net version fo MC, if you want to use visual studio, which is needed for debugging, it appears that only dot net 4.0 is supported.
My findings so far are that on windows 10 it is not possible to have dot net 4.0 installed. According to microsoft dot net 4.0 has reached end of life, and there might be a number of vulnerabilities against it.
But I'll continue to work with support. Support have said that they are plans to upgrade it to newer version but no ETA.
Although the functionality is there from the built in "MultiCharts .NET64 Power Language Editor", I have not been able to get the equivalent work via visual studio.
From the features that I am looking for, it is possibly the only tools that can tick all the boxes so far.
I had a major issue with Multicharts.
The chart froze whilst I was in a trade , I was using mental stops then , now I use hard stops.
The market reversed quickly and I couldn't get out of the trade at all, the brokers automatic stop activated and got me out, but I lost a nice chunk of change.
I complained and sent logs , but I never heard back from them.
It caused me to create a few changes in how I do things.
1. Always place a stop loss order in with your entry , so it activates automatically.
2. Have a backup , incase of computer/internet issues. Have the brokers APP on you phone ready to go at all times.
3. Don't use Multicharts.
#3, not sure about this one. I have been using MC for 2 years with no crashes, although my trading is automated and I'm not doing chart trading. As for support, I would go to the forum, post your issue there, then go through uploading logs, etc. as they instruct. They have been very responsive on any questions I have had.
I understand the frustration, but if I took that advice - abandoning a platform after a malfunction - I would not be trading with Tradestation, Multicharts, NinjaTrader, the internet in general, phone lines, telex, telegram, snail mail, smoke signals or any other method (to place orders manually).
The simple fact is issues can and will happen, regardless of platform or how orders are placed.
It is truly a cost of running a trading business.
The interesting thing - at least for me - is that I remember all the times screwups cost me money. I don't remember the times that screwups made/saved me money.
Once for a class, I recorded all issues over a 4-6 month period. Guess what? The net impact of mistakes/issues was pretty much near $0. But all I remember were the times I lost money!!!!
I'll add my .02 as I'm a 10+ year Lifetime MultiCharts license holder and use it to trade with IB, though I have also been using TradeStation 9.5 over the past year for reasons I'll explain in a moment...
Yes and their support team was always responsive over the years whenever I needed them - not so much for TradeStation.
Yes, though I had issues with v14 that's kept me using v12 for stability reasons. I'm sure they've probably addressed them by this point, but I don't need any of the new features in v14 and I'm more enamored of late with OOEL (object oriented EasyLanguage) only offered on TradeStation.
Heh - I've been using them for more than 10 years, but who can ever say how long any company will be around? You could always try rolling your own from scratch and avoid "obsolescence", but be prepared for years of effort (and that assumes you have the background to do that to begin with).
I evaluated a broad spectrum of retail platforms over the years (e.g. MetaTrader 4/5, NinjaTrader 7/8, Sierra, AmiBroker, ThinkOrSwim, MultiCharts EL/C#, TradeStation 9/10 to name but a few). I've been in IT for 40+ years with a programing background but even given that, I found EasyLanguage "easier" to backtest the plethora of strategies that you'll no doubt come across as it requires a LOT less code and is ultimately cross-compiled to C (using gcc behind the scenes) so is crazy fast.
So at least for me:
reduced development time was/is very important
backtesting performance is paramount (i.e. needs to fully support multithreading, etc.)
needs to be stable/reliable
needs to be extensible (via DLLs if necessary which both MC and TS allow)
broad range of supported data feeds (I use IQFeed) and brokers (I use IB)
is not subscription-based (I want to pay once and be done; personal preference)
So while in "learn mode", I highly recommend MultiCharts assuming you have access to a decent data feed as it's met all my needs listed above and beyond. I switched to TradeStation last year when I started bumping up against some "limitations" with Renko charts that required me to switch to TradeStation's OOEL variant of EasyLanguge. Trading with some of the "exotic" (?) bar variants (Range, Renko, Kagi, Heikin-Ashi, etc.) across most platforms have "quirks" (e.g. IOG) that you'll no doubt experience at some point but is all part of the learning exercise. I was able to get around most of those using TradeStation but have a lot more gray hairs to show for it (having to develop strategies as indicators just to get access to intrabar ticks, properly handling partial fills, TS insistence of re-sending duplicate order IDs, etc.)...
Still, TradeStation now only requires a minimum $2k account size to start out and provides the platform and data "free" but as mentioned, their support isn't as good as what I've had with MC over the years but fortunately I haven't needed much yet anyway . The TradeStation forum/community is also a great source of knowledge (but is only accessible if you have an account).
In the end - there's no "perfect solution" as all platforms have tradeoffs (e.g. try compiling a strategy with 20k lines on MultiCharts). It all boils down to what's best for your own personal trading style and background .
Best of luck - I'm confident it will serve most if not all of your needs (at least initially) and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!
. The TradeStation forum/community is also a great source of knowledge (but is only accessible if you have an account).