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Overwhelmed! Which platform do I choose? Sierra? Ninja? MT5?
Personally I use and have used all 3, although NT7 and MT4. My absolute favorite is Sierra Charts for sure, but yes it takes sometime to set up and get used to but it does worth the invested time. I still use NT today, for simple price action trading and writing code its pretty good. MT4 for would be the third on my list but it does the job for forex trading and if you ever want to learn to code it is a great place to start because it has a huge user-base and many guides. All 3 have their ups and downs, so the answer depends on you try them out and see for yourself which one matches you the best.
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Δ
“There is no path, but only a fool wouldn’t follow it.”
Like said before, Sierra is highly customizable. Every indicator they sell for NT7/8 is free in Sierra (If you use Service Package 5). That said, it takes a lot of time(!) to set things up so be preapeared to dive into manuals an/or video guides if you are completely new. NT has more user-friendly interface, but if you get familiar with Sierra, there isnt much you could not edit.
You will most likely hate the Sierra at first (I did), after you learned the basics and dive into more advanced settings sky is the limit.
Sierra also runs smoother for me than NT (Tested with multiple chart set-ups and DOMS).
it's as much what it doesn't do.. hog memory or crash.. but like someone said it does take much longer to load data initially (at least ticks. not sure about time data maybe that is not slow?) - but this is only the first time you use a symbol
I'm surprised that MultiCharts isn't getting more love. I started using it six years ago based on a video review that Big Mike did comparing MC and NT and haven't looked back.
I can't speak highly enough about MC. It's generally rock-solid. I turn on my algorithmic trading system before bed and it trades for me automatically overnight and during the US day session. I had some missteps initially (generally from my own mistakes and inexperience), but for the past several years I've been able to trust it 100%. I'm able to sleep quite well with it trading in the background.
My only basis for comparison is TradeStation, which I used for a short time. They're quite similar. The major difference is philosophical: TS is a "complete package" that includes the TS data feed and a TS brokerage account. MultiCharts is more "roll your own" -- you have to supply your own data feed and your own broker. (I use IQFeed and Interactive Brokers.) You can also use MC to download free end-of-day data from Google, Yahoo, etc. To me, the MC software seems more polished overall than TradeStation. (I believe the developers used to work for TradeStation, but then split off.)
You can either use the built-in MC indicators and signals, or you can write your own using its scripting language. There are two flavors of MultiCharts, the EasyLanguage version (the same language that TradeStation uses) and a newer version that uses C#. Other than the scripting differences, they're the same.
EasyLanguage itself is a rather simple, basic language derived from Pascal. However, it has lots of syntactic sugar that makes the scripts quite simple to write and shorter than the equivalent code in C#. I've never had a trading idea that was "too complicated" to code using EasyLanguage. You probably wouldn't use EasyLanguage if you're a quant doing HFT on Wall Street, but for casual traders, it's perfect.
MultiChart also has one killer feature for me: Portfolio trading. You can define a basket of dozens or hundreds of symbols (stocks, futures, etc.) and then apply an automated trading strategy to the portfolio as a whole. TS has portfolio backtesting, but not portfolio trading, to my knowledge.
Like any software, it has bugs. However, the developers maintain a public bug-tracking system and they're very aggressive about squashing bugs. The platform is now on Version 11 (with Version 12 in beta) and it's quite mature.
Finally, the MC support team is amazing. They're friendly and super-responsive about fixing bugs quickly. They also have an active community where you can get help in the forums.
Note that my professional bias is towards automated trading. However, it also seems to be quite capable for manual chart-based trading.
Sorry, but I've never actually used that feature. However, it seems like a great tool for discretionary traders. You can practice your trading using historical data before you start trading "for real."
I'm strictly an algorithmic trader -- I program a script, backtest that script against historical data to see how it performs, iterate with modifications to the script, and then (possibly) set up that script for live algorithmic trading.
I received a question from someone asking for good "introduction to EasyLanguage" tutorials. I'll post my response below for everyone:
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There are two dialects of EasyLanguage -- the original version from TradeStation and an updated version from MultiCharts. The MultiCharts implementation is backwards-compatible with the original language, but adds some keywords for MutliCharts-specific features (like the portfolio trading features). Any materials that discuss the TradeStation dialect will generally be applicable to MultiCharts.
The starting place are some reference manuals from TradeStation. The free books below are quite good.
Finally, there are lots of websites and Youtube videos if you search for them. The videos from Markplex are quite good:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC53kxq4WSDz0hP8zyyb7eJw[/yt]
Go With sierra. Its tough to set up and very robust so you wont get the hang of it the first day, but ts so worth it in the long run. Ive used TOS, CTS. CQG and TT. Sierra kills them all and its very inexpensive. I was just paying 500 per month with CTS and it has tons of bugs that cost me over 2k this month. Now im using Sierra for 35 bucks and not 1 problem.. I love these Guys !!
try them out and see for yourself which one matches you the best.
