Stock Trading Platforms

You of course can't trade without a trading strategy, but once you have learned one, you have to have a way to deploy it.  So after deciding what stock trading strategy you will use, you must choose the stock trading software want. Then you must decide which trading platform to use.  All online brokers offer their own, what separates one from another is the speed by which they perform trades and how you are allowed to enter your orders and monitor them.  If you choose a stand alone platform you must make sure it is compatible with your online stock trading account.. Some will also integrate with your stock trading software.  Next, find out if it offers you the ability to enter the orders you want to make; market, stop loss, stop limit, etc?  Does it offer the monitoring ability you need and speed of execution?

There are many stock based trading platforms available.  Of course, many brokers offer trading platforms for free, but most are limited in functionality.  The  one we are about to discuss, is not only free, but is powerful as well.  It is my personal favorite stock trading platform.

QuoteTracker is a Windows program that integrates with hundreds of data feeds, brokers and financial sites to provide you with streaming real-time quotes, Live intraday charts with Technical Indicators, Level II quotes, Time and Sales, alerts, news monitoring, scrolling ticker tape, and everything else you may need to effectively trade in today's market.

You of course get historical charts too.  You can set up multiple portfolios which I particularly like, as I like to set up one for real open positions and various watch lists for different trading strategies.

One of the really nice features is that it's fully customizable as to what data you want to view with your trading instruments, the column order and the sort order.  So what ever  is important to you can have the most prominent position.  Here is couple of sample screen shots below of how it can be set up.

Placing trades is very quick too.  You can preset the value of the position you with to open.  Then when you want to buy a stock, highlight it and click the buy button.  A window pops up with the number of shares in it to match the value of the position you want and all you do is confirm the order.

Another very useful feature are the alerts.  You can set your buy / sell stops and "tray" the application.  Then when a buy / sell stop is hit, an alert pops up.  Now for the cool part.  You can also set it up to email the alert to you, which of course can be sent to most cell phones & PDAs too.  This is really great if you can't be around your computer all day.  The only drawback to this feature, is that since it is not web based, you computer must be on for the data to be received and the alert to be sent.  But if you don't mind leaving your computer running, you are all set.

It also ties into major brokers to give you full Integrated trading from within the software. You can trade through your own broker using QuoteTracker direct access interface. Order Entry and transaction monitoring is drastically faster.

This is an AdWare program - that is, it is supported by advertisements. You can download it and use it for free for as long as you like. If you do not want to have the advertisements displayed, you can pay for a registration ( which isn't much). There are no pop ups though or spyware though.

Here is a link if you would like to download it or check it out personally;

http://www.quotetracker.com

Below are two other sites that provide a stand alone stock trading platform software that you may wish to check out.  You can find many more on the web.  Just remember to make sure it will meet all of your needs before purchasing though.

https://www.realtick.com

http://www.esignal.com/esignal/demo/default.asp

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