Return to My Charting Tools
The MetaStock Platform by Equis (owned by Thompson Reuters) is the Rolls Royce of charting software with a price to match. It offers an incredible array of technical tools, an integrated Fundamental Analyzer, several preset screens for different types of trading i.e. Equity Trader, Commodities, Futures, Commodities, Bonds. It is fully customizable and even comes with numerous plug-ins and add-ons, should the core platform not match your trading needs. In addition Equis offers online and in-print training materials, seminars in major cities and online webinars, and its famous customer support. MetaStock is a lot more than the average trader will ever need and with a price of $235/month ($2,260/year) is likely beyond most traders’ budgets too. However, if you are swinging a 100K + trading account you should definitely give it some serious consideration.
My Experience. I have not used MetaStock in my trading. Richard Arms (creator of Equivolume charts) had negotiated a special discount for equivolume chartists with Equis several years ago. I believe it was $150 off the annual fee. I emailed their Customer Support asking if those discounts were still in effect, but never heard back from Equis about it.
IQchart provides a version of equivolume charting called “equi-candles”. Think of candlesticks with different width, depending on the volume traded that day. Just like MetaStock above, IQchart provides real-time updated quotes and charts. In addition to the great charts, you can monitor a large customized Watchlist of dozens of stocks and indices, track your portfolio and set up alerts to go off when certain price level is reached, all in real-time. You can overlay up to 4 different technical indicators at the same time on your chart. One of the most useful features for me is the Stock Scan, where you can filter stocks using up to 100 different criteria. I use volume and price advance/decline for the day of 2% or more to look for potential swing-trading opportunities. Overall, IQchart is a robust platform that provides most features you could ever need for trading, and with a price of $75/month (and discounts for longer term subscriptions) it is likely the best value platform. They offer a free 30-day trial, so definitely try them out for free before you subscribe.
My Experience. I am near the end of my free trial at the moment. (I discovered IQchart only recently.) After my 30 days are up I will subscribe to the paid service. What sold me is the ability to see the charts develop in real-time and the Stock Scan. There are cheaper platforms (see below), but since I trade for a living, I need as powerful a platform as I can get without paying a fortune.
Incredible Charts is a nice economy software platform, which is attractive for more than just its price. The software includes more than 100 indicators and offers charts in the stocks of several countries (US, UK, Australia) as well as numerous indexes from around the globe plus forex and precious metals. The platform will automatically memorize any trend lines and support/resistance levels you draw on a stock chart and the next time you pull up that stock’s chart, it will display those for you. The biggest drawback of the platform is that the data is delayed at least 15 minutes (often more).Traders using the equivolume charts will have to wait until about noon for the current day’s bar to take shape. The platform is great for end-of-day traders, but not so good for traders who want to spot a breakout the same morning and catch as much of it as possible. Subscription costs $16 a month($148 for 1-year subscription.)
My Experience. I have been a subscriber to Incredible Charts for about 6 months. I now use IQchart for my trading, but I love how great Incredible Charts look and I still use them to display my charts in articles here or elsewhere online. All the charts on this site were created with Incredible Charts.
