It allows you to quickly scan through lots of different charts so for instance you could scan through the charts of each individual stock in the FTSE 350 or any other index or user-created list in a matter of minutes. Thankfully it remembers what you have previously drawn, and it can be made to sort and sift through user-defined groups of stocks to find such things as moving average crossovers and volume spikes. Sharescope comes with all the standard technical indicators and has powerful drawing tools. I’d say the data mining on Sharescope is excellent, and this coupled with the fact that all the data is on the machine rather than on a web site server makes flicking through charts a real doddle. IG Index provides advanced charts that are primarily a trading tool whereas Sharescope on the other hand is more like a stock picking and trading tool. Having said that IG Index and Sharescope are not directly comparable.
In particular the ProRealTime software is useful as a backtesting tool but of course you don’t get any of the fundamental stuff like you do with Sharescope. Loads of features – probably way too many. The ProRealTime software are part of IG’s advanced charts and as long as you do 2 trades per month you won’t be charged anything to access them.
IG’s advanced ProRealTime charts is a great service if you want real time charts – all depends what you are doing – some folks don’t even need Level 2 if they’re just making a few trades for longer term. I’ve also found IG Index’s advanced charts to be very useful and I now get them for next-to-nothing, as I meet the minimum trade criteria. So okay for a small number of positions, and Level 2 is the best on the market for the private mush (me included). It also has no Index listings so forget it for short time frame trading.ĪDVFN is quite good but doesn’t keep any of your lines and markings on the charts, and the company data is unreliable. On the other hand Sharelock has no technical stuff other than relative strength. The guy that made StockVision is an absolute saint and deserves your money, a real credit to the trading scene. One other thing, do not pay for eSignal immediately on starting out, use StockVision instead (), it has no monthly fees and the pre-programmed filters very helpful. The Sharescope Gold option is good for historical charts and technical analysis (no intraday/ real time) and is good value for that. Since I tend to focus on smaller cap and AIM stocks I’d really like to see those.
Their Pro subscription certainly ticks most of the boxes for me but the glaring hole is no Plus market trades nor on Level 2. ShareScope has come a long way yet its entry-level pricings still one of the best buys out there and with the recent addition of its Sharescript programming language (on Plus and Pro versions), it is a powerful tool with the capability to do some serious bespoke modelling. For UK shares, you have all the data you could ever want plus news searching. I’ve used it for a number of years, and haven’t bought or needed any other trading/investment software.
For myself I wouldn’t do without Sharescope (an offline charting package, with brief (one minute) online updates each evening).
There are several sources that provide daily closing prices, but you also need historical data as well as current information. You need to be able to keep track of price movements and trading volumes on the markets you spread trade. It also has no Index listings so forget it for short time frame trading. There’s also Sharelock but this no technical stuff other than relative strength.
If you can’t cut it with Sharescope buying more expensive software won’t help. Imo Sharescope has everything any of us need to make profits. Metastock is good if you want to write your own programs and back test them but if you are a new trader I would stick with the basics. But if I were you, I would forget about Metastock and eSignal Market Scanner until you have mastered Sharescope.
These would include ADVFN, Equis Metastock, eSignal and ShareScope. Having said that long gone are the days when technical analysis meant hours of chart drawing. There are several charting packages available nowadays and really trading data (price, volume and other relevant details) are necessary if you want to keep track of your trading.