What To Look For in a Forex Trading Package.

Your broker usually provides your trading platform. Most commonly it is a software package called MetaTrader. It's widely used throughout the industry but not all traders are aware that their broker can see any notations and stop loss orders you may have placed.

This is potentially an issue if your broker is a market maker, a reasonably common type of brokerage that takes the opposite side of your trade. They win when you lose so why would you want to gift them a free look at the cards that you hold in your hand? This is why I recommend that you do your analysis on a different software package and use your broker provided platform for entries and exits only.

Ideally your analysis package should come from a reliable vendor with a large user base. The software should be updated regularly to tidy up any bugs and to improve the set of features. Your software provider should listen to its users and sincerely consider any requests you may make to improve or add features. The platform should be stable, customizable and well supported by other professional traders.

Quick replies from the support desk are important. There is nothing worse than waiting days for a response especially if the documentation is poor.

I like a package with good drawing tools with a “snap to” feature and preferably with the ability to allow you to go in to a drawing tool and adjust properties such as time and price exactly. Sometimes near enough is not good enough so accuracy is important to me and I'm sure for you too.

The price retracement tool should allow you to adjust and add the ratios that you like to watch and definitely not limit you to a small set of ratios. This tool should allow you to draw both internal and exte
al retracements.

You should be able to draw horizontal lines easily with an ability to turn a price label on or off. Similarly vertical lines should also be able to drawn with time and date labeling an essential feature.

One of the keys to successful trading is to be able to measure and compare both time and price aspects. Tools that allow these comparisons to be made easily speed up your analysis time. Being ready to act quickly helps to improve entries and exits while lowering risk.

A comprehensive range of customizable trading indicators is really important. Sometimes indicators restricted to standardized settings provide limited information. I use two indicators with my own settings that vastly improve the performance. Having this flexibility to create and test my own settings is important to me, especially seeing the performance is better than the standard settings.

Your trading set up should allow you to arrange your charts just how you like them. I like to have multiple time frames running at the same time and kept together so it easy to flip from the daily to the 30m time frame down to the 1m time frame in an instant.

I also like to have flexibility with regards to the way the chart looks. I used to prefer OHLC bars but now prefer to use candlesticks. My current package also offers the ability to chart with range bars, which only print when a certain predetermined price move has occurred. Once you get used to range bar charts I'm sure you'll really like them.

The only drawback to having a chart package that has a lot of features is that it can take a little time to figure out how to use them all. Your software therefore should be logical and intuitive for you to use.

Lastly it should be reasonably priced and not lock you in to long term arrangements, although discounts for long term use are always welcomed. Data should be included at no additional cost and a free trial to test the package before making a commitment are also important.