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 The computer hardware system requirements for real-time trading charting software and
data vary according to the amount of real-time analysis of financial data that is required to be
done on your PC locally. Real-time trading computer systems can range from basic off-the-shelf
Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP systems to custom made dual Xeon servers with 4GB RAM or more. Reliability and
quality of the computer system and internet connection are key to achieving a
trouble-free trading computer system which will free you to concentrate on making money
trading. Check out the Special Trading Desktop Computer Offers for some great deals.
Essentially, there are 3 types of real-time trading charting software and data vendors
as follows:
Live Streaming Charts and Data
 Live streaming data are actually live financial quotes displayed on
your PC in real-time but no data is physically stored on your PC. All data, be
it live or historical, is downloaded as needed from your data vendor's servers.
This is normally the most basic level of real-time data and most brokers will
provide this free with your trading account. The features vary widely as some
may provide some basic charting capabilities whereas others just provide
basic level 1 (bid, ask, volume & last done) quotes. You can also subscribe
to live streaming data at very reasonable rates (typically < $10 per month)
from reputable service providers like Yahoo Finance. You can also try a free streaming package from ADVFN. Many data vendors also
provide basic stock screeners with the streaming data which allow you to
identify securities based on pre-determined criteria. A good and inexpensive front-end charting solution that can utilize various free broker data-feeds and which is very popular with traders is Medved QuoteTracker.
The computer system requirements to run live streaming data are very basic. An entry level Pentium 4 or Athlon PC with at least 256MB of computer memory (RAM) will suffice. The amount of RAM required will increase depending on how many securities are monitored in real-time.
Real-Time Trading Charting Software and Data
 The next level of live data is best approached from the
quality and timeliness of data angle. There
are a fair bit of software and data vendors in this sector but it must be noted
that many of them are 3rd party data resellers so you can see where the
timeliness factor comes into play. The big boys like your money managers and
financial corporations will normally get their data from 1st tier providers like
S&P Comstock, Reuters and Bloomberg. These systems are very costly but
they do provide the best data available anywhere. For professional and
proprietary traders trading full time, many of them trade with the
above-mentioned systems but others may choose the next level of software and
data providers such as RealTick from Townsend Analytics. The general public and
the majority of startup traders normally choose data vendors that are priced
more reasonably but still offer robust software and data like eSignal and
QCharts.
The critical PC components required to run a real-time data system smoothly
would be at least a Pentium 4 1.8GHz or Athlon 1800XP class CPU with 512MB or more of computer Random Access Memory (RAM). Read this Computer Memory FAQ to determine how much RAM is required for a trading computer system. The quality of
your internet connection is another extremely important factor as it will
determine the timeliness of your data. If there are major bottlenecks in how the
data gets from the source to your computer, you will have lagging data which may
end up costing you money especially if you are scalping the
markets.
Real-Time "On-The-Fly" Trading Analytics
 As desktop computing power increases, the retail player based at
home is able to tap to software systems which were previously only affordable by
large money managers or trading prop shops. Real-Time analysis software like
NeoTicker and StockWatch Pro enable anyone with real time data to analyze
thousands of stocks or trading instruments in real time to search for
pre-detemined conditions and parameters.
For e.g. lets say you typically trade using a 5 mins chart, which is a
popular timeframe for e-mini S&P 500 futures traders, and you want to buy a
component stock of the S&P500 when the S&P futures form a head &
shoulders and break out to the upside but with the condition that the component
stock is still below its 5 period moving average. To do this manually in real
time is definitely impossible but with the right software and trading system,
once programmed, the software will "on-the-fly" analyze all the market data
coming in and alert you when any stock matches the criteria you specified. You
can then review it manually and place a trade or you can even completely
automate the whole process such that the computer will look out for the
pre-determined conditions and put on a trade automatically. This would however
require integration with your broker's order entry system which is currently
being supported by more and more analytics software vendors.
For these real time analytics systems, the raw CPU power is very critical and
nothing less than a dual CPU system or at the very least a 2GHz or higher Pentium 4 or Athlon
system should be considered. The amount of RAM or computer memory is also very critical and the
recommended here is to max out the RAM for your system. If budget is a
constraint, go with at least 1GB RAM minimum (see Computer Memory FAQ for more details). Your internet connection is also
critical and you will definitely need a broadband connection preferably with
another Cable or DSL as backup.
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