Looking for a charting package...

Hello all, hoping some of you can help me with this one.

I am looking for a forex charting package. I am not sure if I need an entire front end that allows me to trade directly from my charts through the broker of my choice. This would be nice, but not essential.

Here are the features I require

-Can be web-based (like java), or one I install onto my computer.

-$150/month or under (preferably under, the cheaper the better)

-I trade the USD, EUR, GBP and JPY, so at least all the crosses that can be formed with these currencies must be available. Also, it would be nice (but not essential) if I could look at AUD, CHF and CAD as well.

-Ability to veiw seconds charts (1sec, 5sec, 10sec etc) and to be able to create custom tick charts (1tick, 20tick etc). Also, all the usual time frames 1m, 5m, 15m 1h, 1d, 1w, 1month.

-Ability to change the switch point of the 1d and 4h bars (5pm NY, 00 GMT etc) (not essential but highly valued). Also, ability to set the start and end time for the week (start 5pm sunday NY or 7am Sydney etc) and to not include data on the charts that fall outside the start-end time (this is essential).

-PIVOT POINTS! This has been the most difficult thing to find. Must be able to plot daily and weekly pivots (S3-R3) and midpoints (mps not essential but highly valued). Must be able to change the open, close times of both daily and weekly (eg daily switch point at 5pm NY or 00 gmt, weekly start 5pm sunday NY or 7am Sydney monday and end at 5pm NY friday). Daily and weekly pivots must plot on smaller time frames.

-A candlestick pattern indicator would also be really nice. One that sets off an alarm when a pattern is identified. Engulfing bars and pin bars is all I need. I should be able to set the parameters myself (eg pin bars must close within the range of the previous bar, or below the midpoint of the pin eg2 engulfs must engulf entire previous bar or just the body eg3 engulfs can be within a cirtain number of pips from the high or low to still be considered an engulf). I don't know if this is too much to ask for, but I have seen something like this on metatrader and prorealtime.

-Fib retracements (can choose which to include), trendlines and horizontal lines (horizontals and trendlines should have the option of only extending right or both left and right). Can copy and move lines and modify endpoints.

-At least 4 or 5 different line styles and multiple colours and able to have dark grey-black background.

-If you are going to suggest an entire front end then I trade with Oanda and am about to open an account with a secondary broker using the ecn/stp model. Probably Advanced Markets (amifx) or IB but I am not sure yet. So it must support Oanda feed, and as many ecn/stp style brokers as possible, preferably at least one of the two mentioned above.

-If it is not a front end and just a charting package you are recommending, then it would be nice if it had a feature where I can mock my trades and get performance figures and charts etc (not essential though)

Ok, think that is all. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Cheers all

The three I would recommend would be:

eSignal
SierraCharts
Ninja

Sierra is excellent, the cheapest, but don't have many trading partners. The only reason I don't use it any more is because they aren't partnered with MBT.

eSignal used to be expensive (if you call $175.00/month expensive), but are now charging about $45.00/month. They have a lot of partners and offer a gazillion products. Both them and Sierra are pretty easy when it comes to coding indies. There chart trading is excellent. I use them presently.

Ninja I've only used briefly but it seemed ok. It was quite heavy on resouces and like I said earlier, Indies are a pain to code.(You can get a limited version for free).

All three of those will do most of what you need but you may have headaches with the session times and pivots on eSignal and Ninja especially if you're going custom.

This is just my opinion, they are the three I've used over the last couple of years, but am in no way an expert on any of these. I've also used Tradestation which was ok but there you're limited to partners. (That was when you had to use the Gain front end to trade forex).

The best combination in my opinion would probably be SierraCharts and InteractiveBrokers.

There's also Ensign, but I've never used them.

Don't forget most of the time you'll never get everything in one package, what you lose at one you'll gain from another. And lastly I don't do any automated trading.

^^ I recommend what Angus said, and one additional,

Have a look also at ProRealTime http://prorealtime.com/en/ one the cheapest charting packages available. It's what I use in addition to my Broker charts. ProRealTime uses Java. Multitude of technical indicators and drawing tools. Customizable timeframe data and you can develop you own indicators/strategies for it (It's programmable)

Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions.

When you guys talk about programming indicators, do you mean having to do it from scratch using the raw code, or do they make it a bit easier. I have no programming skills whatsoever. Can't I just buy the indicators I need from somewhere?

Gotta hit the hay now, but keep the suggestions comming.

Tradestation should cover most of your needs.

1. ENSIGN - nice platform $49/m with free FXCM and GAIN FX feed, nice charting, lots of automatition, hard to CODE. (you can ask for 10days TRIAL)
2. eSIGNAL - strong platform, excelent FEED $120-150/m including charting,
3. Ninja Trader - Free platform with free FEED (can be upgraded with eSIgnal Feed only $100/m), plenty of indicators, and Visual Studio Coding..
- Upgrading to automate trading +$50/m, but charting = FREE

why do you want to pay when you can get it for free with MT4

eSignal On Demand (specifically for forex) is $44.95, add $20.00 for e-mini data, and you have everything you need, all real-time.