Thanks very much to everyone who replied with some advice on my question about finding efficient ways to use the screens and charts.
Tlindle - brought a smile to my face visualising you trading from the sofa in front of the lounge TV
I think I'd either fall asleep or get distracted by the Playstation ! I like going to my desk as it feels like going to work, and even now I'm still working on developing the discipline to focus just on trading.
Mordin - thanks for the suggestion - in fact, screen size is fine. 3 x 27" 1920 x 1080 monitors seems plenty to me, it was more a question about how to best use whatever we have in front of us.
Mike - it's inspiring to hear that its possible to uncomplicate the process as much as possible, so as to limit the stress from being overloaded with too much "stuff" to do and look at. It was interesting to read about the evolution of your set-up - I know its partly individual, but within that, it seems that there are a multitude of different ways to go about the process of finding, executing and managing trades.
Patapouer - very streamlined way of doing things, and if I had a job, I would trade exactly like you.
Protuberenac - thanks for the MT4 tool.
So, I've actually changed my set-up quite a bit yesterday. I had been using alerts, which I think is definitely the way to go - but I'd been using them in my charting package as it seemed easy to just throw them on the chart visually. Unfortunately, like I said, it limits you to 20 alerts - and sometimes I'd want 2 alerts per instrument.
Luckily, after having a closer look at my trading platform, I found a separate alerts window pane where you can manually add alerts. They appear on a nice big list and it even has a message field for each one so I can describe to myself the price action & location level around the price. Perfect - so now I have my "whiteboard" with all the things I am looking at set-up on one screen within my trading platform.
On a spare area of screen next to my trade platform window I have a simple list of all the charts I look at - from that I can single click to bring up any chart. On the screen in front of me is where the charts pop up that I scan for trades. I bring the charts up one at a time and if I find something that I want to keep an eye on I either minimise it, or make it smaller and drag it to the third screen on my right. I also have a couple of web pages open on the third screen.
I haven't been very good at scanning charts on Sunday night or over the weekend, but I'm now going to start doing that as its a no-brainer if you are going to be in the market on Monday and/or the rest of the week. I'll stick with this set-up for now, and expect it to work well for the way I'm hoping to develop as a trader.
Tlindle - brought a smile to my face visualising you trading from the sofa in front of the lounge TV
I think I'd either fall asleep or get distracted by the Playstation ! I like going to my desk as it feels like going to work, and even now I'm still working on developing the discipline to focus just on trading.Mordin - thanks for the suggestion - in fact, screen size is fine. 3 x 27" 1920 x 1080 monitors seems plenty to me, it was more a question about how to best use whatever we have in front of us.
Mike - it's inspiring to hear that its possible to uncomplicate the process as much as possible, so as to limit the stress from being overloaded with too much "stuff" to do and look at. It was interesting to read about the evolution of your set-up - I know its partly individual, but within that, it seems that there are a multitude of different ways to go about the process of finding, executing and managing trades.
Patapouer - very streamlined way of doing things, and if I had a job, I would trade exactly like you.
Protuberenac - thanks for the MT4 tool.
So, I've actually changed my set-up quite a bit yesterday. I had been using alerts, which I think is definitely the way to go - but I'd been using them in my charting package as it seemed easy to just throw them on the chart visually. Unfortunately, like I said, it limits you to 20 alerts - and sometimes I'd want 2 alerts per instrument.
Luckily, after having a closer look at my trading platform, I found a separate alerts window pane where you can manually add alerts. They appear on a nice big list and it even has a message field for each one so I can describe to myself the price action & location level around the price. Perfect - so now I have my "whiteboard" with all the things I am looking at set-up on one screen within my trading platform.
On a spare area of screen next to my trade platform window I have a simple list of all the charts I look at - from that I can single click to bring up any chart. On the screen in front of me is where the charts pop up that I scan for trades. I bring the charts up one at a time and if I find something that I want to keep an eye on I either minimise it, or make it smaller and drag it to the third screen on my right. I also have a couple of web pages open on the third screen.
I haven't been very good at scanning charts on Sunday night or over the weekend, but I'm now going to start doing that as its a no-brainer if you are going to be in the market on Monday and/or the rest of the week. I'll stick with this set-up for now, and expect it to work well for the way I'm hoping to develop as a trader.
take care {image}
do you consider it an A+ set up? thanks again, have a great weekend 
