RE: [amibroker] RT Beta Testers Thoughts

["Allan Wade" <allanwade@xxxx>]

<span
>Hello everyone,

<span
> 

<span
>I just wanted
to pass along some of my experiences with eSignal. 

<span
>I  haveused
eSignal for about 2 ˝ years with Metastock Pro. I have recently bought
Amibroker and will begin using it full time as soon as eSignal certifies
Amibroker and Thomasz releases the RT version.

<span
>In that 2˝ years
I can only remember 1 outage with eSignal, and that lasted only about 5
minutes. As far as reliability goes, I don&#8217;t think eSignal can be beat.

<span
>There aresome
factors with eSignal  that may have some impact, if you are not aware of them.

<span
> 

<span
>The 50 symbol
limit has been discussed already. This may or may not be an issue for realtime
users. It could have been an issue for EOD data collection, but if I remember
correctly, Thomasz  had foresight to anticipate this problem and batches up the
requests 50 (or I assume 500 if you have the upgraded package) at a time.
Metastock Pro&#8217;s Downloader has that glaring flaw, and it requires tremendous
effort to download *any* quantity
of data.

<span
> 

<span
>The 50 symbol
package is equities only. You cannot get Options or Futures. 

<span
>You can you get
Option&#8217;s by upgrading to the more expensive package, and I don&#8217;t
think you can get Futures with that  package. There is  a separate Futures
Package.

<span
> 

<span
>You cannot get
delayed data from exchanges that you don&#8217;t subscribe to. There is a separate
delayed package.

<span
> 

<span
>You cannot get EOD
data from exchanges that you don&#8217;t subscribe to. There is a separate EOD
package.

<span
> 

<span
>If you subscribe
to separate packages you must either run them on separate computers, or logoff
one package and log on to the other. For example, the Realtime package cannot
run concurrently with the Delayed package.

<span
> 

<span
>If you want
Level II data, it costs $50 per month unless you prepay for 1 year. My broker
recently started supplying this free, so that&#8217;s  not a big issue for me.
It *is* nice to be able to right
click on a symbol on the eSignal quote screen and get the L2 data without
having to flip over to my brokers software.

<span
> 

<span
>The free &#8220;news&#8221;
leaves a lot to be desired. Yahoo, Quicken.com, or just about anyone has more
accurate and pertinent news. I asked eSignal about this and they said that
people like Yahoo can provide better free news because of the ad revenue. I&#8217;m
not sure what the premium news costs, but it&#8217;s at least $30 per month.

<span
> 

<span
>I am real
disappointed that Quote.com has changed their developers policy and that
Thomasz is rethinking a Quote.com plug in. They are apparently not as reliable
as eSignal, but you have none of the above hassles. When a company institutes
policies

<span
>that seemingly
freezes out developers or causes increased costs to be passed along to users
(without any increase in service, features, or reliability), it really makes me
wonder about them.

<span
> 

<span
>My yearly
subscription to eSignal comes up for renewal next month. At $1800/year that&#8217;s
a little bigger bite than I can chew. Hopefully Thomasz will have other
alternatives soon.

<span
> 

<span
>Allan

<span
> 




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