"THE SINGLE BEST TOOL IN MY BOX"

[Bill Masi <billmasi@xxxxxxxx>]

How about a new thread called

              "The single best tool in my box"

speaking not of trading tools but of "productivity tools."  

Many of us have discovered hardware or software that we've come to rely on.   

*Your* favorite item could become a new "best tool" for a thousand other
traders if you'd only take the time to tell us about it.

When we were all back in Windows 3.x, there was a macro/custom icon program
which saved traders so many mouse clicks that when the company stopped
selling it, one of our list members tried to buy the code in order to keep
it alive.  (It didn't make it to Win95.)  That program was introduced on
this list.



My current examples:

A three-button mouse !!!!!  (Maybe not everyone's there yet.)

and 

Multiple Monitors

I had a multiple-monitor card go down and instead of looking at four
screens on that computer,  I was down to one.  I stopped trading until I
could get all the information up in front of me again.

For traders who look at only one screen and click between windows to access
more data, don't you find each click breaks your concentration, takes your
attention away from the market?  That new screen coming up forces the brain
to re-acquire the format and then the information - at a cost in clarity
and a break in attention.

There may be something going on one of those minimized windows that you
don't know is there and don't know to click on it.  

Some of the best traders are pilots and what pilots do is scan their
instruments.  Can you imagine a pilot having to go, "Altitude - click",
"Airspeed" - click", "Radar - click".  I felt like that when on one screen:
 "5-minute Dow - click", "Cash - click", "Market indicator quote screen -
click"...  

Can you write down every pivot, every support and resistance for daily and
weekly, for futures and cash and see them on a pad while watching a
monitor?   I can't. 

The ability to see higher-time-frame channels or trendlines while managing
a trade in five minute bars is invaluable.  

Do you ever find yourself in a trade that gets going and then hits a wall;
after you exit it you look at another chart and say, "Oh, sure, that's
where that big congestion was three days ago"?  

Or a long trade gets legs and goes right beyond your normal pivots.  It's
nice to be able to see at a glance that there's no resistance in sight for
twenty points because the market came though there like a brick on the way
down.  More screens make that kind of information  visible.

On the four monitors I've got:

BMI Cable into three screens:

9 min- 45 min - Daily  Spoo (Fib Trader) 
Daily with trends lines, channels, support, resistance, etc.

5-minute future with studies and
15-minute with studies

5-minute S&P cash with trendlines and channels and
5-minute DOW with the same

1-minute Candlestick with studies


A second computer with a separate SignalOnLine feed:

Quote screen with VIX, TRIN, TICK, Advance, Decline, etc. and
    5-minute S&P cash with trendlines and channels and
    5-minute DOW with the same

 ***********************************

Things I'd like to know about:

NETWORKED COMPUTERS  - what's the best thing about it?  

What's the ONE THING you'd miss MOST if you had to give it up (hardware,
software, ?)

thanks,


        Bill M.

        mailto:billmasi@xxxxxxxx