I started trading back in December 2018 and have been adding to my system little by little so I will share what I have done so far. This works well for my needs and is not at all expensive to set up and maintain.
I have two computers. The one on the left is a an older Dell Core2 Duo running Windows 7. On that I have ThinkOrSwim running as my trading platform. TOS comes free with your Ameritrade account and is a great program for trading stocks, I feel. Has all the bells and whistles one would need for this kind of trading. Not really fast enough to use for heavy duty day trading but perfectly fine for the slower needs of swing trading. They also offer two apps for your smart phone. Both sync with the desktop platform so they all show the exact same information. This also allows you to send alerts to your phone when a given stock hits your price target.
CNBC comes free with TOS and I have that running on the left in a small box. Amazing how much the market follows what is said on CNBC especially when they have a company's CEO on to talk. This is the so-called CNBC trade.
I also have Finwiz Elite (the paid version) running on this system, as well. Finwiz Elite is a must if you want to be able to find stocks that are on the way up (or down) each day. This costs me $300 for a yearly subscription. This is running in real time as is TOS so you are seeing the prices as they change.
I also have my spreadsheet program running here and this is where I keep track of my trades. I have offered this for free for others to use. You can find that here:
trading spreadsheet
The computer to the right is also an older Dell. This one is running Windows XP. On here I have my Ameritrade account opened. I do not trade from here but I like to keep track of what is happening on my account from time to time and this makes that very easy.
I also have a stock market news aggregator program running here. This one is called
CityFALCON and I love it. Right now free to use. These folks are in the UK and are creating a great site. They are open to suggestions and get back to you sometimes in minutes. They continue to add new news sources almost daily. This makes it much easier than having to check tons of sites on your own. This site is a must-have for traders.
Finally, for now anyway, I have Benzinga's squawk box running. This comes free with TOS so I have to have that also running on this computer in order to receive it. The fellow known as Bensinga Charlie calls out all kinds of useful information during the trading day as well as before and after the market opens and closes. You will want to get this running, believe me.
