T & S with IG Markets. What's the point?

chica

Newbie
Messages
8
Likes
0
Hola,

I'm newish to this, after a couple months trading I've come to the conclusion that i'm not very good at determining when to close a position and that among other things, T&S could be a great help. I confess I felt a tinge of excitement as I upgraded my IG platform from PureDeal to the L2 Dealer with its T&S functionality. I was ready to spend a few months staring at the info in tandem with a LII screen in the hope that one day sooner rather than later I would finally get it. But alas I was wrong. After staring at it for a couple days I realised there was something missing... that the window does not differentiate between buying and selling! Having phoned them up to query this I was told there is no way to tweak the window to distinguish between the two! So i'm asking myself what's the point of having it in the first place? IG Markets "written by dealers for dealers."

Anyways, the search is on to find something with a decent T&S window to complement IG. I've trawled through T2W for a few days to no avail, i'm not overly familiar with the options available, this is what i've found so far.

X Trader (too expensive), ninja trader (would have to change broker and few leap out at me or seem to support CFD trading apart from MF Global whose commision is too high for me at the moment), could change broker to TD Waterhouse and use their active trader but TD appear to have a poor reputation from what I have read. Only viable alternative from what I can see is joining IB to use their tradestation although I don't want to to feel compelled to trade with them. I trade CFD shares, the big FTSE listed miners.

I've exhausted myself looking for options, I don't know where to look, i'm here asking for help and i'd be very grateful for any suggestions as to how I could get T&S for a reasonable price, (if you know the price of an alternative, please include it) I'd prefer to stick with IG for the time being (they seem ok, T&S aside) but would consider changing broker if it is the only way to get what I think I need. Many thanks in advance
 
Good point scose, I hadn't considered it in that way... does that then make T&S useless as a tool? Surely it must have some value, a lot of the knowledgable posters refer to it as part of their gameplan eg. "all the signals were there and T&S confirmed it"
 
well you need to read the price to decide whether it's buying or selling. supply and demand. Are there too many sellers depressing price yada yada yada
 
I meant i'd get the price action from being able to read a level 2 screen. Which at the moment I can't. Forgive me as I am new to all of this and am learning and I appreciate that you've bothered to reply but with regard to the T&S thing, doesn't it indicate whether buyers are 'hitting the bid' or 'lifting the offer' which could then indicate momentum?
 
My last post was badly put, from what i have read T&S is useful for knowing whether buyers are bidding into a price or taking the offer, the latter would suggest more demand and that price may go up and sellers vice versa... It could be useful and i'd like to try it out to see if it is... but where could I get T&S from?
 
Thanks Vorbis, I had actually read that one before, I gave it another once over, gives me an idea of how to read an order book and some of the pitfalls but to be honest looking at the order book for Rio Tinto for example, it seems that there are always as many bidders as there are sellers and I can't yet fathom why the price goes in any particular direction. Yep, fake orders are one thing, another is that I haven't spent long enough staring at it... but i reckon a good T&S window with bright colours indicating whether buyers are bidding into the price or taking the offer or sellers coming down in price would surely help
 
Top