How To Find The Best Stock Trading Software

If you have been trading stocks for any length of time, you have surely had your share of winners and losers. Hopefully, more winners than losers. You may have been able to supplement your income by trading stocks or you may even be doing this full-time now. Whatever the case, it's probably safe to assume that you're always on the lookout for any new method or tool that will help you take your trading to the next level. What you're probably looking for is something to help you do more with less. After all, who doesn't want more time to spend with their family, friends or golf game?

There is one type of stock market trading tool that you should definitely consider. This tool has the potential to free up a lot of your time, time that you previously had to spend on market research. Since market research is a vital component of stock market trading and long-term investing, this is a big deal. This tool is stock trading software for your home computer. These powerful computer programs let you quickly analyze all of the thousands of stocks to pick out the ones that are getting ready to make the major moves. They do this with a combination of trend analysis, technical indicator analysis and can also be fine-tuned to look for the specific criteria you plug in.

There are many different kinds of stock trading software programs that are available with a dizzying choice of options and prices. So, how do you pick the best one? Which one is the best choice for your needs? There are three important things to consider when you are evaluating your choices. The best stock trading software programs will offer great customer service, trade simulation tools and technical analysis.

Customer service is very important when it comes to stock trading software.  You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you have a problem and need immediate help, only to find that there is no one to contact.  There are some companies that say they offer customer support but don't have a customer support phone number to call.  They may require you to fill out a questionnaire and submit it electronically.  The problem with this is that you almost always have to wait a day or two for a response.  This is not good if you have an immediate need for help.  When it comes to customer service, always look for the companies that have a customer support phone line that is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Another important thing to look for in the best stock trading software is the presence of simulation tools.  Simulation tools let you practice your trading techniques and strategies in real time before putting any of your hard-earned money into the market.  This is vitally important as a great simulation tool will let you see if one of the stock trading guru's strategies actually works or if it's useless.  There are many investing gurus who actually make their living selling their trading systems instead of actively trading in the market.  The simulation tool lets you clearly see what works and what doesn't.

The best stock trading software should also let you use fundamental and technical analysis to find the type of stocks you are looking for.  This is of utmost importance.  This feature alone has the potential to free up many hours of your time to pursue other activities by no longer having to do market research.  The software should be able to analyze thousands of stocks quickly to look for candlestick patterns, ceilings, floors, moving averages, Elliott waves, Fibonacci retracements and many others.  Such information is vital to putting together a well-planned stock trading strategy and following it through to a profitable completion.

The three criteria just discussed should be present in the stock trading software program you choose.  Thankfully, you don't have to spend a lot of money to get these features.  Many of the online brokerages, in an effort to attract and retain new customers, now offer such programs at no cost to those people who establish trading accounts with them.  It makes sense that they would do this.  The online trading companies want you to trade frequently.  After all, this is how they make their money.  Providing such trading software is truly a win-win situation.  The customer wins by having a powerful tool to use to analyze the markets and the brokerage wins by encouraging more frequent trading.  As long as you maintain an account with the online broker, you can use the tools at no cost.

One example of a company that is now offering online trading tools is Optionsxpress.  This company specializes in options trading, as their name suggests but you can also trade stocks with them as well.  Optionsxpress has a powerful online stock and option analysis program called Xtend.  Xtend is free to use as long as you open and maintain a trading account with the company.

Although it can take some time to find the best stock trading software, it's not an impossible journey.  Take the time to carefully examine each company's tools to see if they offer the three attributes we just discussed.  Go with the one that has the features you want and offers the best bang for the buck.