We have a lot going on with Tradesight. We are still trying to fully establish Tradesight 4.0. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work to be done, which we are working on. Once that is done, I expect to be able to make more calls, focus on the revised course, and even do more futures and options calls. It’s all coming, but there is so much going on right now that it is hard.
Every year or so, I try to send out a Blog about trading computers. This is that Blog post for the year. I’m going to explain to you what I currently have and why.
Trading is a business. If you don’t treat it like that, you will never be successful. The idea is to improve and grow and become better. How do we do that?
First of all, for many of you, it requires getting extremely focused on how to trade, submitting your blotters, and becoming a more knowledgeable trader.
But as a business, our “tool” is our computer. Think of it like this. Through your broker and charting package (could be the same, could be different), you are connected to the Exchanges which provide you with executions. Without that, you are in trouble.
If you have a weak link between your keyboard and the trade destination, then you aren’t treating your business as seriously as others. Don’t worry about the rest. Don’t worry about black boxes. You can be a better trader than a black box if you understand the markets. But none of it matters if you aren’t taking your tools seriously. Think of it like this. If you were a handyman, would you be successful owning cheap tools and showing up at people’s houses? I think not.
So before we get into the latest computer specs, think about this.
Successful trading starts with fast Internet. I have Gigabit from Cox Cable. If you have DSL or Satellite, you are already behind. Upload speeds don’t matter much. You don’t send much up in your trading. Download speeds and Ping matter a lot. Here’s mine at home:
Now, I would agree, you might not need 820 Mbps Download. But you need something strong. 100 Mbps won’t cut it. You’ll be behind the next guy. THIS IS A COST OF YOUR BUSINESS. Make it right.
Inside your house, once you get the Internet to your router, then it’s a matter of wired versus wi-fi. Ideally, you have a wired connection in Mbps. There’s no point in your router accepting speeds like 820 Mbps and then having it only sending 100 Mbps to your computer. You want the full whack. If you can’t be wired, which I get, make sure you get a full current Wi-Fi solution like Google Wi-Fi, which handles these speeds. Even if you end up with 300 Mbps, that’s beyond good. 50 Mbps is not going to cut it. If you ignore these steps, then before you even buy a computer, you are going to be limiting your speed.
You need a current Windows 10 machine with at least a Solid State Hard Drive to boot it, and you need your broker and eSignal (if you use it) on that hard drive. That makes sure that you can load the platforms as fast as possible.
I’m not going to get into Macs because most financial software is Windows only (eSignal certainly is), but you can run Parallels on Mac to run Windows software. It works, but it is not ideal. We don’t operate in an Apple world at this time if you want to be ahead of the curve.
On a Windows 10 machine, I current have 32 GB of high speed RAM (DDR4 2933MHz) with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT 6-Core chip. You can also do a 9th or 10th generation i7 Intel chip (that’s what my laptop has). So if you have a Solid State Hard Drive and crazy fast RAM, that’s a good step. I currently have a i7-10870H 8-core chip with 16MB Cache.
Keyboards and mice are up to you. Logitech is usually the best with their single USB nub solutions. I have a 4K video recorder with a high end microphone, but that won’t affect your trading.
Next up is the video card. This is very important, because it controls how fast images shoot up to the screen.
The last piece are your video cards and monitors. I have 3 curved 32″ Samsung 4k monitors powered by an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 8GB GDDR6 video card. I run the three monitors via the DisplayPort option. You can even daisy chain them. It is awesome.
Getting your images up to the screen with zero latency is important or else you are seeing your charts later than everyone else.
I have USB 3.0 ports out the Wazoo, but that doesn’t matter. This above is the current best practice for a trading computer. Remember, your business is based on success, and success is based on having the tools that match or beat everyone else. If any part of the scenario that I described above fails, then there will be people with an edge over you. This is what it takes in life to be a successful trader in 2021. It’s the Tradesight version and review of that. Good luck.