If you were wondering what’s up with the lack of eareview updates, it’s merely because I’ve had to deal with a constant lack of time during the past few months. There are several EAs that have sparked my attention during this period and their vendors were quite forthcoming but unfortunately I have products that are sitting on my virtual desk for as long as 3 months, just waiting for me to check them out and post a forward test if they’re worth it. I’ll take advantage of this occasion to apologize to the vendors in cause – I can’t promise I’m going to get to it soon but I’ll go through each product as my time allows, likely starting in the first part of February. I also apologize if you sent me an email or posted a comment that went unanswered or that only got answered after a rather long time – I simply didn’t have the time to keep up lately and naturally I am placing the emphasis on Tick Data Suite support emails so whenever I have some time, these are prioritized.
The reason behind this temporal penury is mostly the fact that I was in the process of changing my job. Starting from autumn last year, I am in charge of the algorithmic trading aspect of tradable. It’s a major turn in my career and I had a very hard time with the decision to move forward after spending well over 10 years with my previous position – I was previously doing game programming and I loved it. However, I feel this is the right place for me and at the same time I know this is where I have a real chance to have a significant positive impact on the Forex trading community, to leave my handprint on something that will potentially redefine online trading as you know it. Even though at this point tradable already received some media coverage and some of you may already be familiar with it, I’m sure others will ask “But what is this tradable thing?” and I intend to offer a few words about this.
From a software point of view, the retail world of Forex trading has been stuck in the same place for many years. Even though people had bad experiences with brokers sporting their platform of choice and even though it wasn’t made for the trading environment that we have today, the vast majority of traders are still caught in using the same software as they were many years ago – not only in the retail Forex segment but also many of those who are trading at the institutional level. There have been attempts to rectify this situation, but until now they were met with reservation, lack of enthusiasm and consequently with limited success.
tradable attempts to reinvent the concept of online trading platform and to become the new environment of choice for Forex trading. Sure, that’s an ambitious target and there’s a long way to go to get there, but the beginning is very good, the right team is on board and if you ask me, I realize I am biased but in all honesty I believe the required ingredients are present.
First of all, tradable is an open, modular platform where the trader meets the broker and the developer – an appstore is available (think the Apple App Store or Google Play) where people can get 3rd party apps that they can drag on their workspace. This where traders will be able to find an array of extensions to the platform, from charting packages to indicators, exposure tools, market depth tools, educational packages, automated strategies and whatever else the 3rd party developers will think of.
Each user can configure the platform as they see fit and I’m pretty sure the setup will end up looking very different from one user to another. A very big focus is placed on customization and everyone can choose the apps they want, arrange them in the way they find most comfortable and create their own unique trading experience, perfectly suited to their needs.
A very important detail (for me, at least) is that none of the so-called “scam brokers” will be offering tradable to their users. It is reserved for thoroughly regulated brokers and the ultimate aim is to make the users feel perfectly safe when they’re using the tradable platform.
Finally, automated trading is going to play a major role and that’s where I come in. While at this point things are in the early stages, a lot of development is to be expected in this area during the next few months and I hope traders as well as developers and vendors will love what they will see.
Before you ask, for the time being tradable is limited in availability to only a few brokers but that’s also something that is going to change in the near future. In other words, it’s soon going to be available at a good broker near you.
But that’s enough about tradable and I’ll get back to the original topic of this post: changing my job was quite intensive, seeing that I proceeded with finalizing all projects that I was working on for my old job so I was pretty much working two jobs at once. Between the job duties, the Tick Data Suite support & updates and the few moments that I was able to dedicate to my personal life, it’s eareview that ended up receiving the short end of the stick. Granted, as I was saying, I plan to correct that and perhaps change a few things related to the website, but it’s surely going to take time to catch up with everything.
To sum things up, you should expect some website updates in the near future. I will start going through the EAs that have been waiting for a while so there will likely be some new forward tests. Other than that, keep an eye on tradable 🙂