Dear Forum,
I am considering a new computer for trading stocks. I normally run three trading platforms at once; TradeStation, Fidelity, ETrade, and sometimes Think or Swim. I have a Dell Dimension4700, P4, with 1GB RAM, and a 256MB Nvida GeForce 6800 Graphics Card. I have Verizon DSL. I have to restart each day, as by the end of the day the computer slows down. The TS platform loads pretty slow too.
Do you think it is largely the DSL that is slowing things down, or do I need a new computer, and how much?
Do you think I could use my video card and hard drive, and just buy a new case, power supply, and mother board?
Thank you very much!
Sincerely, The graphics card is not your PROBLEM. The graphics used is stock tracking are very basic. I mean to say basic for the graphics card.The motion is slow. Only a few lines on a grid background. Simple colors .
The moving average math stuff is done by the CPU, not the graphics card.

When I did stock trading, I finally landed on just one program for my trading. Deep technical kinds of analysis you can do after the market has CLOSED. Which I used to do when I only had dial-up overseas.(CompuServe was $60 and hour.)

Later back in the sates I used Scotstrade for Day Trading. Because, at that time, they had the best, simple real-time tracking for the markets. During the day I would LIMIT myself to watching about a dozen stocks I felt would provide me an chance for a day trade.

http://www.scottrade.com/
Moderator. This is NOT spam. These people have the right kind of software for what he WANTS to do. There is a difference.

Pardon me for being so blunt, but day trading is not for boys and girls. It is for men and women. You are teeter off using just one program in the day time with a fast internet. Your brain is the best tracker for short term gains. But you need all the information in front of you on one screen that you can customize to fit your style.

To get to the point. The power of my computer was never an issue. My Internet connection had to be fast. I saw no advantage in having several disparate programs open at the same time. The one program could show me what I wanted to see, even if I never mad a trade with them! But I did. At one time I had three different brokers, but only one had the rel-time charts I wanted to use. There was no problem going on line with another broker, doing a trad, them close the browser window and go back to my real -time display, which was powered by a professional program written only for that one company. It was great and could handle sever windows at ones and I could ADJUST the size of each. One well integrated program with a clean simple presentation.

BTW. Don't bother doing a Google on Day trading. Find our of your friends or a friend of a fried that actually makes money at it. You may be surprised about how simple and direct their methods are. Thank you, Geek! I use the charts of my main trading platform for the other brokers. One is my retirement account (Fidelity) and I use the others for different commission advantages.
Would a dual core processor help?
Thanks for the information, especially about the graphics card.
Sincerely,
Mike
Glad to be of help. Excuse my spelling errors. I am now 70 years old and have some problems with my vision.
I think the most money I every make was on Fidelity Mutual funds. The rick there was not so much watching the day to day but knowing the history of the fund.

You do not need a dual core CPU. There is a piratical limit of the bandwidth on the internet connection. Here is a view of the CPU-USE on my computer, I have just aP4 I have a P4 at 2.9 G Hz and 1 GB of RAM. And a 30 GB SATA drive.
Most of the time my system runs idle, It is the Internet that is slow.

That is found in the task manager.Next time you are online, bring it up and see what is slowing you down.

On the link I gave you before, be sure and look at the guided tour. I believe you can start an account with them for just $2500. The software they have can be used to track any stock you want. Or fund. Or whatever. Watch the guided tour that explains what the software does.Like I said earlier, I might use their charts and turn around and buy the stock for another broker!

If you want to do something with you graphics, get a second monitor. It is great for following several things at once. Your card, I think, has a second output. I have two monitors off of on card in my workshop. Two monitors are very nice!