Using Commoditized Computers Setups for Stock Trading?

An anonymous reader asks: "Thanks to Walmart, TigerDirect, and Gnu/Linux, I can get computers at about $200 now. Thanks to Matrox, I have several multi-head video cards. Thanks to a hacker's convention last year, I have a truckload of monitors that haven't been put to use yet. I've been out of the financial markets since 1996. I'm itching to get back in now, especially since conditions will be very favorable shortly. Since I've lost my shirt in the markets already (most investors/traders loose their shirts at least once before striking it rich, and my beating was especially instructive), I'm now ready for better returns. Gnu/Linux is well known to support multiple monitor setups. I've seen 4 monitor setups per box in some financial firms, and I recently read a story on the National Weather Service using 3 monitor setups on another OSDN channel. I've also used a Quotrek trading monitor in the past, for monitoring stocks and other financials in real-time. This was before I was a penguinista. Now that I know a bit about Linux systems, I'd like to know the following: What Gnu/Linux applications can I use to monitor and/or process stocks, options, bonds, financial news, and other related information via low cost Gnu/Linux computing solutions, broadband, and multi-head video cards? Free software only, please"

"I'm not going back to paying hundreds of dollars per month like I did for my Quotrek (an FM receiver for stock quotes, possibly discontinued), or paying many hundreds for proprietary software that may not get the job done, or can't be modified or supported by the community. What free software applications do you use? What is a good multi-monitor layout? Any free software that picks up financial broadcast signals and decodes to a computer screen? Any slashdot tycoons want to help out other Slashdot readers?"

Uh oh, I think somebody's addicted.....

[dmorin]

• I'm itching to get back in now... There's excitement, and then there's compulsion.
• conditions will be very favorable shortly. So you tell yourself.
• I've lost my shirt in the markets already . And should have perhaps learned your lesson. Admission of a problem...
• most investors/traders loose their shirts at least once before striking it rich...and justification of why it's not really a problem.
• I'm now ready for better returns. Expectation of a better future with no reason. Isn't that one of the layman's definitions of insanity, repeating the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result?

Dude? Seriously. How about a nice savings account? maybe some cd's, short term bond funds? How's your credit card debt?

Write your own

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I did, sort of. I used Qt/Kde with the KHTMLPart to parse through the web interface for Ameritrade and get the quote information. I haven't worked on it for a while, but I got basic log-in/quote retrieval/buy/sell done, but there's no UI yet, it's currently being called via perl scripts to throw the data into a MySQL database for further analysis so I can tweak my strategy. It actually didn't take very long to write the KHTMLPart app to do the basics, only about a week or so, working an hour or two a day, and more on weekends. You can try using the embedded Mozilla to do it, but I found the KHTMLPart to be easier to work with.

Maybe if I get a decent UI (I would need some requirements/specs from a real trader though), I may start up a SourceForge [sf.net] project. A search on sf.net for stock trading yielded quite a few results, so maybe you could look there?

Re:Uh oh, I think somebody's addicted.....

[dubl-u]

Dude? Seriously. How about a nice savings account? maybe some cd's, short term bond funds? How's your credit card debt?

No shit. I used to work for real financial traders, doing risk management systems. We thought the day traders were great comedy.

Note to the OP: If you're so sure you're right about your vast financial acumen and your ability to go up against trained professionals backed by billions of dollars, then prove it by playing a little game.

Instead of trading with real money, just pretend. Keep track of all your trades, deducting for fees, commision, spread, and the other sorts of friction. If you can make pretend money for three months, and do better than a good fund, then you might be ready to swim with the sharks.

Otherwise, just admit to yourself that you are playing the ponies, that you are playing a big, fun, but very expensive video game.

And either way, only gamble with money you can afford to lose. If you have trouble telling the difference, then put the rest of your money in the hands of a friend and tell them not to let you have it for trading. Because an awful lot of people who thought they were pretty smart have ended up losing their houses, their retirement savings, money from family and friends and, quite literally, their shirts. And often, when they did something illegal to get the money, they even lost their freedom.