Ah, Bull...
Take a deep breath and calm down.. I wasn't attacking Tom...
Besides, Tom doesn't sell charting software.
My post was in response to a reply from Tom D. where he expressed an opinion that a package from RTR was the best alternative for someone who wishes to chart their own P&F charts...
The RTR package is a vast TA filtering tool that has P&F as one it's various charting options. They have separate versions for DOS and Windows. The DOS version costs $199 on sale, and the Windows version costs $69.95 for a 90 timeout version and $425 for the 'unrestricted' version. In addition, their DOS package reads ASCII data and one pre defined database (ie You get ASCII and Metastock OR ASCII and TC2000 OR...)
They do not supply data, they require you, the user to have the data on-hand.
I am in no way disparaging RTR or their product. It looks like a very powerful tool.....
But if you want to track the stocks in your portfolio. Learn to use P&F. Try charting techniques that Tom Dorsey may or may not support or have available on his site (eg. fixed value box scaling, logarithmic box value scaling, in addition to Traditional/Chartcraft box scaling; 2,3,4, or 5 box reversals; daily average, daily close or daily High/Low prices). Access data you may already have because you already use one of the other commercial stock analysis packages like MetaStock, TC2000, CompuPro, ChartPro, Maximizer, $tokTrax, MegaTech. OR pick from over 600+ forms of User-Specified ASCII data that you MAY obtain from one of the FREE historical data sources or as part of your ISP or Prodigy or Compuserve or from your own Spreadsheet. If you want to learn P&F you can build your own database with any text editor and the morning paper. That's the way it used to be done. And EZ-PnF lets you have that option too.
EZ-PnF is so efficiently programmed that the working program (<400KB), and lots of data files fit onto a 3 1/2" diskette with space left over. You can take it to your friend's house to plot charts with his data, or to the investment club meeting... in your shirt pocket. It's a DOS based program, but you wouldn't really know it when you use it, so it runs on DOS, Windows 3.1,3.11,95, NT or IBM OS/2 WARP 3 or 4. Same small program many platforms.
With all that said I stand behind my claim that the best, most versatile, most cost-effective choice in point and figure charting software is EZ-PnF. With it's SHAREWARE version to try out to see if it's what you want/need... and a Registration fee of only $18.00... 'hidden fees' excuse me. I have already been told that EZ-PnF registration is deeply underpriced.
So, by now you can see that I am not attacking Tom or his site...
Tom's service does offer lots of information, when your internet connection is up and working. And if you only want to view P&F in one, very specific definition, then subscribing to Tom's service is a perfect choice for you.
But if you want some P&F hands-on, you want to pilot the plane every once in a while, you want to carry the ball for a few plays, and you either already have or can get the data (and Tom's site is just as vulnerable to having bad data creep in as anyone else is.. they all buy it from one quote source or another... read the disclaimer at the bottom of Tom's charts) and you want to be able to produce charts that created with either the same technique described by Tom/Chartcraft or your own user-specified criteria... EZ-PnF is the choice to make. Use it along side a subscription to Tom's service.
Respectfully,
Ben A.
BCA Software
pipeline.com |
