Question

Answer

We posed this question to the experts (our clients) on the Linn Software Yahoo! Group / Discussion List and got the following responses....

I purchased Investor/RT on the recommendation of a friend. His description of the product was essentially "There's a steep learning curve to using Investor/RT but it will do just about anything you want it to do in analyzing stocks. " I've been trading stocks for about 10 years with the last 1 year full time and previously used TC2000, ESignal, Wealthlab Developer, Medved Quotetracker. Advanced GET, Windows on Wall Street (that dates me) and I can do things with Investor/RT that I wouldn't know how to even start to with any of those programs. It might have been possible to use them and integrate them with Excel and write lots of computer instructions to manipulate data and put it into the right files but that is way beyond my capabilities or interest. With Investor/RT, you can pretty much decide what processes need to be executed and in what order to turn quote data into an intelligible display and the program will move your data into indicators , scans, charts and spreadsheets as long as you can define the inputs and outputs for each step.

What is there to Investor/RT that makes it such a powerful and flexible tool?

1. People
   Bill Linn and Chad Payne are in constant contact with the users and provide education , troubleshooting , and product updating in the most responsive way I've ever experienced.  Mention a function or indicator that would be very useful and in about 2 weeks it could be ready for downloading as a program update. Send them an email, drop into the chat room and you can have answers in an hour or sometimes instantaneously.

2. Scheduling features
   You can schedule functions to run automatically and in sequence so scans can be run , results can be sent to quotepages , further filtering can be done by other scans and results combined , charted , printouts made, alarms triggered or output can be sorted in different ways. For example you can have the daily data scanned before trading starts and best candidate stocks or target prices determined before the trading session opens. Then you can schedule scans to be run on any intraday periodicity at fixed times during the trading session or continuously.  All the automated steps can be run with the program minimized so you can use the computer for other applications or view charts. But you can have output signals come to the front or charts displayed when your programmed outputs determine that the results should be visual.

3. All the indicators, scheduled tasks, quotepages, charts use a building block approach . That is, once one of these modules is developed it can be given a name and used in other applications as is or tweaked to serve a different function. indicators can be combined to form custom indicators and given a unique name for later use. Indicators and scans from different periodicities can be combined as desired.

4. Charting module is very flexible. Pane sizes can be adjusted , indicators added or removed one at a time , line colors widths and styles (dashed, dotted, solid) can be customized . There are time base bars, volume based, no of trades based , percentage change per bar, point and figure. whatever you like can probably be created. Trading signals and paint bars can be displayed on charts.

I'll quit now there are probably about 50 other features that I could list that are very useful . But I'll let others put in their favorites.

Art

I have been using Investor/RT for 4 years now. I tried one other program that was Mac compatible and it did not hold a candle to Investor/RT.

As with any program Investor/RT takes some time to learn but once you put in the time it is an AMAZING program. I have not even tapped into half of what it is capable of doing.

1. Investor/RT support is excellent and extremely responsive. New updates happen at least 6 times/year. Usually these updates are incorporating various requests made by clients like myself. I know Investor/RT has made several additions and improvements that I have suggested.
   
   There are many different forms of support: you can email Investor/RT directly, post questions to the Linnsoft discussion group and there is a weekly chat session with Linnsoft technical staff after the market closes.
   
   I have personally made a few good friends from just taking advantage of the great discussion group and members are willing to help each other figure things out.

2. Charts are easy to work with: you can change symbols, periodicities, zoom in and out with the touch of a button. You can add literally hundreds of technical indicators (or at least it seems like hundreds ;-) ) and the tech support team is willing to help you figure out any indicator to set up and incorporate into Investor/RT that you may have read about or want to try.

3. I like using the scans and alarms to alert me to market conditions that I may not notice during the market hours. You can create an infinite number of signals to alert you to just about any market condition you can dream of.

4. I use Market Profile and Investor/RT has a few different forms of Market Profile that are being improved and I believe will soon be the best that is available.

The bottom line is that I could not imagine trading without using Investor/RT.

Gayle

I've been using Investor/RT for about three years. One feature that swung me to it was the ability to enter trades in backtests at particular trigger prices (or at the trigger price plus or minus a slippage factor).  Many programs I looked at could only do the entry at the closing price of a 1min bar which could be far away from the trigger price rendering such backtests suspect.

Also important is the ability to backtest many stocks at the same time and to be able to rapidly scan for stocks in real time that meet one's customized conditions.

I second the other things that have been said about the excellent support and responsiveness of the Investor/RT group.

Brian

The customer support including fixes and changes is incredibly good - yes I do have outstanding issues but 95% of the time things are superb compared to other companies.

Robin

Having tried many different Charting Packages during the 8 years I have been trading (the last 4 full time) I can say with confidence that Investor/RT is the most comprehensive package I have come across to date. It has everything a perspective trader needs and more with my only frustration being that owing to the extensive facilities it employs I do not know them all. The backup and support is second to none in my opinion.

Paul

As I have said to Brian over the years, I have a totally different reason for loving Investor/RT since its early early versions (besides that it runs so well on the Mac)

I am not a day trader. I am not a momentum trader. I have no faith in technical analysis. I rarely use the backtesting features for that reason.  I look for value, I favor fundamental analysis, and I do not trade often. But I watch the market continuously all day, and track our securities carefully.

So why Investor/RT ?
Investor/RT is wonderfully clear in its presentation of data, is superb in its handling of real time and historical data, and permits maintenance of records, graphs, histories and other data in flexible and visually attractive (therefore, informative) formats. I have not seen, today or ever, any other program which can match Investor/RT and, though fully satisfied with it, I periodically research whether anyone has matched the features of Investor/RT. Nobody has done so.

I manage 12 accounts with substantial portfolio values and need to be ready to respond when the occasion warrants. Investor/RT allows me to do that.  Investor/RT allows me to compare securities to one another, to indexes, and to quickly obtain additional information from the web on any security at the click of a mouse.

I urge Investor/RT to market itself to investors who look to fundamentals and who, frankly, may not need or use many of the hundreds of bells and whistles which Investor/RT has at hand.  There is nothing which I need which Investor/RT does not have.

Finally, from the very beginning, Investor/RT has had the best customer service of any company I have encountered. In the early days, Bill Linn would take about every call, whether for sales or technical assistance. He still takes such calls. As Investor/RT has moved forward, he and all the staff ensure that no question is unanswered, and every question is answered immediately.

I'm sure there are other customers/users like me who would say the same thing.

I'm not sure who is doing the marketing for Investor/RT but, if I can lend a hand, I'd love to.

David

I just signed up for the Trading System indicator feature and knew within a couple of minutes that this was my next big step into Investor/RT. For a trading nut, this is better than Viagra. Please sign me up for the yearly subscription (I'll pre-pay for the year), and I figure that I'm getting a fantastic deal for the price.

Being able to fine tune trading signals and see real time simulated trading results is so satisfying. I have no idea how many others are into automated trading but I see it as the equivalent of building a robot and watching it take it's first steps. Then with the simulated trading portfolio in IRT you can learn whether you have a successful system or a disaster without having to blow $5000 to learn.

Bill Linn and his company should receive a Nobel prize for the best example of what a company can do in a market society. The dedication of the whole team is just so satisfying. How many other companies have the top people out there online once a week actually listening to their customers and implementing changes to the program.

I've been with IRT for several years now and find that there is always more: more to learn, more to discover, more to try. It has a touch of the crystal ball, stare inside and see new things. Who can ask for more?

And for the price, it is a very fair exchange.

Hayden