Trading Computers And Slippage

By Author: thomasgalvin
Total Articles: 612
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Attention fellow traders! Did you know that over seventy percent of day traders today fail to make as much money as they could because they are running old Trading Computers with old operating systems such as Windows XP and Vista? These old trading systems can create a bottleneck that leads to lag in market data and the high tech, high frequency traders are eating your lunch. Most traders today do not realize that the main stream processors from just 2 or 3 years ago (such as the Core 2 Duo or Pentium 4) and low levels of RAM can not keep up with todays mega levels of data flow. This leads to old stale market data and something called Slippage. Slippage is when you enter an order but the price is get filled out is slightly or even significantly different from what you get at. Even just a half a second delay in data could great affect your calculations and significantly throw off your trading system; resulting in loses, frustration and failure.

The problem with using old operating systems in these trading computers is that 98 percent of installed versions of Windows XP ...
... and Windows Vista are 32 Bit Versions. The problem with these 32 bit versions is that they create bottlenecks in trading computers. The biggest bottleneck is in memory or RAM. A 32 bit operating systems is only designed to make use of about 3 GB of RAM. So even if you have 12GB installed, the computer is not capable of using it. In todays multi indicator trading environment and traders desire to multitask, this is a huge problem. Most traders need at least 6 GB to freely run all the programs they want to run simultaneously. The second bottleneck comes in the form of video encoders and decoding software used to generate highly graphical charts. 32 bit systems take significantly longer times to generate complicated charts and can lead to additional slippage and missed opportunities. As you can see, running the wrong operating system could result in a trading disaster. As traders we need every possible advantage that is in our control to succeed.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution for increasing the performance of trading computers. Running a 64 bit operating system such as Windows 7 in conjunctions with an Intel Core i7 processor can fix slippage issues very easily.

My name is Eddie Z and I am a full time day traders of the US stock market. Over my twenty five plus years as a trader and my life long obsession of computers, I have learned all the intricacies of what makes trading computers special. Most traders are not techies and could use a hand in deciding what components are needed to create a great system.

For more information about Trading Computers and Stock Trading Computers; Please visit Tradingcomputersnow.com