CQG Version 7.3883
311 S. Wacker
Suite 3810
Chicago, IL 60606
Tel: 800-525-7082
E-mail: websales@cqg.com
Overall Rating: 3.5 disks
Level: Intermediate
Price: $545.00 per month for base package, which includes some historical information and most technical tools. Exchange fees are additional. Additional modules are available and prices vary.
System Requirements: Windows XP; 512 Megs of RAM; 2GHZ Pentium 4 Processor, or compatible; A broadband Internet connection; 800x600 monitor.
CQG was probably one of the first companies to offer charts on a PC. Started in 1979, the company has grown to become one of the largest dedicated companies offering charting software to professional traders. As such, CQG is probably the granddaddy of charting packages and it shows. The product has a wealth of features that target every conceivable cross-section of traders. There is something for everyone — basic charts for beginners, sophisticated formulas for intermediate traders and back-testing for more advanced traders. In between there are multiple chart types over and above the standard bar and candle charts, multiple types of quote windows and a really slick built-in order execution subsystem.
CQG targets professional traders and the pricing of the product reflects that bias. While the company offers reduced prices for stripped down versions of the product, these prices will not make sense for traders with that kind of budget, there are way too many other full-featured options at those price levels. Practically speaking, a professional trader can easily spend $800 per month for CQG including exchange fees.
So why spend that kind of money? Reliability. CQG has developed a
reputation in the industry for reliability of data delivery and cleanliness of data. I’ve found that to be the case. Even in the most extreme markets CQG kept up, delivering accurate data while other platforms hiccupped.
Charting: 3.5 disks
In addition to standard charts, CQG offers Market Profile charts, equi-tick, point and figure, percent-bar, spread-bar, tick and yield charts. This version of CQG introduces a new chart type called Tradeflow.
The goal of Tradeflow charts is to provide more information to the user about the relationships between price, bids, offers and volume. “Tradeflow” shows a basic Tradeflow chart. The width and brightness of the bars represents volume; the wider the bars, the greater the volume and the dimmer the bar colors, the lower the volume.
The colors of the bar represent the percentage of trades at the ask price (the green bars) versus the percentage of trades at the bid price (the red bars). The theory is that if the bar is composed of more green than red, then traders are bullish and therefore willing to lift offers; and vice versa for the red component.
As with any other chart, the consolidated information presented here must be viewed in context of the overall market structure. The innovation here is that the information is presented using a single tool on a single chart.
I found these charts most useful in a scalping environment for timing short term turns at those points where my analysis indicated support or resistance would be encountered. There, it was easier to sense the time to go long when I saw the green portion of the bars getting brighter and comprising a larger percentage of the bar, and vice versa for shorts. However, these charts aren’t as useful on longer time frames.
Many traders will find these tools useful and it’s refreshing that CQG is willing to try new things and take risks.
You will find a standard package of studies and drawing tools available. Also available for additional fees are specialized packages of studies from other vendors. It was easy to add, remove and modify studies and indicators.
The product has most of the features you would expect from a high-end charting platform. Bars on charts can be “marked” or highlighted when certain conditions are met. You can use prebuilt conditions or build your own using the CQG formula language. Charts can be panned and zoomed. Time frames can be changed using both a keyboard command and a menu option. Symbols and time frames can be changed by typing onto the chart. For futures, continuation charts can be specified as part of the symbol name. Display times on the charts can be restricted to a specific session or customized by the user. There are color options that can be changed for every type of window.
Also, window specific options can be set for the current window, all windows of the same type that are currently open, all new windows or any combination thereof. Layouts (“pages” in CQG speak) can be named, saved and menu shortcuts placed at the top of the screen to quickly switch between screens. Also, pages can be set in a “cycle” mode to automatically change every few seconds.
Trading: 3 disks
CQG supports trade execution directly within the application. Unlike other charting applications, there are no plug-ins necessary to support a wide variety of brokers. Their order execution architecture makes this unnecessary.
Orders can be initiated multiple ways and from just about anywhere in the platform. For discretionary traders there are depth of market (DOM) ladders that can be placed directly on a chart or that can float independently. There is also a standard order ticket window and something called a “heads up” display that is accessed directly within the chart. A nice feature of the floating DOM window is its ability to have multiple symbols in one window. You switch between the symbols by clicking on the tab with the symbol. This saves a lot of real-estate space.
For semi-discretionary traders orders can be placed using alerts. Thus, orders can be automatically placed using drawing objects such as trendlines. They also can be placed automatically by time or by user-defined conditions and by study alerts. Unfortunately, only market orders can be placed in this release.
For mechanical system traders CQG has a system trading function called Systems/Strategies, which can be turned on for live trading. Curiously, live system trading is only supported in CQG version 6.9, an older version of CQG.
The product has a very nice order summary and transaction history screen. Everything you would expect to be in an order execution platform is there. You also can query orders and history by trading system or named conditions. For example, for a condition named BUYES5MIN that can be used to scale up/down into trends, it was easy to see all orders executed from that condition back in the first week of July.
Of course, there are some limitations. At this time only basic market, limit and stop orders are supported. Complex order types such as OCO are not present. Information about overnight positions is not kept, so you have to keep track of trades that aren’t day trades and not all exchanges are supported in this version.
There are some other nice touches though. There is a simulation mode that users can use to practice order execution until they get comfortable enough to turn on the real thing. Multiple accounts also are supported as are multiple users trading the same account. Broker specific features such as allocations between sub-accounts also are supported.
CQG’s order execution network is unique among dedicated charting applications. CQG built an entire order execution network that talks directly to the individual exchange clearing engines. This is unusual because CQG does not own or operate a brokerage operation. Other charting packages support order execution by tying directly to one or more brokers servers that in turn tie to the exchange servers. CQG bypassed this extra layer and went directly to the exchanges servers. The advantage of this approach is speed and broker independence.
Summary
The biggest problem with CQG is its user interface and its non-standard conventions. The software is powerful and feature rich but most of that power is buried under an unnecessarily non standard and complicated user interface that is punctuated by arcane subtleties and annoyances, many of which are undocumented. It would be in CQG’s best interest to spend an entire release cycle rethinking its user interface, its keyboard command interface and updating its help files. The product sorely needs the services of a UI specialist!
However, CQG has a rock-solid data feed (the top priority for any professional trader), responsive technical support, multiple charting options, top-notch charting features, extensive exchange support and integrated trading that supports many brokers, which makes it a very powerful product that is well worth the price for the professional trader.
Note: For an extended review of CQG by Bahadur, please visit the Software Review Extended
Nigel Bahadur runs the Research and Development group for LBRGroup. He can be reached at nigel@lbrgroup.com or via www.lbrgroup.com.
