These days, you can trade on a phone, tablet or even a smart watch but trading on these devices will have a serious impact on your performance when it comes to being able to quickly analyze charts and place orders. If you want to get serious about day trading, you have to trade on a device that is not only going to make you more efficient at analyzing the data but also provides reliability when it comes to the risk of losing money caused by technical errors. Day traders rely on fast and accurate information and any hiccups in that data flow could cause a trade to go very wrong. So when it comes to day trading, using a fast and reliable computer is the only smart choice.
Windows or Mac
When choosing a trading computer, the first choice to make would be to go with either Windows or Mac. This can come down to personal preference but the reason a Windows machine may be the better choice is simply because all trading software programs work with Windows. When you go to choose which trading software you want to use such as a broker, charts, scanners or newsfeed, you’ll find that some programs ONLY work for Windows. If you were to choose a Mac operating system, you would be limited to the amount of choices when it comes to trading software. I personally like to keep my options open when it comes to trading software in case something new comes along which is why a Windows machine is my preferred choice.
Laptop or Desktop
When choosing between a desktop or laptop, there are a few things to consider. The first would be to ask yourself if you think you’ll ever need to trade on the go. If you sometimes travel and would like to be able to trade, a laptop may be the better choice. Even if you don’t travel, there may be times where you need to trade in a different location due to situations where your home internet is down or your power is out.
The drawback to using a laptop is that they can be difficult to upgrade or repair. New components such as processors, hard drives and graphics cards are regularly released. So if you always want the newest components, a desktop may be the better choice.
Hard Drive
Hard drive storage is the computers long term memory used to store files such as videos and photos. Unless you are screen recording your trading sessions and saving them, the amount of hard drive storage isn’t too important for a trader. Besides, most computers these days come with at least 500GB of storage and you can easily add more by either upgrading the hard drive or purchasing an external hard drive. But the main consideration when choosing a hard drive would be choosing between a solid state drive (SSD) or hard disk drive (HDD). A SSD will be much faster in terms of the computers boot up time and reading and writing data whereas a HDD will be a little slower. Personally, I would choose a computer with a SSD drive but it does come with a higher cost.
Ram
Ram is essentially a computers short term memory. It’s what remembers everything that is currently running on the device such as open web browsers, your broker software, charting software, scanners, chatroom or any other program you have open. The more programs you have open, the more RAM you will need if you want to keep things running smoothly.
I personally have 6 applications open at once when I trade, partly because I am a trading educator and need certain applications open that regular traders don’t. For this reason, I wouldn’t use anything less than 16GB of RAM. But for the average trader, I wouldn’t suggest anything less than 8GB of RAM.
CPU
The CPU (processor) is essentially the brains of the computer. It’s what controls all the processes running on the computer. The faster the processor, the more processes can be run simultaneously. There are some trading applications that take up a lot of processing power because there is so much data going through those programs. So it’s important to have a speedy processor. I wouldn’t suggest anything less than a Quad-Core 2.8GHz processor for a day trader.
How Many Monitors Do You Need?
There’s no right or wrong answer to this as this is purely a personal preference. This really comes down to how you want to design the layout of the software applications you use to trade.
I personally use 4 monitors to trade, although, I could probably get away with using just one but it would feel very compact and cluttered to me. I’m very particular about my software layout because I designed it in a way that is easier on my eyes and allows me to view multiple things at once. I personally like to have a monitor dedicated for my scanners, another monitor dedicated to my charts, another monitor for my chatroom and another for my broker. By having a monitor dedicated to each software program I use, I have much more room to work with and I can see everything more clearly.
Think about how you want to view the data you need to look at. If you like to be able to keep an eye on 4 different stocks at a time and can fit 4 charts on one monitor, then you will need 1 monitor dedicated to those 4 charts. If you like viewing 4 stocks at a time but also want to see 2 different time frames for each of those stocks, then you may need 2 monitors to house all 8 charts. It might be a good idea to write a few layouts on a piece of paper and play around with different software layouts to figure out how many monitors you will need. Don’t buy multiple monitors just because you see other day traders have them. If your chosen layout only requires 1 monitor then that is perfectly fine and if in the future you do decide you need more monitors, you can always add additional monitors later.
GPU (graphics card)
Once you figured out a software layout and the number of monitors needed for that layout, the computer you choose needs to have a graphics card powerful enough to handle the extra monitors. Most basic budget home computers can handle 1 extra external monitor. But if you need 2 or more monitors, you are going to need a more powerful graphics card.
A graphics card is responsible for processing visual data such as the video and graphics you see on the screen. The more powerful the graphics card, the more graphical data can be processed and therefore provide the extra processing power to run more screens.
Look for computers that have a dedicated NVDIA or AMD graphics card with at least 2GB of memory for using 2 monitors or at least 4GB of memory if using 3 or more monitors.
Ports
When choosing a computer, it’s important to see what ports it comes with. If you are using external displays, you want to make sure it comes with enough display ports to connect the number of monitors you need. Most computers come with an HDMI port which most monitors use. If your computer has a different port such as a miniDisplay port but your monitor only uses HDMI, you can purchase cable adapters to convert an HDMI cable to miniDisplay.
Another port that may be important to have is a dedicated ethernet port. An ethernet port allows you to directly connect your computer into your internet router instead of using Wi-Fi. I’ve been in the IT industry for several years and I have had my fair share of lag or connectivity issues through Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi was built for convenience. Not reliability. When transmitting data through the air, plenty of things can go wrong and there is nothing worse than being stuck in a trade not being able to send orders because your Wi-Fi signal is having issues. To eliminate the potential risk of losing money from internet problems, it’s best to use an ethernet cable that plugs directly into your computer so you have the best internet connection possible. If the computer of your choice doesn’t come with a dedicated ethernet port, you can always buy an ethernet adapter that connects into a USB port.
My Picks for Trading Computers
Budget Laptop – Acer Aspire 5
Specs: Windows
512GB SSD Hard Drive
8GB Ram
3.6GHz Quad Core CPU
Nvidia 2GB GPU
Higher End Laptop (my personal trading computer) – MSI G63 Stealth Gaming Laptop
Specs: Windows
256GB SSD + 1TB HDD Hard Drive
16GB Ram
4.1GHz 6 Core CPU
Nvidia 6GB GPU
Budget Desktop – Skytech Shadow Gaming Desktop
Specs: Windows
1TB HDD Hard Drive
8GB Ram
3.4GHz 4 Core CPU
Nvidia 4GB GPU
Higher End Desktop – iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Element 9260
Specs: Windows
240GB SSD + 1TB HDD Hard Drive
16GB Ram
3.0GHz 8 Core CPU
Nvidia 6GB GPU
Accessories
HP Monitor
Dual Monitor Stand
Triple Monitor Stand
Ethernet Cable
RGB Programable Keyboard
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