Picture the famous Circuit de Monaco track on a day perfect for racing.  The very best cars Honda and Ferrari have to offer are positioned and ready to go.  You then notice, up the back of the pack, an old Alfa Romeo 159 preparing to race.  The race begins, and the old car stalls, takes 2 minutes to restart, and slowly gets underway, as the front runners are already starting their second lap.  Even though the driver is pushing the old girl as hard as she’ll go, he can’t get past 100mph.  The tyres are worn so he slips all over the track, and after 5 excruciatingly slow and problem riddled laps, he hits the rail and his race is over.

Later the driver is interviewed by the media.  He claims he doesn’t know what went wrong, but comes to the conclusion it must have been a problem with the track, as the car always ran perfectly in 1951.

If you were watching this interview you would think the driver mad.  You would point out (quite rightly) the obsolete condition of his car, compared to those racing and insist there was never a chance of a happy ending.

As someone who has worked in technical support over the years I can tell you I’ve seen this situation many times before.  Not with cars, but with computers.

Trading and Investing has evolved a great deal over the years.  Chalk Boards and Pit Trading has been replaced with computers and electronic transactions.  Hand drawn analysis replaced with advanced charting software, and trades that required a call to your broker each time, can now be placed at the click of a button online, with instant effect.

Did You Know? According to the available statistics, it took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million users, 13 years for TV, and only 5 years for the Internet.

These advancements for the most part are all thanks to the rise of Personal Computers.  Where just 25 years ago they were huge, clumsy, underpowered, overheating contraptions for high-end nerds, the humble PC stormed into our homes and now has become an integrated part of our lives.  You can’t escape them.  Every home, every store, every government department has them.  When they’re working they are amazing time savers, portals to the rest of the world, and a hub of social activity.  When they’re not working......

For traders, the PC is your hammer, your sickle, the tool of your trade.  It is the essential piece of hardware required to obtain data, analyse markets, place trades, and keep up with current news.  The PC provides you with a level of efficiency and diversity that was only fantasy a generation ago.  You can view charts of practically any market from around the globe.  You can trade Australian Stocks, Foreign Exchange, CFD’s or even the weather. 

With this in mind, ask yourself this question:

Am I treating my PC as the essential tool of my trade?

If you’re unsure as to the answer, here are some things to consider...

Lock it down

If possible, try to have a dedicated system for your trading.  Many people use their trading PC for everything.  Games, surfing the internet, email, Facebook, etc.  Your computer, and the Operating System it runs on, can be a finely balanced house of cards.  For each program or function you place on top, the greater the chance something will tip the whole thing over.  This is especially true if the system is a family machine, where everyone has something installed and you can’t always monitor what is happening.  I can recall one person who called up, as Market Analyst had stopped working.  It was strange as nothing, as far as we could tell, had changed to cause the problem (no program or OS updates, no settings changes).  After some investigation, the person noticed a new icon on the Desktop.  It was a game his son had installed without him knowing.  We uninstalled it, and presto, Market Analyst was working fine again.

Drivers – Not just for Cars anymore!

Many programs today use a lot of video resources.  All computers have a video card, be it integrated onto the motherboard, or a standalone card.  At least once a month, the major developers of these cards will release driver updates that resolve existing problems, and add new functions for programs to use.  Now if you don’t have any idea what video card you’re running, there is a great online website called Can I Run It.  Select anything from the list, it won’t matter, and run the test.  After a few seconds you will see all of your computer’s specifications, including your video card.  Once you have the card specifics, go to the manufacturers website.  Most these days can auto-detect what you’re using, and direct you to the right driver update.  You might be amazed at the difference an updated video driver can make to your PC experience.

(Anti)virus?

I placed the Anti in brackets as my experience shows the majority of retail security programs on the market do more harm than good when it comes to protecting your PC.  Often they will slow your system, take up a lot of system resources, and provide a lot of useless fluff no one really needs, while charging you like a wounded bull for the privilege.   There are many great Antivirus programs out on the market today that are free to private users:

•    AVG   

•    Avira   

These are just some of the examples of good quality, free programs available online.

Did You Know? There are approx. 6,000 new computer viruses released every month.

Unlike a fine wine, computers don’t age well.

The most common of all problems I’ve come across in my years of support comes down to this point.  Computers have a limited life span.  A 5 year old computer in human terms is 80 years old.  And while it may still open Word and Internet Explorer relatively fast, software is an ever evolving product, which will take advantage of new technology as it arrives.  This is the point of my racing story.  Minimum system requirements are given for a reason.  We can’t force you to upgrade that old Pentium 2 laptop, but don’t expect newly developed software to run like lightning.  If you want to run the best programs, at the fastest speeds, with the greatest level of stability, you need to have a modern computer.

Did You Know? Early hard drives in PCs held 20 Megabytes (MB), and cost about $800 whereas an $8 flash drive today holds 2 Gigabytes (GB) computer memory. That's a 100-fold 'decrease' in price for a 100-fold 'increase’ in capacity.

In summary, the line between a PC being the trader’s best friend, or arch nemesis is a fine one.  If you see your computer as your tool of trade, and treat it as such by following the guidelines above, your experience with modern day Electronic Trading should be a pleasant and productive one.

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