And welcome to the third and final installment of our blog series: The Tools of the Trade. In our first blog post, which you can read here, we covered your trading education and information. In our second blog post, which you can read here, we covered brokers and trading capital. In today’s blog will round out the coverage of this topic with software and data.

Charting & Analysis Software

Trading has come a long way from the days when Charles Dow plotted price graphs on a chalkboard with a straight edge. Now traders can analyze a company's stock chart with traditional support and resistance drawing tools with the click of a couple of buttons. If you prefer to let the computer do the work, many platforms are using artificial intelligence to assist you in analyzing and understanding the price graph.

Two of our favorite free resources for charting are StockCharts.com and TradingView.com. Free charting is decent while you are learning the basics of trading; however, you should expect to upgrade your charting tools when trading real capital. After all, the market for charting software ranges widely in price from $60,000 annually to $169 monthly. But if you are a freshman trader, it makes more sense to start with software like ThinkorSwim, TradeNavigator, or TradingView.

Data

You may have the most powerful charting and analysis software in the world, but without reliable data, it is worthless. It should be noted; the stock exchanges charge their data as it is a huge revenue generator for them. As with any free market, some data providers compete on quality, some compete on speed, and some compete on price. Remember, you get what you pay for, and for example, free data that is free comes with a downside of being delayed or inaccurate, which can be detrimental to your trading.

If your broker or charting software gives you free data, check to see if you can upgrade to premium data. Some charting and analysis software build data fees into the monthly fee to keep things simple for their customers. If you are in doubt about your data, pick up the phone, and ask. It is essential to know what type of data you are using and how fast it is getting to you.

Market Research & Briefings

A reputable market briefing can save you hours of analysis and provide deep insights into the market. Outside analysis will help you to keep an open mind and consider alternative opinions regarding sectors and companies. There are a variety of research tools which you can pick from, and a few that cater to beginner-intermediate traders are:

Remember, you get what you pay for; so, when it comes to free trading advice or a sudden hot stock tip, be very skeptical of the advice. Often, tips like this are promoted marketing ads, and if you check the fine print, if there is any, they received a commission to market that particular stock. To be safe, stick with one of the services listed above.

Bonus: Journal

Champions learn from the past, train for the future, and execute flawlessly in the present. A good trading journal should help you accomplish all three. Some traders keep an Excel spreadsheet, but there is an exceptional value in writing your trades by hand. Try it for a month and see if it makes a difference. Here are a few of our favorite tools for a trading journal:

• Circa Notebooks by Levenger - $20 - $100
  • Circa Hole Punch
  • Circa Accessories
• Evernote - App
• Google Docs
• Use an Old Checkbook Register

In closing, trading is a great activity, a great career, and can be a financially lucrative past time. However, like any field, you need to have the right tools in your toolkit, and the varous tools we covered in this short series should help you well on your journey.