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How Tradeguider's SMART Trader Software Reduces Chart Analysis Time by 80%

Posted by the Tradeguider Team on May 15, 2020 12:35:00 PM

how-tradeguider-smart-trader-software-saves-time-on-chart-analysis

Do you find that you’re spending too much time monitoring trading screens and analysing charts to effectively react to trends in the markets? We found that traders typically spend 80% of their time on chart analysis and just 20% on actual trading. We think it should be the other way around. That’s where our SMART trader software comes in.

In this blog, we explore how traders are gaining a competitive edge by using our SMART technology and having more time to implement their trading strategy.

What is SMART trader software?

Our SMART trader software is part of Tradeguider’s semi-automated trading system, which does the heavy-lifting of chart analysis for you and frees up your time for reacting to movement in the markets. SMART trader software does three key things: 

  1. Scans charts looking for signals that fit your strategy
  2. Filters those signals according to their probability of success
  3. Provides audible and visual alerts of the trade setups, helping traders redirect time from chart analysis to better trade performance

SMART Technology for traders, by traders

Tradeguider’s SMART Technology was built upon the original SMART trader software developed by syndicate trader, Tom Williams, who became Tradeguider’s Founder and Chairman. Tom traded professionally for several decades and automated the ability to scan the charts for the indicators needed when using Wyckoff VSA.

Tom trained Gavin Holmes, Tradeguider’s CEO, in his method. Gavin then realised he wanted another layer of automation on top of that. ‘With Wyckoff VSA on its own you couldn’t find the trade as it was happening’, Gavin explained. Gavin had noticed there were recognisable indicator patterns before a potential trade and wanted some software that would reliably identify these. 

Tradeguider’s CTO Grigory Margolin came up with a way of putting this functionality into the Tradeguider SMART trader software. The rest is the proverbial history.

Between them, Grigory and Gavin have, as of 2020, over 40 years of trading experience. Like Tom before them, they know first-hand how being too busy with chart analysis can hinder valuable trading time as much as enable it. 

Sheer processing power

A human being can only look at maybe 10 charts at a time. They also then have to mentally compute the correlation between the different timeframes. An informal survey of traders we know showed that typical traders spend 80% of their time on chart analysis.

Software, even on a standard laptop, can scale exponentially so that you can have information gathered from cross-referencing 1000s of charts at a time. Our SMART trader software can be programmed with up to 10 time frames and 25 instruments simultaneously.

That said, as Grigory, our CTO, puts it, ‘it analyses an instrument as a complete piece, not time frame by time frame. When all time frames are matching your preset conditions, it will send you an alert.’

Increase the probability of successful trades

SMART trader software is better than any human being at doing chart analysis and that dramatically improves the results. Which means the probability of your trades being based on good decisions is increased.

If trading software is better at analysing chart data, humans are better at trading. Which is why it makes sense for us to spend 80% of our time on managing our trades and only 20% on the charts. It means that with SMART Technology in our back pocket we have more mental focus for all the other skills that go into being a successful trader. 

Also, the alert functionality in our SMART trader software minimises the chance of missing a trade that happens to be signalled on a chart you weren’t looking at during that moment. ‘When I started, the bit I found impossible would be that I was looking at one chart and then missing a trade on another’, recollects Gavin.

Customise the trading software according to what you need

There are lots of customisable alerts with our SMART Technology so you can correlate them with your trading strategy. When there’s a match you’ll get an email or an audible alert (your choice). You can then refer to your strategy documents to execute, manage and exit your trades. 

With this much functionality, it is important to make sure you only turn on the features that work best for you. As with any SMART trader software, you want to be in charge of it, not it in charge of you.

This product comparison table has a list of the indicators and alerts included with our Wyckoff VSA trading packages, Chart Center, SMART Center and SMART Center Pro, but it’s always worth talking to us as we are continually developing its capabilities.

Tradeguider's SMART trader software packages | product comparison table

If you’d like to see our products in action, you can book a demo. We’ll trade live in front of you so you can see how our smart trader software works and how it can be customised to suit your needs and scaled to your company size, enabling your team to be more consistently on target with performance indicators. 


Tradeguider is the home of Wyckoff Volume Spread Analysis (VSA), a little known methodology that has been successfully used by the pros for decades. The company has over 4500 customers, some of whom have used it in trading competitions. We’re so confident of the SMART Technology that underpins our products that we use it to conduct live trades in public with real money. Learn more about Tradeguider and explore our Free Resources Center to get great trading insights from the experts.

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