2017 – Page 10 – Easycators Thinkorswim Downloads

Posted on Sunday 2017.01.22Saturday 2021.02.27 by Josiah

Thinkorswim Login: How to Log in to the ThinkOrSwim Platform

The ThinkOrSwim Login Screen

This article tells you exactly how to find your way around the ThinkOrSwim login screen. If you’re new to TD Ameritrade’s think or swim platform, read on for more information on getting started and logging in to trade.

Get the Program

The first thing you need to know is how to get ahold of the program itself. Just go to our thinkorswim download page if you don’t have the application installed yet, and download thinkorswim. Launch the installed and go through the prompts, making sure you install for all users. Once you’re done, click OK and the program should launch on its own.

The Thinkorswim LogIn Screen

Once you have the program, locate it on your hard drive and double-click the icon to open it. It will show a “Checking for updates…” progress bar for a few moments. This is where the application calls home to TDA and makes sure there are no updates to be installed. If there are, it will install them and relaunch. If there aren’t, it will take you to the login screen:

The Thinkorswim login screen has your typical username and password fields. But there are also a few other options here to discuss:

Lock Icon

Once you type in your username, you can click the “lock” icon in the field. This saves your user ID so that next time you launch the program you won’t have to type it in again. It basically saves you some time and effort each day.

Question Mark Icon

The question mark icon is there just in case you run into any technical difficulties on startup. Basically it just gives you the toll free 800 number to call in case of technical issues to get customer support.

Thinkorswim Login Options

The login options will be displayed once you click on the gear icon on the lower left side of the login window. It will bring up a window that looks like this:

Look and Feel

Here you have some options you can set before launching the platform. First, you have the color theme. Most people use the dark them, and that’s the one I prefer as well. It’s a little easier on the eyes after staring at your screen for several hours, in my opinion. But you can select a light them or whatever other options you prefer.

Next you have the font size. If you have a small monitor then you might want to choose the smaller font size to be able to squeeze more onto your screen. If you can’t read small text very well, on the other hand, you may need to set the font to be larger.

After that you have a space for a proxy server address in case you need to connect through a specific server. Most people can simply ignore this.

Memory

In the next two fields you can specify a minimum and maximum memory allotment for the platform. This basically tells TOS to go ahead and block out a certain amount of RAM on your computer to be used just for this program. It comes with some default settings, but if things are running slow, you might want to bump up the minimum and maximum settings. The platform will actually alert you later if you start running low on memory anyway.

Backups

If you ever mess something up or make a change in the software that you don’t like, don’t worry. The platform automatically backs itself up, and you can always rollback to a prior version. Or if you have a version saved externally from a different computer, you can always load that one as well. Just click the clock icon and select the date of the backup you want. If you want to choose a backup saved somewhere other than the application’s main folder, select the last option in the menu and browse to find the file.

After you have all your options chosen and set how you like them, click Save to go back to the main Thinkorswim Login window. From there you can finish typing in your password, choose either Live Trading or PaperMoney simulated trading, and then click Log In.

Home Screen Shows up after Thinkorswim Login

Once the think-or-swim log-in process is complete and the platform finishes loading, if this is your first launch, you may notice a popup called the “home screen”. This is ThinkOrSwim’s news and updates screen, featuring recent blog posts and streaming CNBC. You can close this out by clicking the X at the top right. And you can always re-open it by clicking Home Screen in the top right corner of the platform.

I personally find the home screen popup to be annoying, and a lot of other people do to. But if you happen to be one of those people, you’re in luck. You can turn off the home screen popup very easily. Just click Setup in the top right corner, and select Application Settings. In the window that appears, click on Startup, and then uncheck the box that tells it to open the home screen on every startup. Accept the changes and you’re all set. Next time you launch the platform the popup won’t launch automatically.

Conclusion

Hopefully this gives you a good comprehensive overview of logging in to ThinkOrSwim. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below. Incidentally, if you’ve forgotten your password or username, you can always go to the thinkorswim login help page and TD Ameritrade will get you set up.

And here’s a full video on the TOS log in screen in case we missed anything in the tutorial above.

Posted on Thursday 2017.01.19Monday 2019.09.16 by Josiah

Cumulative TICK Indicator for ThinkOrSwim – New and Improved!

New & Improved Cumulative Tick Indicator

Awhile back I posted the Cumulative TICK indicator on the downloads page, but after experimenting around with it for the past several days I wanted to do some updates and improvements. So I’ve just posted the new code on the site and anyone who has downloaded it before will have immediate access to the new code and the new features. I always want to make sure I offer a good product and good value, so your feedback is important to me. Please let me know in the comments if there are any additional features you are looking for and I’ll see if I can incorporate them in the next version. I’m always programming something, so usually it doesn’t take too long for me to improve things.

What’s New

So first of all, I realized that the old indicator didn’t seem to work properly on certain instruments and timeframes due to data peculiarities in TOS. So I fleshed out the code to account for those situations, and now the indicator works on futures like the E-mini S&P 500 as well as stocks and ETFs. And it also works on any timeframe … monthly, daily, hourly, etc. Originally it had only worked in the way Dr. Brett Steenbarger originally used it and talked about it on his blog. But I realized a lot of traders would probably adjust it to their own trading styles, so I wanted it to work for every situation possible. And now it does that.

Second, to make it useful on long-term historical charts, I wanted to add some features. Normally, since the market rises generally over time, the cumulative TICK just keeps growing and growing. The adjusted cumulative TICK fixes part of that by subtracting a moving average to turn the output into more of an oscillator. But on long-term charts that still didn’t fully solve the ever-growing graph problem. What I needed was a “reset” function for long-term charts the same way intraday charts reset at the beginning of each day. So what I did was add the option to have it reset each year, month, or week. Each of these can be independently set.

Third, I’ve added the ability to choose your own average type and length for the Adjusted Cumulative TICK.

New BONUS Indicator: TICK Extremes Indicator

This is an indicator that a lot of traders use to fade high and low TICK extremes. I’ve tried to make it really easy to customize by letting you show or hide the zero line, average line, and extreme levels. You can choose what levels you want to use based on whether you’re on a long term chart or a short term chart. And you can set the average type and length as well. All the colors and graph types are customizable as well.

New BONUS Indicator: Comparative TICK Indicator

I’ve seen traders use this in other platforms, and I had some time to kill so I thought I’d see what I could do with it in TOS. Essentially this indicator lets you look at multiple cumulative TICKs at the same time and compare how different markets are behaving relative to each other. So you might compare the NYSE TICK to the Nasdaq TICK, S&P 500 TICK, Dow TICK, etc. The automatic comparison line lights up green when all the TICKs are up-ticking, and red when all the TICKs are down-ticking. You can literally type in any comparison TICK symbol available in Thinkorswim.

The complete list of TICK symbols is listed here for easy access:

$TICK – NYSE
$TICK/Q – Nasdaq
$TIKA – Amex
$TICKAC – Amex composite
$TICKAR – ARCA
$TICKARC – ARCA composite
$TICKC – NYSE composite
$TICKC/Q – Nasdaq composite
$TIKI – DJIA
$TIKIC – DJIA composite
$TIKND – Nasdaq 100
$TIKNDC – Nasdaq 100 composite
$TIKRL – Russell 2000
$TIKRLC – Russell 2000 composite
$TIKSP – S&P 500
$TIKSPC – S&P 500 composite
$TIKUS – All USA
$TIKUSC – All USA composite

Summary

So just as a quick recap, the cumulative TICK indicator set has been improved and updated with the following new features:

Works on all instruments
Works on any time frame
Custom yearly, monthly, weekly reset function to make it useful on long-term charts
Choose your own average type and length for the adjusted cumulative TICK
Set a custom closing and opening time if desired
New TICK extremes indicator lets you fade high and low TICK readings
New comparative TICK indicator lets you see how the different markets are doing relative to each other

This set comes with 4 separate thinkScripts. It includes the basic Cumulative TICK indicator, the Adjusted Cumulative TICK indicator, the TICK Extremes Indicator, and the Comparative TICK indicator.

You can check out the screenshots, video and description of the Cumulative TICK indicator here.

Posted on Wednesday 2017.01.18Saturday 2021.02.27 by Josiah — 2 Comments

How to Install ThinkOrSwim Indicators, Studies, Scans, Columns & Strategies [VIDEO]

Install ThinkOrSwim Indicators

ThinkOrSwim is a great platform, but let’s face it: some things are just plain confusing. Luckily, some of us have already been through the trial and error and know how to do a lot of the stuff you want to know how to do. So in this tutorial, I’ll go through a few of those things. In particular, I’m going to teach you how to install ThinkOrSwim indicators and other thinkScripts.

There are actually 2 methods for installing thinkScripts.

1. Clicking the sharing links
2. Copying and pasting the sharing links manually

We’ll go through each on in it’s turn. I’ve also included a video below that will walk you through each and every method except the first one, since it’s pretty easy.

VIDEO TABLE OF CONTENTS:
0:59 How to Install a SCAN
2:01 How to Load a scan in the main StockHacker scanner window after installing it
2:12 How to Load a scan in a sidebar watchlist widget – refreshes automatically every 3 minutes
2:53 How to Install a COLUMN
3:17 How to Load a column on a sidebar watchlist after installing it
3:54 How to change the timeframe of a column
4:07 How to install an INDICATOR or chart study
4:34 How to load an indicator or study onto a chart after installing it
5:09 How to install a STRATEGY file
5:26 How to load a strategy file onto a chart after installing it
5:43 Summary and recap

How to Find Your ThinkOrSwim Import Links

If you’ve just purchased an indicator on our site, all your links will in the My Account section under Orders. First, mouse over the “My Account” menu item at the top right of the page, then click “Orders” in the drop-down menu:

On the next page, you’ll see all your orders. Click the one you’re interested in viewing the links for:

When your order details page pops up, you’ll see your import links below, as well as your file downloads should you want them later:

Now that you have your import links, it’s time to go through the actual installation process.

Method 1: Clicking the ThinkOrSwim Sharing Links

This method is pretty easy and straight-forward. Or so you would think anyway. Each ThinkScript can be shared with its own unique “tos.mx” sharing link. Clicking one of these links will take you to a page on ThinkOrSwim’s website where you can confirm what the script is. The page looks like this:

Then if you approve, you can click the green confirmation button (the one that says “Scan now in thinkorswim”). The file should be automatically imported into your TOS application.

I say should because it doesn’t work on all systems. Specifically those where TOS isn’t installed for all users. For those lucky traders, the green button will ask you to reinstall TOS. But if you don’t want to do that, no problem! You’ll just need to skip to method two below.

Method 2: Copying & Pasting the TOS Sharing Links

If the automatic link method above doesn’t seem to work, don’t fret. Just go into your ThinkOrSwim application, and click the “Setup” menu in the top right corner (gear icon). In the dropdown menu that appears, click “Open shared item”.

Then a box will pop up, and you can simply copy and paste the link into the space that says “Shared item URL”. You have to go through this process one link at a time unfortunately. After you paste in the link, click “Preview”:

The program will load the link into memory and grab the name so you’ll know for sure what you’re importing. If everything looks good, then click “Open”:

A confirmation dialog box will pop up telling you the script has been imported and given a machine-generated name. Click “Rename” to change the name to something that will be easy for you to find in an alphabetical list later:

Remember to give it an easy to remember name, but something unique as well:

Voila! You’re done. The script has been imported and saved under your chosen name. See the end of this post for instructions on how to load and use each of the scripts you’ve just imported.

Now that you’ve figured out how to get the code into ThinkOrSwim, it’s time to actually activate the code and start using it. Here’s a brief rundown of how to find and activate thinkScripts that you’ve recently imported into ThinkOrSwim…

How To Load a Chart Study or Indicator

If you were importing a chart study (or indicator), then you just need to go to charts > studies > edit studies, and search for the script name in the list. Then double-click to add it to the chart (or click “Add Selected” below), and then click OK to apply the changes:

Keep in mind if you didn’t give the study a name during the import process, it might be in the alphabetical list under “Fs” for “From Easycators on XYZ Date”, so be sure to check the “Fs” if you don’t see the study/indicator after searching.

How To Load a Strategy File

If you were importing a strategy file, then you’ll still go to the Charts > Studies > Edit Studies window, but instead of searching in the normal list of studies, you’ll switch to the “Strategies” tab on the top left corner of the Edit Studies window, and then search in that list for the strategy file:

Again, keep in mind if you didn’t give it a name during the import process, it might be in the alphabetical list under “Fs” for “From Easycators on XYZ Date”, so be sure to check the “Fs” if you don’t see the strategy after searching.

How To Load a StockHacker Scan

If the link you just imported was a scan, a window will pop up with the scanner rules ready-to-go. Just click scan and watch it work. You might have to resize and expand the window to see the results. Or you can close that popup and load the scan in your main window as well. You can access your scans at any time from the dark gray menu on the top right:

Keep in mind if you didn’t give the Scan a name during the import process, it might be in the alphabetical list under “Fs” for “From Easycators on XYZ Date”, so be sure to check the “Fs” if you don’t see the scan after searching.

How to Load a Custom Quote or Watchlist Column

If you just imported a column thinkScript, there are a couple of ways to activate and use it. You can use columns in the MarketWatch Quotes tab, or in the StockHacker or OptionsHacker scan tabs, or on a sidebar watchlist on the left hand side of the window. In either case, you’ll first right-click anywhere on the column headers and select “Customize…”

A window pops open with a list of columns you can add. Just find the column name in the alphabetical list, and double-click to add it to the right hand side. Then click OK:

The column will now appear on your quote screen (whichever column header you had originally right-clicked on):

Keep in mind if you didn’t give the Column a name during the import process, it might be in the alphabetical list under “Fs” for “From Easycators on XYZ Date”, so be sure to check the “Fs” if you don’t see the column after searching.

Conclusion

That should just about do it. Now you should have all your scans, strategies, columns, and studies/indicators imported and installed. Not only that, but if you went through the second part of the tutorial, you should have the thinkScripts added to your screens and ready to roll.

If you find you’re still unsure of how to do something, check out my video. I walk through almost all of these methods on the screen for you, and it should help you figure out anything you missed:

If you have any questions or issues, please post a comment below!