Building Your Own Multiple-Monitor Trading Station

A lot of readers of this column have asked for advice on how to connect multiple monitors to their PCs. Here's a long overdue explanation. Long overdue, because every serious trader gets to a point where one monitor just isn't enough.

Traders use multiple monitors in different ways. Some might put up several Level II screens at once in order to see all the bid and ask prices for each stock. Then they may place charts for those same stocks on still more monitors. And they might keep another monitor in reserve for chat and yet another for news.

Still other traders find they need more monitors as their experience grows, says John Chittenden, CEO of TriKinetic Technologies. Chittenden's Austin, Texas-based firm designs and builds trading computers. "If someone's trading and he's using CyBerTrader on two screens and that trader says 'I want to try out eSignal [a quote service] and I want to try out Preferred Trade [an online broker] for options; then, I want to load up an Excel spreadsheet,' that's not going to fit on a third monitor," he explains. "That person's going to need four monitors."

PCs and Graphics Cards

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