Please, please bring back the ability to read third party data. I have a huge historical stock and futures database and I do routine historical studies on these charts, now MetaStock doesn't allow me to access them, it is a serious setback. So, my wish: please bring back the ability to read thirdy part data. I predict that MetaStock will lose lots of customers if they don't bring back this ability to read any offline data! Thank you very much!

Thank you for the effort, John! And please try hard for me, and many chartists like me. At a mininum, please provide the option (e.g., via a special plugin, for free or for a fee, doesn't matter, but please give us the choice) to provide backward compatibility. Without the ability to access third party data, it is difficult to envision that MetaStock will remain the software package of choice for many technical analysts like me to use it as the Gold Standard charting software, because it can't even access historical database! Thank you very much for your consideration!

I hear you, bro, this version 12 move is stupid, it is like

Killing the goose that lays the golden egg

Many third party software use the metastock data format as their default file format, contributing to the popularity of MetaStock! Now that MetaStock abandons this format, these software/data vendors will be forced to abandon this format?

MetaStock, wake up before it is too late! Yes, we know Thomson Reuters is experiencing some pressure from shareholders to prevent further decline in revenue, but you never want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg! Your industry-standard file format is the golden egg-laying goose! And it is painful to watch you killing it! Enough said!

Without local access to third-party data in original MS format, I will never upgrade from my copies of MS 9.1 and 11 - they do everything I need to do and my data source keeps overhead trading costs down. Plus, my complex explorations run 5-10 times faster using my local data than the same on my father's MS11 with online-data subscription from MetaStock. That's the difference between a 4-minute run and a 40-minute run.

The only thing that would motivate me to upgrade (besides local data) is NOT more goofy black-box gadgets like Forecaster, but a modern and solid user interface. Almost every day I hit a formatting or usability problem related to Win95-level interface and code. Windows don't restore to the template layout properly, switching from Daily to Weekly display screws up inner-window layout formatting, wiping out all my notations and chart lines just because the template changed (and after all these years, why can't I change all Layout windows from Daily to Weekly with a single keypress instead of having to do each window one at a time?), the need to adjust templates outside Layouts to avoid future complications with a template, almost no bug-fix updates between major revisions etc. etc. And MetaStock is pretty hapless on a multi-monitor setup, common on trading desks these days.

MS 11, brought up to snuff for modern multiprocessor, multimonitor PCs, running Windows 7 or 8 on a robust code base, is what I'd like. Not expensive monthly data subscriptions, not goofy black-box "improvements".

Today's email offering a $49 "upgrade" to MS13, with other goodies tossed in as well (along with observing this poor, dying user forum that's been so vigorous and helpful in the past), tells me sales are pretty sluggish. I sincerely hope that MetaStock can survive MS 12/13 and has the resources to get it right and ship what users actually want rather than what the execs think will maximize recurring revenue. Obviously, that's not working out.

Glad to hear you're growing your user base and are at least somewhat-satisfied with progress - I hope that translates to enough revenue and eventually profits in the bank to put back into product development.

I suppose MS 14 will tell the tale; we'll see if the code base is rewritten for modern platforms and if the overwhelming demand for the return of local data (at least as an option) is addressed. Converting from CSV, by the way, is grossly insufficient since there are numerous third-party data sources supplying directly in original MS file format; anything less than that as an option will terminate any interest I have in upgrading. Then my choice will be to keep MS11/9.1 functional on whatever hardware I'm using or moving on to a different platform altogether.

I sincerely hope to keep using MetaStock, as up through version 11 it met my needs and I invested a lot of time and effort to make it my daily analysis platform.

Obviously you haven't been around at that time, otherwise you would know that unofficially George put as much effort into creating the original (and functional) forum as Marilyn and Patrick ever did - which by the way, were not involved in a capacity as Equis employees at the time. In fact, apart from M & P's efforts, the complete lack of input from Equis staff was quite noticeable during those golden days.



Please allow me to help dissipate that strange feeling inside you:

You are confusing what's left of the MetaStock community with what you nowadays call your "product", a flawed aberration of once-great software. You don't own the MetaStock community - the two are not one and the same.

As for myself, I'm only unhappy with how through your wanton actions bordering on sheer incompetence, you and your ilk have managed to decimate a once thriving MetaStock community.

Enjoy the ride to the bottom