If you day trade or swing stock trading and are looking for a new laptop to use for this purpose, being realistic about your needs and your budget is key. If you’ve got a lot to spend and are looking for the best laptop, then there are lots of factors to consider to help you make sure that you get the best device for your needs that will help you turn a profit as a day trader.
Most traders are looking for a laptop that provides a good balance between cost, performance, and features. If you have a budget in mind for your laptop, then the best approach will be to narrow down the most important components that you need and go backward from there to find a laptop that fits both these requirements and your budget.
What You Need From a Trading Laptop
Today there are several laptops available that are built with traders in mind, such as this Lenovo stock trading laptop. But before you buy, it’s important to determine what your unique needs are in order to ensure that you find the best laptop for you, at a price that is within your budget.
A computer is made up of a collection of different components, each of which will perform a certain duty. While a collection of powerful components means that you will have a powerful computer for day trading, this can get quite expensive. Because of this, most take a practical approach by focusing on the components that are most important to their daily needs.
Most Important Specs for Trading Laptops
The basic components of a trading laptop include the central processing unit, graphics processing unit, hard drive, RAM, and motherboard. Most trading software is heavy on CPU and RAM, so you can probably get away with a more basic GPU for your trading laptop.
If you currently have a laptop or computer that you use for trading, one good way to figure out whether you should focus on CPU or RAM more for your new device is to run your current trading software alongside Windows Task Manager to see which resources are being used the most.
Determining How Much RAM You Need
The RAM or Random Access Memory is the short-term memory function of your trading computer. The amount of RAM that will be needed for your new trading laptop will mainly depend on how many things you need to do at once. If you are a day trader working at high speeds with lots of tools and tabs open such as news feeds, scanners, charts, and chat rooms, then the higher your RAM, the better.
If this sounds like your situation, then 16GB will be ideal. On the other hand, if you are a swing trader working at slower paces, then less RAM will be needed – 8GB is ideal but as low as 4GB might work for some.
Choosing a CPU
The CPU is the main component of the computer and is responsible for carrying out all computing tasks, so it’s important to spend some time getting this one right. AMD and Intel are the two main manufacturers of computer processors. For trading, you will need to look for a multiple-core processor – the more, the better, as each core is essentially a separate CPU of its own. Since each core can work on a different task, the higher the cores, the faster the performance you will get.
Monitors
Some traders have tons of monitors filled with all kinds of information on the screens. However, you don’t need a dozen monitors to be successful at trading, so keep this in mind when choosing your new trading laptop or PC. It is a good idea to think about how many monitors you are using now and if the number is just enough, too much, or too little.
If you have gotten to the point where you are splitting multiple programs across one screen, it can be worth considering adding another monitor to your setup. If you want to use several monitors and are going to be trading from a laptop, make sure that you choose a laptop with enough ports to connect them all.
Whether you’re an established trader looking for a setup upgrade or want to get started with day trading or swing trading, these are some of the main things to consider before investing in a new laptop or PC.
