TC2000 Review 2024: Is This Charting Software Worth it?

In this TC2000 review, I will talk through the key findings from my rigorous testing of this platform.

Having used top-of-the-range charting and stock screening software in my time as a hedge fund trader, I know what an indispensable tool they are. Without them, you are just blindly trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Take it from me, TC2000 wouldn’t look out of place amongst the institutional-grade software professional traders use.

It packs almost everything you need as a trader into a user-friendly, cost-competitive package. From stock screening, charts, to trading, strap in to hear what I have to say about this award-winning stock market analysis software.

TC2000 Review Highlights

About TC2000

TC2000 is an award-winning charting software and stock screener developed by Worden Brothers. It offers one of the most comprehensive suite of technical analysis tools on the market, which earned it best analytical software under $500 for 27 years running according to Stock & Commodities Magazine.

It also doubles as a trading platform for those who sign up to TC2000’s brokerage services, allowing you to trade stocks and options directly from your charts.

As you will see throughout this TC2000 review, the combination of real-time scanning, endless fundamental and technical indicators, immense charting capabilities, and in-platform trading, makes it one of the most powerful all-in-one platforms for US stock, ETF, and options traders.

TC2000 Pros

• Crisp, customizable charts
• Supports technical, fundamental, and options screening
• Real-time scanning with Platinum subscription
• Trade stocks & options directly from charts
• Trading simulator for paper trading
• Pre and post-market modes
• 30-day money back guarantee

TC2000 Cons

• No backtesting
• Direct market access only available through TC2000 brokerage
• Charge commissions for trades

TC2000 Pricing

TC2000 offers 3 payment tiers: Silver, Gold, & Platinum, which you can subscribe to on a monthly, bi-annual, or annual basis.

Once you’ve chosen your package, there are additional charges for real-time market data feeds across stocks, options, and indicies.

Note, you can download TC2000 for free and have a look inside a very basic version of the platform, which includes:

• Delayed streaming data
• Charts of all US stocks & options
• Handful of indicators
• Options chains
• Favorites watchlists

However, if you want to unlock the full potential of TC2000, you will have to upgrade to one of the packages below.

One of these features is live trading through the TC2000 brokerage service, which is available on all payment plans. Those who hold a minimum account balance of $30,000 or place at least one trade each month, receive a $25 coupon for the platinum subscription.

Silver

The Silver package is TC2000’s entry-level offering, which gives you customizable layouts, advanced charting indicators, pre-built watchlists, and both simulated and live trading through the TC2000 brokerage account.

Below is the full list of features in the Silver plan:

• 100,000+ stocks, options, & ETFs listed in US & Canada
• Crisp charts with 100+ technical indicators
• Real-time data available at a competitive cost
• 7 pre-built screen layouts targeting specific workflows, such as Trading or Sector Drilldown
• Alternatively, organize your own layouts from scratch using multiple pop-up windows and tabs
• Monitor hundreds of pre-built watchlists, or create an unlimited amount of personal watchlists
• Track up to 5 real-time alerts, such as price alerts or condition alerts
• Keep a log of personal notes to track trade ideas
• Access to charts & watchlists in the mobile app

While the Silver plan is likely sufficient for most beginner traders, it excludes drawing tools like trend lines and Fibonacci retracements. Therefore, if you rely on these to plot support and resistance levels, you will have to upgrade to the Gold or Platinum package.

It also excludes access to EasyScan, which is the name of TC2000’s powerful stock screener. Given stock screening is a centrepiece of the platform, I would highly recommend upgrading to at least Gold, so you don’t miss out on this important feature.

Gold

TC2000 Gold improves on Silver in many ways – the main ones being extensive chart drawing tools, stock screening, fundamental charting, custom screening conditions, and more real-time alerts.

The Gold package includes everything in Silver, as well as:

• Access to EasyScan condition library with 90 pre-configured scans
• Create your own scanning conditions with the step-by-step EasyScan wizard dialog
• Or, create more complex scans with personal criteria formula’s (PCFs)
• Combine technical and fundamental screening
• Filter and sort watchlist columns by technical and fundamental indicators
• Draw trendlines, Fibs, and notes on charts
• Track up to 100 trading alerts simultaneously
• Industry & sector comparison charts
• Pre and post market modes with real-time data subscription
• Chart almost 70 fundamental metrics like EPS, debt-to-equity, dividend yield for any stock
• Spread layouts across multiple monitors

For a small jump in price compared to the Silver package, I would highly recommend upgrading to the Gold package. The additional features provide excellent value for money in my view.

Platinum

Platinum is the highest-tier package that TC2000 offers, which comes with everything in the Gold package, as well as real-time scanning, historical condition testing, and custom indicators.

Here is the list of all the features that Platinum offers:

• Real-time EasyScan dashboard streams live updates of scan results, which is a must-have for serious day traders
• Up to 1000 simultaneous alerts
• Create your own market timing indicators
• Historical condition testing allows for basic backtesting

While it may seem like a steep price jump from the Gold to Platinum package, you have to put it in context with other real-time scanners, like Scanz or Trade Ideas.

Compared to these platforms, where you could be paying double, the Platinum subscription provides great value for money. The Platinum subscription is for day traders looking to use TC2000 as a real-time premarket scanner.

TC2000 Software

TC2000 software is free to download on the following devices as a desktop or mobile app:

• Windows PC
• Mac
• Chromebook
• iOS Devices
• Android Devices

Note, for everything other than a Windows PC, you will need to download the “Parallels Client App” on your respective device and follow the instructions on TC2000’s website.

Alternatively, you can access TC2000 via the web platform on their website.

TC2000 Features

Now we have our heads around the different subscription levels, it’s time for a deep-dive into all the features that TC2000 has to offer.

Charts

TC2000 is best known as a charting platform, and it is easy to see why. As a serious chartist, the main thing you want is crisp, clean charts. You’re going to spend a lot of time staring at them, after all!

Having played around with TC2000 for quite some time now, I can reliably inform you that they are exactly that. The data streams are timely, accurate, and displayed on high resolution charts.

Not only do they look great, but the UX is also extremely fluid. For example, to zoom in and out you simply slide 2 fingers across your mouse. While this sounds like a minor detail, it is probably the function you’ll use the most, which makes for an overall smooth experience.

Moreover, the flexibility you have in terms of customizing your charts is something I was really impressed with during my testing. Firstly, you have the option to display your charts in any of the following 7 formats:

• Candlestick
• OHLC
• HLC
• Line
• Heikin-Ashi
• Bar
• Area

In fact, pretty much every setting you can think of, from the colours to the grid lines, can all be changed to get your charts looking exactly the way you want them.

For example, you can display your stock data in any of the following time frames, from tick-by-tick bars all the way up to yearly bars.

You can even display multiple time frames on the same screen, which gives you a birds-eye view of the entire trading picture.

In addition, you have more than 100 technical indicators at your disposal to help time the entry and exit points of your trades.

These include the most well-known indicators, such as:

• Relative Strength Index
• MACD
• Ichimoku Cloud
• Donchian Channels
• Bollinger Bands
• Keltner Channels
• And much more…

Gold & Platinum subscribers also have access to a broad range of drawing tools, that let you perform in depth technical analysis.

Again, the UX is extremely intuitive here.

Simply drag your cursor over a specific chart region, press the space bar, and plot any one of the 20 drawing tools from the drop-down menu, including:

• Trendlines
• Fibonacci Retracements
• Andrew’s Pitchfork
• Gann Fan
• Regression Channels

You could argue that all of these features should be the bread and butter of any charting platform; the ones you expect to be good. While that is true, TC2000 goes the extra mile by providing some truly unique features.

One of these is comparison charts, which is only available to Gold & Platinum subscribers. The comparison feature lets you plot up to 10 different securities alongside your main chart, so you can track the relative performance of any group of stocks or indices.

For example, if you want to know how a stock has performed against a market or sector benchmark, simply tick the relevant box, and immediately see if it’s a leader or a laggard.

It is also possible to plot the relative strength as a technical indicator on the same chart. For example, in the image above, the blue line in the top panel shows the relative strength of the base security (Apple) vs. the Nasdaq (QQQ).

EasyScan Stock Screener

As well as being a top-notch charting software, TC2000 also excels as a stock screener.

Stock screening is done through the EasyScan dashboard, which you need a Gold subscription to access, and a Platinum subscription if you want to run real-time scans.

EasyScan allows you to create screens from over 70 fundamental metrics, 80+ technical indicators, and 11 options variables.

This gives you endless combinations of technical and fundamental screening criteria – something that very few platforms offer in such depth.

I always thought of TC2000 as a technical-only stock screener, however I found it to be a highly effective fundamental screener too. This is definitely something that surprised me, and perhaps one of the most underrated aspects about this platform.

Moreover, the rule parameters add another layer of flexibility. As well as the standard “greater than” or “less than” conditions, you can also filter stocks according to their percentile rank vs. other stocks.

For example, in the screen below, I’m looking for stocks where:

1. 5yr dividend growth is in the top 20% of all US stocks
2. Price is at a 50-day high

This ranking feature is great, because it saves you from setting arbitrary thresholds with random numbers. Sometimes you just don’t know which numbers to use! For instance, I could have imposed this rule instead:

• 5yr dividend growth > 5%

But who knows whether 5% dividend growth is good or not? It might be, it might not be. Using other stocks as a benchmark removes this guesswork.

You can also create what are called “Flex Scan Conditions”, which allow stocks to pass a condition within a window of time as opposed to a rigid point in time.

Pre-Built Scans

If you’re not sure how to run a certain scan, head over to the “pre-built” tab. Here, you will find 90 of the most common screening conditions already configured for you, including:

• Gappers
• Bounce After Pullback
• MACD Crossovers
• Increasing Volume

Note, some of these use Personal Criteria Formulas (PCFs), which is the native coding language of TC2000.

If you want to build your own custom criteria, you can learn the PCF syntax from their website. However, I would say this is generally more suited to experienced traders looking to create more complex screening criteria.

After you run your scan, the results appear in a new pop-up window, like below. Here, I’ve ran a “Gappers” scan on Nasdaq Pink Sheets stocks (penny stocks). Note, those wishing to use TC2000 as a penny stock scanner should know that OTC stocks aren’t available.

What I really like about the output, is the ability to add as many data columns as you like alongside the results. You can populate these with any fundamental or technical indicator, a condition test, or even your own formulas.

For example, in the screenshot above, I included the price-to-sales and debt-to-equity ratios as “value columns”. In addition, I added a separate “condition column” that displays a tick next to stocks trading above their 200-day moving average. This really helps you eye-ball the data and filter down the results even further.

One stock that caught my eye was ViaDerma (VDRM), which as you can see had a nice gap up after a period of consolidation.

Traders love stocks that “gap up”, because it is usually an indicator of sustained momentum. VDRM is a prime example of that, because 2 weeks later it was up over 100%!

This is the beauty of a stock scanning system as powerful as TC2000 – it helps you cut through the weeds and find the winners!

My only criticism of EasyScan is that it isn’t great for candlestick recognition. While TC2000 provides PCF formulas for candlestick patterns on their website, importing these into EasyScan creates unneeded hassle for the user. If seamless candlestick screening is what you are after, you should check out my TrendSpider review instead.

TC2000 Trading Platform

As well as being a leader in stock market analysis software, TC2000 also includes live and simulated trading features for stocks, options & ETFs.

TC2000 Brokerage Account

For live trading, you need to open a TC2000 brokerage account, which gives you direct market access from their platform. This means you can trade directly from your charts, so you never miss a beat.

There is a price for this convenience, however.

Unlike many brokerage services these days – which offer commission-free trading – TC2000 still charges you a fee to place trades. The pricing schedule is as follows:

• Stocks & ETFs: $4.95 per trade
• Options: $2.95 per trade + 65c per contract

While this may seem like a bad deal, they make up for it with very competitive margin rates. So, if you frequently use leverage, then it’s definitely still worth considering.

Note, margin rates change all the time due to moves in interest and currency rates. Therefore, make sure to check the latest margin rates here.

Also, remember you’re paying for the whole TC2000 experience, which gives you seamless integration between your analysis and trading. The range of analytical tools at other brokerage houses pale in comparison.

Note, all margin accounts must maintain a minimum balance of $2000, and adhere to a 4:1 intraday margin ratio and a 2:1 overnight margin ratio.

To show you how easy it is to trade from their charts, look at the images below. As you can see, there are buy and sell buttons conveniently located at the bottom-left of each chart.

Simply click on one of these, and choose from any of the pre-set options in the drop-down menu:

• Buy/Sell at Market
• Buy/Sell at Limit
• Buy/Sell to Open Call
• Buy/Sell to Open Put
• Buy/Sell at Indicator

There really isn’t much you can’t do when it comes to trade execution. As well as standard market and limit orders, you can execute orders at any indicator or trendline.

Once you enter your trade, it appears in the bottom window, allowing you to constantly monitor your P&L.

Options Trading

In addition to trading stocks, TC2000 offers one of the best options trading platforms that I’ve come across.

The options data is comprehensive in terms of the range of strikes and expiry dates available.

And what’s more, you can plot the chart of any option alongside the underlying security and trade straight from the chart.

For more advanced traders, TC2000 even includes a list of pre-built options strategies, which you can implement at a click of a few buttons.

There is also a dedicated “Options” tab that gives you all the data you need to perform in depth options analysis. Here is where you’ll find complete options chains with accompanying “Greeks” data (Delta, Vega, Implied Vol, etc.).

You can also perform options scanning in this window to help you find options with your desired characteristics. As well as the technical and fundamental criteria outlined earlier, you can also screen on common options parameters, such as:

• Premium (%)
• Intrinsic Value
• Time Value
• Black-Scholes Value
• Greeks (Delta, Gamma, Rho, Theta, Vega)

Trading Simulator

For those of you wanting to brush up on their trading skills without risking real money just yet, fear not.

TC2000 has a fully functional trading simulator that lets you practice trading strategies in a paper trading account.

Note, while live trading requires a separate TC2000 Brokerage Account, paper trading only requires the TC2000 software, and a subscription to any payment tier.

Watchlists

With over 100,000 stocks, ETFs, and options to sift through, finding new trade ideas can often feel overwhelming.

Thankfully, TC2000 has a neat solution for this: watchlists.

Essentially, watchlists partition the stock market into smaller subsets. They generally group securities together based on a sector, region, theme, asset class, market cap size, or any other factor that they might share in common. TC2000 has thousands of these watchlists pre-built into the platform.

Some examples include:

• Nasdaq Pink Sheets
• Closed-End Funds
• Global X Solar Stock ETF
• Forex
• Aluminium Sector
• Opus Small Cap Value ETF

Alternatively, you can manually create your own watchlists from scratch.

Once you have a watchlist (either personal or pre-built) containing the stocks you’d like to analyze, you can sort and reorganize them based on any fundamental, technical, or custom indicator.

Watchlists also come in handy for screening. For example, if you already know which area of the stock market you want to focus on, you can just apply your screening criteria to those stocks. Perhaps your research has led you to believe that solar stocks are a buy. Therefore, instead of screening the entire market, just screen stocks belonging to a Solar ETF.

In summary, watchlists are a great way of organizing stocks into different groups and making the idea generation process much more efficient.

Alerts

Alerts let you know when a certain “event” has occurred. These are things that might trigger a trading decision, such as a:

• Price Target
• Condition
• Reminder

For example, you might want to know when Tesla hits $300, because that’s where you want to sell.

Alternatively, you can create any fundamental, technical, or custom condition to trigger an alert. For example, I might want to know when Apple’s sales growth drops below 10%, or when Amazon crosses below it’s 200-day moving average.

You can also set a general reminder about something, such as an earnings announcement that you might want to trade.

Unfortunately, your eyes can’t be in many places at once, which is where the alerts come in handy. Whenever an event is triggered, you automatically get an alert sent to your phone and/or email address, so you never miss a trading opportunity.

Up to 5 simultaneous alerts can be tracked for Silver members, 100 for Gold members, and 1000 for Platinum members.

Fundamentals

The “Fundamentals” window is a great way to compare the financial metrics of any watchlist of stocks side-by-side.

As you will have guessed by now, all of the columns are fully customizable, with around 75 fundamental indicators to choose from.

There is also a handy “Reports” window in the bottom right corner that summarizes key metrics about a company, which again is customizable.

Another great feature that isn’t available with most other charting platforms is the ability to chart fundamentals. TradingView is one of the only others that I can think of, which you can compare with TC2000 in this TC2000 vs TradingView review.

This lets you see how a stock’s fundamentals have evolved over time, so that you can put its current profile in the context of its own history.

For example, the chart above shows that while Apple’s P/E has come down recently, it is only just back to its long-term average.

And, while its ROE has risen in the last few years, this has been as a result of increased leverage and share buybacks (financial engineering), as opposed to an increase in profitability (margins).

Sector Drilldown

The “Sector Drilldown” tab allows you to perform top-down analysis on sectors and industries.

By sorting and scanning through the numerous sector, industry, and stock watchlists, you can narrow down the investment universe using a funnel process. Start by finding the best sector, followed by the best industry (sub-sector), and ultimately the best stocks within them.

For example, in the image below we are drilling down into Chemicals stocks, which belong to the broader Basic Materials sector.

The “Sector by Year” tab provides further information about sector, industry, and individual company performance in recent years.

All of this helps give you a birds eye view of how different stocks have performed relative to one another in recent years. This is a great starting point for portfolio construction.

Historical Condition Testing

TC2000 claims to have a backtesting feature, which they call historical condition testing. However, I think this is slightly misleading.

A proper backtester allows you to rebalance a hypothetical portfolio over time based on pre-defined criteria. All you can do with TC2000, however, is see how many stocks passed your scanning criteria at different points in time and plot a distribution. This tells you whether the number of stocks passing your scan today is average or rare.

If backtesting is what you’re after, I would recommend looking at MetaStock or Finviz instead.

Notes

The Notes feature allows you to keep a personal trading journal, so that you can track your thought processes over time.

Sometimes as traders, we can get caught up in short-term noise and lose sight of why we were interested in a certain stock to begin with.

Being able to time-stamp our thoughts and plot them on charts mitigates this issue, and allows us to track a stock’s story developing over time. Ultimately, this helps us make better trading decisions.

FAQs

TC2000 Review Summary

Having conducted a thorough TC2000 review, I can see why it has stood the test of time as one of the most popular charting and stock screening platforms.

The charts are crisp and endlessly customizable, while the range of fundamental and technical indicators makes it one of the most comprehensive stock screeners on the market. This really is a platform for both technical and fundamental investors alike.

With thousands of watchlists, sector drilldowns, and column sorting, there are so many ways to organize the data to suit your preferences. Moreover, the TC2000 brokerage service allows for seamless in-platform trading with competitive margin rates. The only area it lets itself down on is backtesting in my opinion.

While there isn’t technically a free trial available, a 30-day back money guarantee is the next best thing. As such, I would highly recommend stock and options traders to give it a spin, as there are very few platforms that offer such well-rounded functionality.

I would suggest trying at least the Gold package, which should give most traders what they want. However, for more active traders, you will likely need the Platinum package to take advantage of real-time scanning and alerts.