The March release of Blocks Trader 3.0 is now available.

To get your copy, simply run your Blocks software and you’ll automatically receive the new version. If you don’t currently have Blocks Trader 3.0 on your computer, attend one of our free nationwide training classes and you'll receive your copy of the software at the door.

Here’s a quick summary of what you’ll find in this exciting new release:

Blocks now “throttles up” if the memory and processor power are available on your computer. If you run other software or if Blocks detects that your computer is needed for other operations, it “throttles back”. This is actually happening hundreds of times per second. The result is silky smooth operation and a very enjoyable user experience.

The graphics and painting have been optimized for super-fast refresh rates and flicker free viewing. Now you can enjoy watching your charts and scans gobble up streaming real-time data.

New Quick- flip Time Frames
Customizable time frame tab-buttons at the top of your charts now make it a breeze to flip through various time frames with a click or scroll of your mouse wheel. You can add and remove these tab-buttons to set up only your favorite time frames (i.e. 2 minute, hourly, daily, etc.)

New Streaming Update Frequencies
Blocks is the only trading platform in existence that streams real-time data for the entire market onto your computer over a DSL line or regular broadband. What does this mean in English? You could have all your charts & scans updated every second. Smoke might be coming out of your machine – but you CAN do it.

The new "update frequency" feature allows you to set how often you would like any indicator, sort, scan or condition to update and recalculate itself. For example, you probably want a price line updating every tick. And you might want an indicator to update every 5 seconds. You might want a scan to update every 2 minutes.

You set the property on each item depending on how important it is to you and how often you want it to refresh. To access the "update frequency" property, simply left click on an item or right click and select QuickEdit.

New Big-picture Zooming and Panning
There is now a “big picture view” chart underneath your primary chart. You drag sliders around the big chart to determine what you see in your regular chart. This makes it easy to zoom into specific dates or to specific tops and bottoms. You can also use your mouse scroll wheel for super easy and effortless operation. You get a great feel for how your regular chart fits into the big picture of time.

New Filtering
In addition to creating "scan lights" out of conditions, you can now drag conditions to a watchlist filter area if you only want to see the stocks which pass your conditions.

Drag-n-drop Paintbrushes
If you go through the effort of creating a new condition, don’t you wish you could just drag it to a line to paint it? Now you can. Drag any number of your conditions to any lines to paint them. There’s no limit to how many conditions you can apply to a line and you can rearrange the priority order for coloring. This is not only fun – it’s downright useful for seeing when different conditions occur on a chart.

Ability to Manually Set Chart Symbol
Everything in Blocks stays "synchronized" with an active ticker symbol. Sometimes you want to lock a chart down to a specific symbol. For example, you might want to keep an intraday chart on your screen of the Dow Industrials that doesn’t change as you scroll through your watchlists. There’s a new button on each chart called “sym” that allows you to manually set the symbol for any chart.

Drawing Tools
Now there are over a dozen new ways to draw and write directly on your chart – from regular old trendlines to Fibonacci’s to Fans to regressions to pitchforks. When you draw on a chart, it never forgets your markings, making it easy to go back later and see how your interpreted trends are unfolding.

New Data Settings let you prioritize “System Performance or Chart History”
Under “Settings/Data Manager”, you can select how many bars you would like available on your charts. There is a choice for daily (or longer) time frames and a choice for intraday time frames. If you are an extreme trader that demands the history, you have the option to choose more bars. If your primary focus is on the present, choose fewer bars for an improvement in system performance. Feel free to experiment with these settings to optimize your machine for your particular needs.

Hundreds of Bugs Squashed
We methodically stomped and killed each bug as reported by you over the last three months. We're sure there are more still buzzing around, but we are relentlessly pursuing each one.

What’s next? – Here’s what we are working on right now.

Coming soon – Backtesting
We thought it would be done by now, but we need about another 6 weeks. The good news is that it’s under construction and exceeding our original design expectations. In other words – it’s really cool and really easy to use. You will be hearing more about this soon. In the meantime, version 2.0 users will still have access to their existing Blocks backtest features.

Coming soon – more free chart real estate
You’ll soon be able to create and manipulate your conditions in a separate window from the chart. Plotting them on your chart will become "optional" instead of "mandatory." You'll have a nice, neat, organized list off to the left.

Coming soon – more data
Forex, commodities, and futures. Please let us know which you’d like first if you have a preference.