MotiveWave Review – Is This Software Good For Traders?

About MotiveWave

MotiveWave is a desktop charting package with advanced technical analysis capabilities. Rather than just existing as a standalone charting package, MotiveWave aims to act more as an entire market analysis console. In addition to advanced technical analysis tools like Fibonacci, Gann, Wave, Ratio Analysis, and Gartley patterns, this trading software has scanners, backtesters, walk-forward testing, a trading simulator, and plenty more tools which, if purchased alone, would be more expensive than a MotiveWave license.

So, is MotiveWave right for you? Our MotiveWave review will cover everything you need to know about this trading platform.

MotiveWave Plans

MotiveWave offers multiple different licenses ranging from a basic charting package, to a full suite of charts, backtesting, walk-forward testing, strategy execution, and more. You can pay monthly or purchase a lifetime license. All plans include 30+ broker and data feed options.

The Free plan offers access to MotiveWave’s basic trading software features, including charting tools, 280 technical indicators, basic price alerts, trade simulation, and replay mode.

The Standard plan, for $24/month or $245 for life, enables chart trading capabilities, Gann analysis, harmonic analysis, and depth of market data. It’s targeted towards traders with more complex strategies who require more chart templates, more indicators, and additional advanced features, but that don’t have a use for many of the extra features like backtesting, walk-forward testing, or scanners.

The Order Flow plan costs $49/month or $595 for a lifetime license. It includes more depth of market tools and second-based bars, but otherwise doesn’t offer much else. If you want second-based bars – which are a huge plus for scalpers – then you don’t have much choice but to upgrade to this plan.

The Pro plan costs $99/month or $1,495 for life. It adds numerous features, including backtesting, advanced Fibonacci tools, advanced alerts, option chains, and auto harmonic analysis. It’s a big jump in price, but also a big jump in add-on modules for traders who need the most powerful trading software possible.

Access to MotiveWave’s advanced Elliott wave software requires an Elliott wave package. The Elliott Wave Lite plan costs $89/month or $1,395 for a lifetime license. It’s comparable to the Standard plan, but with basic Elliott wave tools included.

The Ultimate edition costs $159/month or $2,295 for life. It includes everything that the Pro plan does, plus Hurst cycles analysis and an Elliott wave scanner.

MotiveWave Charts

The MotiveWave charting platform is arguably the best platform available to retail traders today. The charts are endlessly customizable, allowing you to change the scaling, bar type, whether each candle should be based on momentum, time, or range, and you can trade directly from the charts with the Standard plan. They offer anything you can ask for in a stock trading platform.

With that said, there are so many charting packages out there, that they’ve become a bit of a commodity. Even discount brokers are offering advanced dynamic trading platforms to clients for free nowadays. When evaluating a chart’s quality, beyond basic features like zooming and scaling, I think it’s best to judge it based on additional functionality compared to other charting packages out there.

One feature that is rare to find in charting platforms is the inclusion of time, momentum, range, volume, percentage, and range-based charts. Additionally, you can use second-based charts, whether it’s a 5-second, or 30-second chart.

Second-based charts is a feature that I’ve never seen in a stock charting platform, only for futures. It’s like a scalper’s dream, as without this, they’re forced to use tick or range charts, which may be better for scalping, however, it is nice to have the choice to use a 10-second chart.

Strategy Execution

MotiveWave software comes with built-in trading strategies which you can deploy automatically, or you can build your own trading strategy.

Here’s an example of William Blau’s Directional Trend Index, which is a built-in technical trading strategy that uses what looks like a modified MACD to look for market trends.

Back and Forward Testing

MotiveWave has a powerful data testing system. You can perform basic tasks like strategy backtestin, which many platforms offer, then you can optimize the strategy based on a backtest, and you can even make MotiveWave forward test a strategy based on generated data. Walk forward testing can get quite confusing if you don’t know what you’re doing.

The backtesting is quite basic, and doesn’t differ much from most other basic backtesting platforms. It’s quite similar to the backtester you’ll find on the Money.Net platform.

When optimizing a strategy, MotiveWave offers two alogorithms, one is exhaustive, which tries all possible combinations, and the other is genetic, which uses genetic algorithms to find the optimal parameters.

Elliott Wave Analysis

Perhaps the most important selling point for MotiveWave is its Elliott Wave tools. With an Elliot wave plan, the software gives you the option to automatically plot Elliott waves on your charts. The auto Elliott wave analysis is a huge timesaver and gives experienced traders a leg up when it comes to finding trades.

Who is MotiveWave Best For?

The MotiveWave trading platform is excellent and should be considered if you’re looking for either charting, or a fully-fledged platform with all the gadgets and trade execution you need. Given that you can buy a lifetime license, in my opinion, there are few other platforms that can compete on price.

Let’s assume a 5-year subscription to TradingView.com, which is a web-based competitor to MotiveWave. If you subscribe to TradingView’s Premium plan for 5 years, it will cost you $2,397, and you don’t own a license. You’re just leasing the platform. On the other hand, even MotiveWave’s most expensive plan costs $2,295 for a lifetime license. MotiveWave continues to update the platform, which adds even more value to the lifetime licenses.

There are very few platforms that offer lifetime licenses, and if you plan to use this platform for more than a few months, it offers a highly competitive price point when compared to other platforms.

If you were to ask me personally if I’d subscribe to MotiveWave, I’d probably buy the lifetime license to the Standard plan. That way, no matter what happens in my life, I always have a quality charting platform (assuming they stay in business). In terms of daily use, I’d still make the more expensive choice of going with TradingView, both because I like the platform, and because they add features so frequently. TradingView is also a bit easier for beginners to use, while MotiveWave is best for more experienced traders.