MotiveWave Review – Is This Software Good For Traders?

About MotiveWave

MotiveWave is a desktop charting platform with advanced technical analysis capabilities. Instead of focusing solely on charting, MotiveWave aims to serve as a standalone market analysis console. It offers advanced technical analysis tools for finding Fibonacci, Gann, Elliott wave, Ratio Analysis, and Gartley patterns, plus gives you access to scanners, backtesters, walk-forward testing, a trading simulator, and plenty more tools.

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 plans that vary widely in what they offer. Depending on your subscription level, you can get a basic charting package or a full suite of charting, backtesting, walk-forward testing, and strategy execution tools. 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 per 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 and more indicators, but who don’t have a use for many of MotiveWave’s more advanced features like backtesting, walk-forward testing, or scanners.

The Order Flow plan costs $49 per month or $595 for a lifetime license. It includes more depth of market tools and second-based bars, but not 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 per 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 instead of one of the standard plans. The Elliott Wave Lite plan costs $89 per month or $1,395 for a lifetime license. It’s comparable to the Standard plan, but with basic Elliott wave tools included.

The Ultimate plan costs $159 per 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 charting system 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 everything you could ask for from 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. However, when compared against other charting platforms, MotiveWave stands out.

For example, one feature that’s rare to find in charting platforms is the inclusion of time, momentum, range, volume, percentage, and range-based charts. MotiveWave has these. Additionally, MotiveWave supports second-based charts, which aren’t available on many other platforms. One of the only other major charting platforms we’ve seen with this capability is TradingView.

Strategy Execution

MotiveWave software comes with more than 30 built-in trading strategies which you can deploy automatically. 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.

The platform also enables you to build custom strategies and manual strategies that respond to inputs, such as a designated entry point. For example, you can choose an entry point for a trade, then have your automated strategy take over to exit at a stop loss, profit target, or another trigger. This feature is really powerful for traders who want to build tightly controlled automations and don’t want to deal with writing custom code.

Back and Forward Testing

MotiveWave has a powerful data testing system. To start, you can perform basic tasks like strategy backtesting. Many platforms offer this, and the MotiveWave backtesting module isn’t hugely different from the much cheaper backtesting system that Money.net offers.

Where MotiveWave takes things to the next level is with its strategy optimizer. Based on your backtest results, MotiveWave can help you improve your strategy using an algorithm. The system automatically tweaks your strategy parameters to determine what changes yield the best outcomes based on historical data. MotiveWave currently offers two optimization algorithms: exhaustive, which tries all possible combinations, and genetic, which uses genetic algorithms to find the optimal parameters more quickly.

Finally, MotiveWave offers walk-forward analysis. This can get confusing quickly, so it’s only suitable for advanced traders. In essence, MotiveWave simulates data to determine how your strategy might perform going forward, not just based on historical data. For most traders, the benefits of the walk-forward analysis won’t be as great as the benefits of the optimizer.

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.

That’s a huge deal. Even TrendSpider, one of the more powerful automated technical analysis tools on the market, can’t automatically plot Elliott waves. This tool can save a huge amount of time spent analyzing charts and gives experienced traders a leg up when it comes to finding potential trades.

Even better, MotiveWave offers an Elliott wave scanner so you can find upcoming wave cycles before they happen. You can also integrate Elliott wave analysis into your automated trading strategies, enabling you to open and close trades as new cycles begin and end.

Compatible Brokers

MotiveWave integrates with more than 30 brokers for live stock, options, futures, and cryptocurrency trading. Some popular brokers that work with MotiveWave include Interactive Brokers, OANDA, Tradier, and TradeStation.

MotiveWave Platform Differentiators

MotiveWave stands out from other market analysis platforms in several important ways. First, it offers one of the best charting platforms on the market today. It’s rivaled only by TradingView, and even then MotiveWave offers some features like automated Elliott wave analysis that arguably make it the better platform for very advanced traders. The second-based charts are a huge plus for scalpers, although these are also available in TradingView.

The automated strategy tools in MotiveWave are also key. Traders can closely control the level of automated execution for any strategy. They also don’t need to write custom code and can develop strategies right on their charts, making MotiveWave easier to use than some other trading automation tools.

The strategy optimizer is another standout feature of MotiveWave. This takes backtesting to the next level, enabling traders to use advanced algorithms to identify the best ways to tweak an existing strategy to improve performance.

Who is MotiveWave Best For?

MotiveWave is built for advanced traders who want technical analysis and strategy tools that they can’t get from most other platforms. It has a bit of a learning curve, but experienced traders will find this to be a small price to pay for the range of powerful tools that MotiveWave offers.

MotiveWave especially stands out for a few specific categories of traders:

• Traders who want to optimize and automate complex trading strategies
• Scalpers who need access to second-based charts
• Advanced traders who use Elliott wave analysis as part of their trading strategies

That said, MotiveWave is also a great choice for intermediate traders who just want a powerful charting platform and access to strategy backtesting tools.

Is MotiveWave Worth It?

The MotiveWave trading platform is excellent, and you should strongly consider it if you’re looking for advanced technical charts, strategy automation, or Elliott wave analysis. MotiveWave isn’t cheap, but given that you can buy a lifetime license, there are few other platforms that can compete on price.

To illustrate this point, let’s compare buying a lifetime MotiveWave license with buying a 5-year subscription to TradingView.com. If you subscribe to TradingView’s Premium plan for 5 years, it will cost you $2,997, and you still 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.

Pros

• Extremely powerful charting and technical analysis tools, including second-based intervals
• Automated Elliott wave analysis
• Strategy optimizer uses algorithms to perfectly tweak trading parameters
• Offers very cost-effective lifetime licenses

Cons

• Moderate learning curve