The LSE Directory / Charting platforms
MetaStock is a Windows desktop charting and technical analysis platform for individual traders and investors, sold in two core variants: MetaStock D/C for end-of-day daily-chart analysis and MetaStock R/T for real-time intraday trading. The software bundles a library of more than 300 built-in price and volume indicators, a market-scanning tool called Explorer, a strategy backtesting engine called the Enhanced System Tester, price forecasting tools, and a proprietary scripting language, the MetaStock Formula Language (MFL), for building custom indicators and automated trading systems. Coverage spans stocks, options, futures, forex, and indices across markets in more than 90 countries. The platform is built for retail, self-directed technical analysts rather than institutional trading desks, and it competes in the charting and backtesting category against products like TradeStation and eSignal. MetaStock itself is analysis and scanning software, not a broker or execution venue; it pairs with separate data feeds and brokerage accounts. Its real-time data option, XENITH, is powered by Refinitiv and layers in live global market data, Reuters news, fundamentals, and screening on top of the base charting engine, while the end-of-day product runs on lower cost daily data. The current release line is MetaStock 19, running on Windows 10 and 11; version 18 shipped on 14 February 2022. The MetaStock product traces to 1982, when Steve Achelis founded Computer Asset Management in Salt Lake City, Utah, renamed Equis International in 1989; MetaStock 1.0 shipped in the mid 1980s and won a PC Magazine Editor's Choice award in April 1986. Equis and the MetaStock line were acquired by Reuters in 1996 and passed through the 2008 Thomson Corporation and Reuters Group merger, before Thomson Reuters divested MetaStock, effective 3 May 2013, to Innovative Market Analysis, a Utah company founded and led by Scott Brown as owner and CEO. Innovative Market Analysis, still based in Salt Lake City, has continued to develop and sell MetaStock since the divestiture; the company states it serves more than 150,000 customers in over 90 countries and that MetaStock has won the Readers' Choice Award from Stocks and Commodities magazine for more than 20 consecutive years.
