I never used any of the trade tools, preferring to make my own charts like I did back in the good old days. I started a commodities list using a text file back when Alpha4 started, and I've just been adding new items each time FD throws in new products to buy/sell.
When I enter a new area of systems, I land at each one and take screenshots, print out a new set of pages, jot down the market prices real quick and start looking for profitable opportunities. It's probably only good for a day or two before they become unreliable, but I made over 10 million credits doing this. Here's a sample of a page I made last month. The red numbers are items sold at that station; green are their buying prices.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/ ... Stats2.jpg