Excel Trading Platform?

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mrippy

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Let me first start by declaring that I am not a computer programmer or am I a very "technical person" or whatever the hell that means! I have been trading for about 2 years. And like most other traders at this point I dream of a custom trading system geared around my trading style. It would not be anything to technical.
One of my ideas is to have one screen(Excel Spreadsheet), with all 6 forex major pairs- possibly more- with 1min-10-min30min-1hr-4hr-daily- numerical technical indicator numerical readings- ADX-DI+ DI-- RSI- APE Alpha + others. I would use it more as a in-depth scanning tool. Monitor the trendnes+ overbought-oversold- of the forex pairs. I think a strategy could be devised watching patterns come in and out of the different timezones etc.. Also have the pivot points and other common info.
I am hoping somebody has built something similar. From what I have gathered I am going to need a DDE feed into excel. I have seen some products (Analyzer XL), but I think they are geared more for charting. I would use this coupled with Metatrader. If the only way is to build a complete trading system and icorporate my ideas that is ok- I just wonder what a good starting point is? Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated! Mrippy
 
I think that this is not such a bad idea, although Excel/DDE is slow and clunky it does have some good built in functions, saves re-writing them in code ! Simple numerical comparisons of this type can be remarkably successful when translated into trades, although I suggest that you greatly narrow down your target indicators for comparison.

AS a starting point you could go with IB they have a good Excel offering, it'll take quite some work still, but worth it IMO. If you are feeling more ambitious then go with one of their other APIs eg VB.net, much faster, but more programming work. In all probability you'll have to do most of the work yourself unless you're prepared to pay someone.

GL

rog1111


mrippy said:
Let me first start by declaring that I am not a computer programmer or am I a very "technical person" or whatever the hell that means! I have been trading for about 2 years. And like most other traders at this point I dream of a custom trading system geared around my trading style. It would not be anything to technical.
One of my ideas is to have one screen(Excel Spreadsheet), with all 6 forex major pairs- possibly more- with 1min-10-min30min-1hr-4hr-daily- numerical technical indicator numerical readings- ADX-DI+ DI-- RSI- APE Alpha + others. I would use it more as a in-depth scanning tool. Monitor the trendnes+ overbought-oversold- of the forex pairs. I think a strategy could be devised watching patterns come in and out of the different timezones etc.. Also have the pivot points and other common info.
I am hoping somebody has built something similar. From what I have gathered I am going to need a DDE feed into excel. I have seen some products (Analyzer XL), but I think they are geared more for charting. I would use this coupled with Metatrader. If the only way is to build a complete trading system and icorporate my ideas that is ok- I just wonder what a good starting point is? Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated! Mrippy
Click to expand...
 
Thank you for the reply. After reading alot of messages on this forum- I have noticed IB mentioned several times with excel. I am going to look into IB, I even heard that a feed is free or very cost effective. As far as what to monitor- I came accross a good article in TA Stocks and Commodities April 2006- about several indicators by Chris Young, called APE factor. They consist of three indicators that measure trendness, profit factor, risk. He has come up with a way to determine the most efficent trading time frame. I got the idea by reading Marcel Linc- High Probability Trading. He talks about monitoring the smaller intraday timeframes for trends that erupt into the bigger timeframes- if they progress into the higher timeframes then they should have stronger legs to keep trending (trend is your friend). I personally notice trends erupting in forex at predicatable times- so I think a combination would work.
I do hear you when you say that you need to narrow down your list of things and indicators monitored, go with the "KISS", you could get information overload. I am really curious that if I gather alot of data, if some type of algorithim program could be compiled to predict trends. I have no idea if any software exsist that could decipher patterns in the data?
 
mrippy said:
I have no idea if any software exsist that could decipher patterns in the data?
Click to expand...
There are a number of neural network programs that purport to do just that.

An example - [size=-1]www.wardsystems.com
LII
[/size]
 
it shouldn't be too difficult to collate all your factors in Excel and unify into a "score" or similar for each pair. The all you have to do is to decide how and when to act on it, and to actually trade it !

GL

rog1111

mrippy said:
Thank you for the reply. After reading alot of messages on this forum- I have noticed IB mentioned several times with excel. I am going to look into IB, I even heard that a feed is free or very cost effective. As far as what to monitor- I came accross a good article in TA Stocks and Commodities April 2006- about several indicators by Chris Young, called APE factor. They consist of three indicators that measure trendness, profit factor, risk. He has come up with a way to determine the most efficent trading time frame. I got the idea by reading Marcel Linc- High Probability Trading. He talks about monitoring the smaller intraday timeframes for trends that erupt into the bigger timeframes- if they progress into the higher timeframes then they should have stronger legs to keep trending (trend is your friend). I personally notice trends erupting in forex at predicatable times- so I think a combination would work.
I do hear you when you say that you need to narrow down your list of things and indicators monitored, go with the "KISS", you could get information overload. I am really curious that if I gather alot of data, if some type of algorithim program could be compiled to predict trends. I have no idea if any software exsist that could decipher patterns in the data?
Click to expand...
 
excel trading

mrippy said:
Let me first start by declaring that I am not a computer programmer or am I a very "technical person" or whatever the hell that means! I have been trading for about 2 years. And like most other traders at this point I dream of a custom trading system geared around my trading style. It would not be anything to technical.
One of my ideas is to have one screen(Excel Spreadsheet), with all 6 forex major pairs- possibly more- with 1min-10-min30min-1hr-4hr-daily- numerical technical indicator numerical readings- ADX-DI+ DI-- RSI- APE Alpha + others. I would use it more as a in-depth scanning tool. Monitor the trendnes+ overbought-oversold- of the forex pairs. I think a strategy could be devised watching patterns come in and out of the different timezones etc.. Also have the pivot points and other common info.
I am hoping somebody has built something similar. From what I have gathered I am going to need a DDE feed into excel. I have seen some products (Analyzer XL), but I think they are geared more for charting. I would use this coupled with Metatrader. If the only way is to build a complete trading system and icorporate my ideas that is ok- I just wonder what a good starting point is? Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated! Mrippy
Click to expand...

Welcome to TradeInteceptor™ . they have exactly what you asked.
 
ok my $0.02

1) I think you're risking seeing the world only in terms of indicators.
2) Ditch the 1 and 10 in charts - they really are just noise imho.
3) You need to figure out whether you are going to find a platform data solution that will supply all those indicators in a feed or whether you are going to just take the raw price data and calculate them. If the latter, your spreadsheet is going to be very very chunky indeed.
4) If the former, the only package I personally know that does this stuff is Bloomberg (I have started experimenting with the indicator feeds recently, but only in a small way - can get most stuff). You will probably find that even if you can get an indicator out of it, you will only be able to get it with the settings they specify (e.g. will spit out upper and lower Bollinger bands, but only with a 20,2 setting as that's the most commonly used parameters). There may be others, but I haven't seen them.

There will definitely be something you can build, but my best advice is plan carefully what you want out of it BEFORE you start. Don't just spend a ton of time building something then try and find a use for it.

GJ
 
mrippy said:
Let me first start by declaring that I am not a computer programmer or am I a very "technical person" or whatever the hell that means! I have been trading for about 2 years. ..... Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated! Mrippy
Click to expand...

trendrisk said:
Welcome to TradeInteceptor™ . they have exactly what you asked.
Click to expand...

Ah - good one - you got me. I have to admit you had me fooled there for a second mrippy. Oh well.......

Doubtless a vendor badge will be on it's way soon. I just wish people would be more honest about these things.
 
My bad - actually just seen these posts are like 3 years apart. Sorry. Decided to hold my hands up rather than just delete / modify my post.

GJ
 
Hi,

I am a newbie on the FX market and my broker offers the widely popular Meta Trader platform. Now I have come to understand that building your own strategies is the preferred way to go - as opposed to using Expert Advisers created by someone else. However learning MQL4 (Meta Trader 4 programming language) from scratch is not exactly my cup of tea. There are add-in solutions for Meta Trader 4 that allow the trader to use excel (I feel more comfy in Excel) to build strategies.

I wonder however whether an excel based solution for building strategies is as effective?
 
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