Programming basic strategy and back testing

Hi all,

I'm looking for some software that will enable myself to programme some basic trading strategies with relative ease and then back test these strategies for historical performance.

Note that all instruments are US equities.

There are lots of applications that will do that sort of thing. You probably have one of them on your desktop right now in Microsoft Excel. It doesn't feature all the bells and whistles the likes of MetaStock and TradeStation, but in some ways is more useful. I've done loads of testing work in Excel, though I've also used MetaStock quite a bit.

I've had a little play around with Ninja trader this morning and so far I'm impressed, would I be right in thinking that to utilize Excel I'd need historical data from some source? Could you advise on this?

Also I presume in excel you can only utilise the most basic of systems? I'm looking to back test gapping strategies and some buy and hold. I think excel will power through the by and hold however the gapping.....

I think it all kinda depends how good you are in excel...

it'll do most things imho. True, it's not specifically designed for backtesting, so you do end up doing a bit more yourself, programming wise, but the flipside of that particular double edged sword is that the process can be an exercise in gathering / distilling your thoughts on what's really important.

But it's only an undertajking worth pursuing if you're pretty hot imho.

Obviously, to test in Excel you'll need historical data. But then to test in any platform you need data. It's a basic requirement.

As for Excel only being good for the most basic of systems, most definitely not. But as GJ notes, to get the most out of Excel where system working is concerned you probably should be at a fairly high level of Excel/VBA proficiency.