Back testing software?

[PKFFW]

Here is a tip that may save you hundreds of hours and much moolah!
Do not put the cart before the horse. In other words learn to trade successfully first, using the greatest computer of them all - your brain. And then, and only then see if the system - and I mean the sequence of every little nuance that the thousands of impulses the neurons in your brain fire off every second - can be expressed in computer code, if indeed you really have that level of self awareness to realise this.
Losing money is not a great crime but wasting time is IMO.
If you think this is crap then try trade station or many of the others available to take the human element out of trading.
Good luck!

Well due to some surgery complications my trading capital has been severly depleted so I'm headed in the direction you say anyway now. I just can't afford a back testing program!!

So I'm practice trading while I recover and save again and I think I'm actually beginning to understand all this trading stuff. The trading plan I am working on shows some promise and with more fine tuning and practice I'm sure I will become profitable...eventually! I'm trying to keep it really simple, concentrating on just the price action as much as I can. I still like to play around with an indicator or two though.

I hear so much about not putting your money on the line until you know your strategy has an edge though. So how do I know if my strat has an edge or if I have just hit upon a lucky practice streak without some sort of back testing? I mean I could paper trade for a year and be profitable but still only really have a small sample of data to be basing my system on. Is a year enough? If I am consistantly profitable by the end of that year having developed my own system and paper traded it over that time, can I feel confident that it is a good system do you think?

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Cheers,
PKFFW

 

[Trader333]

You should be able to get a genunine second hand version of Tradestation 2000i that will allow you to backtest pretty much anything you want. I have seen these for as low as £150


Paul

 

[mroalan]

Tao,have e- mailed them,thanks.

 

[taowave]

Tao,have e- mailed them,thanks.

my pleasure..they are coming out with version 2.5 sometime this week..its going to be a major upgrade and will significantly enhance the program....IMHO,its the best backtester on the market for under $500

 

[minx]

I just ordered Traders Studio as it is very well priced relative to mechanica and traders Blox and has virtually all the power and capabilities of them..It is also a great charting package as well...

I would highly reccomend you look into tradersstudio

Any update on how Trader Studio has been to work with? How are you finding the programming language? Anything not in the package that you wish it did have? A quick review would be much appreciated. I'd also really like to hear from anyone with Trading Blox as I'm probably going to get one of these programs in the new year and as TS is 1/5 the price of TB I'd like to know what the real difference between them is.

 

[fundjunkie]

Any update on how Trader Studio has been to work with? How are you finding the programming language? Anything not in the package that you wish it did have? A quick review would be much appreciated. I'd also really like to hear from anyone with Trading Blox as I'm probably going to get one of these programs in the new year and as TS is 1/5 the price of TB I'd like to know what the real difference between them is.

I recommend that you take a look on ET. There's been alot of detailed discussion of both Tradersstudio and Trading Blox and you should get all the answers you need and more. Personally, I own Tradersstudio but also have alot of respect for Trading Blox. However, Tradersstudio kills Trading Blox on price/performance.

And if you add the fact that Trading Blox is EOD only while Tradersstudio are in the process of producing a real-time version with an automated front-end I'd argue that the Tradersstudio roadmap is more ambitious. You should expect that Tradersstudio won't remain relatively cheap indefinitely - it's a powerful, flexible and robust platform.

That said, it's down to you and what your personal objectives are as to which way you should go.

Additionally, here's a lnk to their website. They have a forum and you might be able to get some of your questions answered there:

TradersStudio > Home


Thx
D