Metastock 8 System Tester

[padnoter]

Hi,

I'm having problems with the system tester in v8 - wondered if someone could help please?

The system is buy/sell/&closing at the Close price (working with eod data), and has some stops based on points movement.

The problem is when I run the test, the stops are stopping trades on the same day they were started (seemingly on the high/low figures).

This doesn't make sense, since the execution of the initial trades is on the Close price, so the earliest they should be stopped out is the next day.

I'm sure this used to work correctly v6.

The only good point is that all my systems are generating huge (unrealistic ) profits because of it !!

Any help/pointers will be much appreciated - v8 is frustrating.

Cheers
Phil

 

[Orion]

Metastock Vsn 8 System Tester

I reckon I’m pretty good on Metastock, and a whizz on Vsn 6.52 EOD, but the Vsn 8 system tester has both logic and software bugs, as I found to my considerable cost and frustration. Some months ago, after weeks of constant e-mails and phone calls to Equis in the States, I finally got their technical manager to admit as much. I have yards of e-mails to prove it. Not that his admission did any good because they have no intention of issuing “fixes”. So much for customer service. The best you can hope for is that the next release includes the necessary corrections. Their software used to be good, and I used to recommend it, but no longer.
As to your problem, yes, you are right. Under Vsn 6.52 you could never exit on the same day as entry, either by programmed rule or by exit stop. Vsn 8 is logically different. Now you can exit on the entry day (even using entry at the Close), and this of course means that your old tests just won’t work correctly.
I have programmed a “workaround” which uses no stops at all, just my own programmed rules. You could do the same. Let’s say you want to enter long at the close and, after an upward run, exit on a trailing stop of 40 points from the highest intraday high. Under “Sell Order” you could write:
Ref(HHV(H,4),-1)-L>40
which would throw you out on a fall back of more than 40 points from the highest high of the last 4 days.
And don’t forget you can use the “Function” button to access a range of hidden values which add extra functionality to your rules. For example, there is one value which is “The points gained or lost in the current position”. Take a look at them, you may find something there of use to you.
Finally, there is an error in the system reporter. For a points only test it just does not calculate the Average Win/Loss ratio – a pretty major fault in my view. And as for the new layout of both the reports and the tester itself, if it ain’t broke why fix it?
Good luck.

 

[padnoter]

thanks v. much - i'll take a look at workarounds, but it's really

 

[Rognvald]

Orion
Welcome to the Boards and thank you for you contribution which I will be putting in the Software Guide iI am in the process of developing in due course

 

[Orion]

Rognvald

You're welcome. I'm away now to sit on a beach until 21 Feb but if you need any additional info on Metastock do contact me then.

 

[Rognvald]

Orion
Don't get too much sand between your toes
Thanks for the offer - I'll be in touch later in the month
Ron

 

[Orion]

Data/Spreadsheet Format
I’ve just recalled another irritating failing in Metastock Vsn 8 of which users ought to be aware. You’d have thought that the latest release would cater for the most recent version of Excel. Not so. This has repercussions if you want to extract OHLC data from a datasource in Excel spreadsheet format and import it into Metastock. If you use the Downloader “convert” function to do this you have first to ensure that your spreadsheet has been “saved” in “CSV” or the old “Microsoft Excel 4 Worksheet” format. And watch out for the date field. I set up my spreadsheets for MMDDYY (U.S. style) by formatting the date field then let the Downloader switch it to DDMMYY.

Trailing Profit Stop
In an earlier post on the System Tester discussing how Vsn 8 now allows exits on the same day as entries, I could also have usefully pointed out that the manual is misleading and just plain WRONG. One example is the description of the Trailing Profit Stop. The manual describes this as a stop which is triggered once a specified amount of PROFIT is lost (as in Vsn 6.52) but the software just does not work like that. Instead it calculates the amount by which the position has fallen back from the highest intraday high, ignoring whether the position was ever in profit or not. As such it is NOT a trailing profit stop at all. No surprise then that users are confused.
And now I must go catch an aeroplane…..

 

[zambuck]

anyone wishing to read more on the system test please go to link below...Sprunger's article is a good read indeed....


http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/QJZDQJ...Kofbo4vDFl9Xwsg/Sprunger Guide to MS ver8.doc