Software

[Gwenallt]

Wondering if anybody can help ?

I am learning about trading and would like to start using some TA software which can mechanise some of the analysis and back testing work.

For example, I am interested mainly in UK/US indices & stocks and I would like to be able to use TA software to review the market and identify trading opportunities, eg, a dip in an uptrend or a rally in a downtrend etc. Then, to define a few trading criteria (MA, SlowK%, MACD, RSI etc) which can be backtested and refined (optimised) to give a profitable trading strategy using effective money & risk management.

Also, not sure how EOD exchange data is uploaded to the software, so any clarification here is welcome.

I will be very grateful for any help and feedback. I am a little confused about what type of product I require.


Thank you in advance,
Gwenallt

 

[stevet]

you best bet is to contact one of the charting and data supplies - they advertise every where - either get a free trial or take something where you can cancel after a month - just get the minimum option - spend the month learning the basics and all you can for real - and after a month - you will be an expert at charting and data suppliers

 

[Gwenallt]

Thanks for the reply Steve.
I am considering a 30 day trial for eSignal. As far as I can see, the biggest downside (apart from oncost) is that the scanner doesn't work for UK stocks. Any ideas of cheaper alternatives ?

 

[wysinawyg]

If you're after packages to do US and UK it is a bit of a pig, particularly if you want scanning, which it sounds like you do. I'm not really sure if any of the single box providers offer a great package that covers this off.

One option would be Metastock which makes e-signal look cheap IIRC and does need data (but see below).

Otherwise you are looking at a fairly techy multi part solution. I think either wealth-lab or tradestation 2000i as the more popular options. Wealth lab in particular is meant to be top notch for analysis, scanning etc. but with either of these you need to sort out the data feed yourself from an external source (My Track is the main one I can think of that would give you both US and UK along with anything else you want from a single package) and I don't think either of them are exactly the most user friendly solution.

If you have a look on the home page there should be links to these companies, although if you want to look at metastock I'd suggest Paritech as they are worldwide and offer data so could organise it all for you.

wysi

 

[stevet]

Gwenallt

real hard or at least much harder to make money on Uk stocks as you get hit for the stamp duty - and i know all but a few have real problems with UK data - thats what keeps me out of UK trading - so might be time to think about US trading?

 

[al-motor]

Sharescope.co.uk could be used for UK data and TC2000.com for US data- But it will mean 2 different packages !! check out the web sites

Al

 

[madasafish]

Linnsoft's IRT and Mytrack feed has very powerful scanning facilities. If you only want EOD then basic service covers all UK stocks..

www.linnsoft.com

Scans are very powerful and can be written to do virtually anything you want

 

[Gwenallt]

SOFTWARE

To all, thank you very much for your informative replies.
Good luck,
G.

 

[alfhind]

If you are looking at EOD data then Wealth-Lab will collect it for free from yahoo.com. It will collect world-wide data, including data histories. I believe that it will also collect intra-day data free for US stocks.