Trading Software which can run strategies and calculate profit /loss

[cassiopeia]

Hi, I've been away for a while, and might get back into trading again.

I'm looking for software which can analyse simple long term strategies and return a profit or loss for each financial instrument. For example, test a 5% moving stop on an Index, share or commodity over the last 2 years, and return the running, or at least total profit or loss.

Failing that just some OHLC data in CSV form would be useful, but the data needs to cover all UK smallcap and major international stocks & commodities. Something, hopefully more reliable then Yahoo which is the only source I'm aware of. Perhaps some packages can provide this as part of a trial?

 

[cassiopeia]

Hi, I've been away for a while, and might get back into trading again.

I'm looking for software which can analyse simple long term strategies and return a profit or loss for each financial instrument. For example, test a 5% moving stop on an Index, share or commodity over the last 2 years, and return the running, or at least total profit or loss.

Failing that just some OHLC data in CSV form would be useful, but the data needs to cover all UK smallcap and major international stocks & commodities. Something, hopefully more reliable then Yahoo which is the only source I'm aware of. Perhaps some packages can provide this as part of a trial?

I don't think I'll be using Sierra Chart (attached!)

 

[TickCOM]

I think what you want to do is close to impossible. There are many posts like this on the net, people having an idea and they want to test it. Problem is such idea typically need to be developed from scratch, as there is no platform having out-of-the-box support for that exact idea. This gets even more difficult when they also want to trade specific stocks etc. And finally, if you succeed to implement and test your idea, you will find that was just the beginning of a long journey of further develop it, adjust, add new ideas etc.

 

[cassiopeia]

Don't these do something similar?

10 Backtesting Tools to Boost Your Trading Strategy

Our research shows the best stock backtesting and auto-trade software are TrendSpider, Trade Ideas, and Tradingview. Our testing process selected TrendSpider as the overall winner because it offers the most flexible, code-free, multilayer backtesting.

www.liberatedstocktrader.com

 

[1nvest]

Don't these do something similar?

10 Backtesting Tools to Boost Your Trading Strategy

Our research shows the best stock backtesting and auto-trade software are TrendSpider, Trade Ideas, and Tradingview. Our testing process selected TrendSpider as the overall winner because it offers the most flexible, code-free, multilayer backtesting.

www.liberatedstocktrader.com

any of these will likely do what you want, in fact any backtesting software will do what you want. backtesting a strategy with a trailing %stop is not impossible to achieve. a couple of things however..
1) you will need to put some effort into this depending on which software you choose. for example, i use amibroker to backtest any of my ideas. I have to learn/hunt for examples of its scripting language so i can do what i need. you may have to also. however, you said "simple" strategies...so it shouldn't be that difficult
2) you also mentioned where you can get data. you can get data with these software, but they wont give it away for free. Amibroker again will allow you to connect to yahoo, but you didnt want this..so if you want free data, then you could try tradingview, where they have data for you..but you have to learn to backtest your ideas
or buy something where the strategies are likely there for you (Metastock for example, will already have your simple strategies) but you have to pay for data
3) some of these may give you a trial period..again, you could try metatstock for a few weeks at a small cost. portfolio 123 will provide data for a limited period for a small cost

its all coming down to the same things. nothing's free, and these may all take some work. but none of this is impossible, you just need to manage your own expectations

 

[1nvest]

Another you could look into is prorealtime
They have a trial period and quality data, and coding is very simple using VB if im not mistaken

Don't these do something similar?

10 Backtesting Tools to Boost Your Trading Strategy

Our research shows the best stock backtesting and auto-trade software are TrendSpider, Trade Ideas, and Tradingview. Our testing process selected TrendSpider as the overall winner because it offers the most flexible, code-free, multilayer backtesting.

www.liberatedstocktrader.com

 

[kappert]

TradingView has some ready-made strategies and they have simple back-testing. It is super popular among crypto traders, but covers everything:
[Link removed]

I was looking for something similar like you, but from the viewpoint of someone who wants to code his own strategies. I found MotiveWave the best solution for my purposes. It also comes with some interesting strategies that you can use out-of-the-box. I Highly recommend it:
[Link removed]

 

[cassiopeia]

Thanks for your replies. I leaned that CMC provide a free MetaTrader 4 back testing software, which I've downloaded, although they told me it's more useful for Forex and commodities.

Since I don't do Visual Basic, I'm just using spreadsheet functions with the Yahoo data.

 

[iq200]

Yet another alternative is NinjaTrader 8. The software is free in sim mode and daily data is also free I believe. You can look at the following add ins from:

www.sharkindicators.com
Bloodhound which lets you backtest and build strategies
Blackbird which lets you apply ANY money management rules you can think of

Have a look on their YouTube channel and see the use of these tools first.

 

[cassiopeia]

I've been having a look at the free version of Tradingview. The strategy tester is similar to what I'm looking for. However, it seems to require code for simply calculating profit over a specific date range rather than over the entire history of the stock.

Has anyone any idea how to use/insert this code? Do I use a separate file in pine editor? It seems to generate errors, probably because I've no idea what I'm doing!

Backtest Pine Script strategy between dates

TradingView strategies backtest the entire chart. With custom Pine Script code we add a date filter to our strategy's orders. This tutorial explains.

kodify.net

 

[cassiopeia]

I think you have to subscribe fully to get the support? That said, even if I could get everything to work, I'm generally not impressed with the quality and control of charting on Tradingview, especially the profit/drawdown chart in the strategy module. The X axis is unlabelled, (probably months) and the Y axis is ill-defined (is is simple or compound profit?) Then again it's cheap, and some of it is free, so I suppose it's good value for some people, especially if you can code.

I've been used to the charts on IG index and before that even better ones on Sharescope. If I can use them quickly and easily they must be good! However, neither of these do quantitative strategy testing which is essential for serious trading IMO.

I'll take a look at the Ninja one iq200 mentioned above tomorrow.

 

[cassiopeia]

Another you could look into is prorealtime
They have a trial period and quality data, and coding is very simple using VB if im not mistaken

I've just realised prorealtime is available if you are a client of IG, although unless you trade regularly (not sure how much) there's a £30 per month charge. If you just place £250 in your account it is activated, probably for a month. It looks like to get anywhere I will have to learn VB!

 

[1nvest]

I've just realised prorealtime is available if you are a client of IG, although unless you trade regularly (not sure how much) there's a £30 per month charge. If you just place £250 in your account it is activated, probably for a month. It looks like to get anywhere I will have to learn VB!

Don't say I didnt warn you! You will need to learn something. but also remember this is shouldnt need to be full time. you want to be able to test a strategy, to see if it has legs. you could equally do this manually. dont think this is a route that you have to take to learn programming. you only have to learn if you want to program something. hope that makes sense
someone suggested ninjatrader. thats not a bad program. not great, but its based on C#
Amibroker which i use, is based on C.
The software you choose to learn needs to be able to do what you want it to do. so if you want to test a portfolio, prorealtime, ninjatrader, tradingview wont cut it. decide what it is you want from this.