Deciding on a Backtesting and Trading Platform

fundjunkie · Jun 15, 2008

Quote from Jahajee:

I use both TS and Multicharts now. First, I got the TS demo and looked at it a few weeks while STILL trading with QCharts. I decided afer a few weeks that I preferred TS.

A few months later, I repeated same process with Multicharts. I am fairly satisfied with both, but I am always looking for better. This is the case with most traders.

Agreed. I tried out Multicharts while I was still coming to terms with what "good" means.

Quote from Jahajee:
How do you convince us to buy TradersStudio, spend weeks even 2 or 3 months running in parallel and testing, then if we don't want it ... too bad, we can't return it.

I think you exaggerate the work involved. You do not need to regression test the product. Unless you think everyone else out there "thinks" it has a robust and capable backtest engine but are, in fact, deluding themselves. Judging by the evident rigour of your testing and evalutaion procedures I'm surprised that you found Multicharts to be satisfactory. From my own perspective it was the appalling experience with Multicharts that made the non-free demo of Tradersstudio more palatable. I wanted a product that worked!

Quote from Jahajee:
You can keep your TradersStudio.

It isn't my traderstudio though I will keep the copy I own.

Quote from Jahajee:
Like I said, this is one of the very trading software that does not provide a demo.

You mean a free demo. It's the absence of the "free" part that gets you going isn't it? This is what I don't understand about your stance. You're using products that are a mixed bag. Tradersstudio is definitely a better backtest platform than anything you have. If you weigh risk vs reward the opportunity of going to Tradersstudio (or anything else for that matter) and getting away from Multicharts far outwieghs the meager cost involved.

I can only assume that your requirements are not very demanding technically. Otherwise, you'd do as I did and reluctantly go with Tradersstudio's terms because of the prospect of access to a superior product.

There is a point of principal upon which this point could be debated. But gainiing access to the best products at a decent price level is a pragmatic rather than principalled selection process. And remember, most products out there for us lone operators are just a joke! Even some of the ones that get good reviews. Their users just don't know any better.

Quote from Jahajee:
Red flag to me, don't trust it, they want to sell you and you are stuck with it.

While I don't agree with them charging (notionally) for a demo,ie. you pay a restock fee on return, I think you're getting a bit creative when you say that you'd be "stuck with it" cos you wouldn't.

Quote from Jahajee:
If you can't put your product out there for customers to evaluate then you are not really engendering confidence in it, so why should the customers?

But they can evaluate it, just not for free the way you want it to be. I "evaluated it" and chose not to return it. Quite simple.

Note: The evaluation didn't take long as it blew Multicharts out of the water.

Thx
D

Jahajee · Jun 15, 2008

All this hot air and TradersStudio hacks in here - and where is TraderStudio in terms of sales ranking?

Nowhere near TradeStation, and I am pretty sure way below

Multicharts sales. Tradersstudio does not have real time, how the

heck you test systems and then trade real time?

In case you are ignorant of the capabilities of TS - you can create DLLs written in C++ and several languages; there are numerous 3rd party libraries...

I can code and test systems and then put them on real time in TS and Multicharts and trade, can TradersStudio do that? NO!

The objective here is to trade profitably, the system and software are the tools, nothing else. How many have bought Tradersstudio? how many are using it? All the fluff and hype and spamming by the TradersStudio amen corner here has not resulted in any sugnificant increase and popularity of that software.

Keep on spamming and selling Treadersstudio but I can tell you if you do not offer a demo of your software you are immediately restricitng the potential pool of customers. Like I said, keep your Tradersstudio and hype it but few have time to waste on your silly marketing philosophy.

Andrew Kirillov · Jun 16, 2008

Quote from MachineGhost:

The latest MultiCharts beta seems to be a poor man's clone of TradeStation 8.3, but without as many features implemented. I suppose the advantage is not being restricted to a single brokerage and data provider. However, the data server has incredibly annoying limitations. There is no way to add en masse all stock tickers except from OpenTick. Even if you do manage to add 7500+ tickers, who's going to sit there and individually select 7500+ tickers to add to the separate backtester product just to be able to backtest on more than one symbol? As with TradeStation, I doubt it's portolio-level backtesting either. The automation is basic so far, but I think they'll work on making it better than TradeStation's over time. Aside from the above quibbles, the greatest strength of MultiCharts is its data server and numerous vendor plugins.

When I read something as moronic and stupid as the post above I simply canât help answering.

Before posting something, use your brains and think a bit about what youâre about to say.
To begin with, you could look up the word âcloneâ in the dictionary and start using it appropriately.

MultiCharts has so many innovations that it would take someone as retarded as you a long time to study them all. See http://www.tssupport.com/multicharts/reasons . Many of those features are unique in the industry. The fact that we copied EL only shows our common sense because it allows people to feel at home in the new program. Moreover, copying EL is much more difficult than creating a new language from scratch because the most subtle peculiarities in the originalâs behavior must be emulated.

Most of the data providers supported in MultiCharts allow adding multiple symbols at once. OpenTickâs API doesnât allow doing that. This is the reason why, if you work with OpenTick, the symbols must be added one at a time (by the way, the facts above show the quality of your âsoftware analysisâ). Some of our customers have created 10,000-symbol portfolios. As you can guess they didnât create them manually.

As for the portfolio-level backtesting: actually, weâre the first company that has developed the true dynamic portfolio back-testing, when the data for the symbols in the portfolio isnât simply merged together, but interacts during the calculations that generate orders.

Regards,

Andrew

fundjunkie · Jun 16, 2008

Quote from Jahajee:

All this hot air and TradersStudio hacks in here - and where is TraderStudio in terms of sales ranking?

Nowhere near TradeStation, and I am pretty sure way below

Multicharts sales.

Can you explain this? You've lost me. Since when has size of user base been directly correlated with relative product quality?

Quote from Jahajee:
Tradersstudio does not have real time, how the

heck you test systems and then trade real time?

I recommend you go back through this thread. I think this subject has been touched on before. You do bother to read and inwardly digest what people have to say, I hope?

Quote from Jahajee:
In case you are ignorant of the capabilities of TS - you can create DLLs written in C++ and several languages; there are numerous 3rd party libraries...

I can code and test systems and then put them on real time in TS and Multicharts and trade, can TradersStudio do that? NO!

:::Shudder:::

Read the threads. It's all been discussed before in more eloquent terms than I could summarize here. If you don't get it then I may try to explain the delta. :::Thinks::: Then again, perhaps not.

Quote from Jahajee:
The objective here is to trade profitably, the system and software are the tools, nothing else. How many have bought Tradersstudio? how many are using it? All the fluff and hype and spamming by the TradersStudio amen corner here has not resulted in any sugnificant increase and popularity of that software.

What does this have to do with whether you get a free demo or not? As I said, if you don't see value in the product then don't risk the cost of return. Indeed, if you don't perceive any value then don't bother wasting time with any demo. Time is money after all.

You seem to be a Tradestation (fair enough) and Multicharts (I'll never understand that) devotee. Seeing as you seem to have no issue with them, and clearly regard them as superior, I can't understand why you were ever looking to consider anything else. Then again, maybe you weren't...

This exchange should end here I think. I must say that I have found your reasoning generally specious and the associated arguments fatuous and jejeune, both in tone and content. However, I hope that you'll reflect on your "contribution" and come to realise that you've added yet more to the growing tide of "noise" that is overwhelming "signal" around here. Perhaps that's the price of democratic free speech. But it is also driving members that try to think towards the exit door.

Thx
D

MachineGhost · Jun 17, 2008

In the Data Server, OpenTick was the only EOD data vender that allowed me to use a * to add from/all available tickers. In fairness, I didn't look at many of the real-time vendors, but my sore experience is they rarely support such a feature. So I'm unclear about what you're saying with the OpenTick API not supporting adding multiple symbols. It clearly does? Does the free historical data from Yahoo, ProphetFinance, MSN, Google support adding multiple tickers to the Data Server? I could not do so and this was a major source of consternation.

That's great news you have a true dynamic portfolio backtester. But again, what is the point of having this separate Backtester if you cannot easily add 10,000 or so tickers to it? What am I missing? I would have had to physically add 10,000 rows and manually add each ticker one after another to get them into the backtester portfolio. If this is a limitation of the OpenTick API, then why is adding multiple symbols supported in the Data Server? It was my impression the Backtester was using the Data Server symbols anyway.

Does MultiCharts have a RadarScreen clone or some kind of scanning engine to get realtime or EOD signals off those 10,000 tickers?

You should consider my comments constructive criticism and potentially improve the product rather than getting defensive. I am not a n00b to trading software, but if I'm a little impatient in rushing to judgement it's only due to seemingly non-trader programmers missing the bloody obvious over and over and over.

Quote from Andrew Kirillov:

When I read something as moronic and stupid as the post above I simply canât help answering.

Before posting something, use your brains and think a bit about what youâre about to say.
To begin with, you could look up the word âcloneâ in the dictionary and start using it appropriately.

MultiCharts has so many innovations that it would take someone as retarded as you a long time to study them all. See http://www.tssupport.com/multicharts/reasons . Many of those features are unique in the industry. The fact that we copied EL only shows our common sense because it allows people to feel at home in the new program. Moreover, copying EL is much more difficult than creating a new language from scratch because the most subtle peculiarities in the originalâs behavior must be emulated.

Most of the data providers supported in MultiCharts allow adding multiple symbols at once. OpenTickâs API doesnât allow doing that. This is the reason why, if you work with OpenTick, the symbols must be added one at a time (by the way, the facts above show the quality of your âsoftware analysisâ). Some of our customers have created 10,000-symbol portfolios. As you can guess they didnât create them manually.

As for the portfolio-level backtesting: actually, weâre the first company that has developed the true dynamic portfolio back-testing, when the data for the symbols in the portfolio isnât simply merged together, but interacts during the calculations that generate orders.

Regards,

Andrew

MachineGhost · Jun 17, 2008

In all fairness, I think it may be prudent to recognize that there's still clearly two different market segments for backtesting and trading platforms, EOD and RT. Most of my frustrations (publically expressed or not) undoubtedly comes from the rather slow integration of both segments into a unifying platform at a competent and easy-to-use level.

Thus, it's rather unfair to lump TradeStation, MultiCharts, Ensign, NinaTrader, and other RT oriented platforms into the EOD segment. They generally lack the integration of both robust scanning and portfolio-level backtesting that EOD platforms can provide. However, the major issue with the RT segment is these platforms cost a hell of lot more money while doing relatively less. I've never understood this but I can go pro or con about these proverbial members of the "$3K Club".

As for the EOD segment, there is no doubt that TradersStudio is potentially the most ground-breaking. However, my perusal of the v2 features list still leaves me thinking "too little, too late" in 2008. v3 needs to be a major upgrade or the competition will starting cloning and implementing its features.

MachineGhost

Andrew Kirillov · Jun 17, 2008

Quote from MachineGhost:

In all fairness, I think it may be prudent to recognize that there's still clearly two different market segments for backtesting and trading platforms, EOD and RT. Most of my frustrations (publically expressed or not) undoubtedly comes from the rather slow integration of both segments into a unifying platform at a competent and easy-to-use level.

Thus, it's rather unfair to lump TradeStation, MultiCharts, Ensign, NinaTrader, and other RT oriented platforms into the EOD segment. They generally lack the integration of both robust scanning and portfolio-level backtesting that EOD platforms can provide. However, the major issue with the RT segment is these platforms cost a hell of lot more money while doing relatively less. I've never understood this but I can go pro or con about these proverbial members of the "$3K Club".

As for the EOD segment, there is no doubt that TradersStudio is potentially the most ground-breaking. However, my perusal of the v2 features list still leaves me thinking "too little, too late" in 2008. v3 needs to be a major upgrade or the competition will starting cloning and implementing its features.

MachineGhost

As I have already mentioned, most of the data providers in MultiCharts support adding multiple symbols - no matter whether you have an EOD or a real-time subscription.

Strictly speaking, OpenTick API also supports adding multiple symbols from their list, but you have to choose a specific exchange. eSignal, for example, doesn't have this limitation. In fact, the program could submit the abbreviations for you, but this would result in too many requests that could be rejected by OpenTick's servers.

As for such free data sources as Yahoo, ProphetFinance, MSN, Google they cannot support such requests because they are sent via HTTP just as you might do it via IE or FireFox.

Thus, an easier way to add symbols is to request a symbol list from eSignal and then with just 3 mouse-clicks change the provider from eSignal to FreeQuotes. Contact our customer support representatives and they'll help you.

We are completing the development of the real-time market scanner which will be released by the beginning of July.

I'll be happy to answer your further questions if you have any.

remoteControl · Jun 17, 2008

I have been using tradestation for ten years. Their software just keeps getting worse, and their customer service is dispicable.

Their lateset tactic to avoid admitting any problems with their software is to not reply to you.

Their tech support people are clearly rookie's, yet have a know it all attitude.

not to mention their software when it works properly leaves much to be desired (portfolio testing for one).

I strongly suggest people looking for a backtesting platform look elsewhere, as I have begun to do myself. If anyone has a suggestion for a professional platform (not esignal or the like), please let me know.

QQQShort · Jun 17, 2008

Quote from MachineGhost:

As for the EOD segment, there is no doubt that TradersStudio is potentially the most ground-breaking. However, my perusal of the v2 features list still leaves me thinking "too little, too late" in 2008. v3 needs to be a major upgrade or the competition will starting cloning and implementing its features.

How about this EOD package (which has a 30-day free trial): www.stratasearch.com.

fundjunkie · Jun 17, 2008

Quote from MachineGhost:

As for the EOD segment, there is no doubt that TradersStudio is potentially the most ground-breaking. However, my perusal of the v2 features list still leaves me thinking "too little, too late" in 2008. v3 needs to be a major upgrade or the competition will starting cloning and implementing its features.

MachineGhost

This is an interesting point. Tradersstudio haven't rushed out version 3 though I do have version 2.6 and there are later betas which I don't have access to. Hopefully, version 3 will hit the ball out of the ground. But it will be a major step forward for them so I kind of anticipate at least some issues.

When it comes to features I do wish that retail vendors, instead of copying one another, would actually innovate and implement some of the features that the big money platforms offer - and which do not justify such high charges. Feature development that they believe justifies significant price hikes is often lazy (does not push the envelope) and doesn't add nearly as much "value" as they would have us believe.

Stratasearch is one company I have my eye on. They are innovative and consequently I may purchase their product which is complementary to rather than competing with the likes of conventional backtesters like Tradersstudio, Tradestation and Multicharts.

Thx
D