ex IT guy seeks some help with testing a forex system

[systemstrader69]

I am new to this board, so please be gentle
I am an ex IT guy who used to trade a while back but now I am laid off and while I am looking for work I want to make some extra cash in the forex markets.
I need to navigate through the slew of brokers and sleaze to pick a decent one where I can program their platform to use stops, initiate trades and manage my risk.
Somewhere I read that the better approach would be a third party platform like ninja trader but I am not yet convinced.
A while back someone showed me a great broker out of NY who had the best execution system. Which way is better?
And thanks in advance with your help....

 

[clambill]

I'm not an expert in systems trading although I've read some people use brokers who have the Metatrader4 platform so they can just program things in there. But the programs I've heard about the most are Ninjatrader (they have a list of compatible brokers on their site) and TradeStation.

I understand you may have more interest in systems trading than discretionary trading. Although you may want to try out making the decisions yourself to get a real feel for what happens when you trade and do it in a demo account like Dealbook 360 by GFT Forex or Metatrader4 (wherever you want, I've used the one by IBFX which seemed alright after I customized it to look like the Dealbook 360 platform lol).

BEWARE of relying too much on backtesting. If you find anything of value in backtesting, I think you'd be way better off testing it with real live prices as well (in other words, forward testing). Believe me, I paid the price when I didn't know the difference between backtesting and forward testing. Let's just say that I noticed that charts kind of "reform" themselves and end up looking different when they're fully formed so they end up showing what is really just an illusion of what really happened.