Hello everyone. Have you ever tried https://www.buildalpha.com?
Have you tried Build Alpha
- Thread starter ssp729
- Start date
lack of ability to use custom studies as far as i can tell it's only pre canned. also in many of the videos i see they are using limit orders which most often are unobtainable in real trading. so the testing will look great but you will never get filled at those prices.
most every backtesting uses best case scenario when assuming position fills. so now you have tradestation which has not accurate backtesting and code execution and multicharts who has fallen on their face with shit updates and buggy software now on the equal of shitty tradestation.
so why not now include a perfect trifecta of yet another piece of software that has yeat again it's own backtesting which is authored by who the frick knows who? yea i am so game to waste my time and money on yet another software program that expects the real users to pay for the privilege of beta testing.. nah i pass...
I saw discussion in another forum about this software. Someone who used it complained about the many bells and whistles but random performance. No free demo and you have to pay to test it. It looks like pre canned simple strategies as MarkBrown noted and naive algo to cycle through them and find best combination. My opinion only: stay away from it especially since free demo is not available. If you continue to ask questions about people here may start to turn suspicious.
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Baron
ET Founder
David from Build Alpha requested the ability to post a rebuttal to some of the things in this thread that he thinks are false or misleading. I have agreed to let him post a rebuttal but since he's not a sponsor of this site, his participation will be limited to a single rebuttal post since our policy is that we only allow our site sponsors to discuss their commercial products and services.
Hey, guys. My name is David Bergstrom and I'm the creator of Build Alpha. I am here because a few BA users alerted me to this thread and told me to step in. I usually hate doing this and do not want to make any enemies. Please read this with open eyes.
First, I am not sure why there is a comment that you think everything is random? Here is an example attached of something built with the software that is beating random on almost EVERY metric (blue distribution > red/random distribution). I just dont give away all the secret sauce; it is a tool, not a magical box. It takes work to be a successful trader not just purchasing some software, hitting buttons and hoping for millions. If you're struggling with the software then shoot me an email - you know this by now. I'm always willing to help.
The second note, that nothing works is ludicrous as I have given away over 20 strategies over 2+ years ago and most are still up. I have countless success stories and guys are posting constantly on social media about their success with the software. Even the simple strategies like Free Friday #20 is up 2x margin this year per contract. Again read the site for disclaimers, etc. I'm not promising buy the software and get rich but to say a 'tool' doesnt work is insane. It is like buying a hammer and putting it on your counter then saying well it doesnt work... where is my shed? Build Alpha is a tool to aid the trader - not make the trader.
I think the criticism about bad backtesters is unfair as well as TradeStation and MultiCharts do an extremely good job for an incredibly tough task. Sure nothing is perfect, and if you have software development experience you would know that but they do a really, really good job and they are 95+% accurate for most intents and purposes. If your strategy is overly intense/complicated then yes you should most likely be developing your own infrastructure. But even then it is not perfect; trust me, I work for a high frequency trading firm with PhDs and Masters level programmers and stuff still can go wrong.
Mark Brown, you have very strong words for someone who doesnt have a license. I'll leave it at that as I imagine you'll be very confrontational and probably enjoy bashing other people's hard work and efforts for no reason. Not sure what I did to you but hey the internet you can do what you want, I guess.
Build Alpha is very flexible and customizable and certainly not 'pre canned'. It offers two ways to build custom indicators (drag and drop GUI as well as full python environment where you can code your own signals if you choose - not required). Second, you can feed Build Alpha with any data timeframe and/or bar type and the software will operate the same.
And you're right "we do not offer a free trial" because it is not a "WE". It is just me. I can't offer a free demo; it would dramatically increase my amount of FREE support, detract from future software development, and my own trading/research. If you cannot live with that then that is fine. I dont pay my bills with software licenses and I do not need to give my hard work away for free but shout out to all those who think I should make them rich or improve their trading game for nothing - maybe one day I'll be in charity business.
You can ask any of the users that my customer service is incredibly quick and I care about all the users. I like to keep it this way and focus on those that are committed to the software. I know not everyone will like this policy but I'm a one man shop. Start your own business and run it the way you think I should.
Finally, for those of you that are interested or want to learn more please reach out to me here via DM, or email me at david@buildalpha.com
You can also hear my trading philosophy and some of my HFT tales in these interviews:
chatwithtraders.com/103
bettersystemtrader.com/79
Thanks Baron for letting me do this. At least the readers can hear both sides.
First, I am not sure why there is a comment that you think everything is random? Here is an example attached of something built with the software that is beating random on almost EVERY metric (blue distribution > red/random distribution). I just dont give away all the secret sauce; it is a tool, not a magical box. It takes work to be a successful trader not just purchasing some software, hitting buttons and hoping for millions. If you're struggling with the software then shoot me an email - you know this by now. I'm always willing to help.
The second note, that nothing works is ludicrous as I have given away over 20 strategies over 2+ years ago and most are still up. I have countless success stories and guys are posting constantly on social media about their success with the software. Even the simple strategies like Free Friday #20 is up 2x margin this year per contract. Again read the site for disclaimers, etc. I'm not promising buy the software and get rich but to say a 'tool' doesnt work is insane. It is like buying a hammer and putting it on your counter then saying well it doesnt work... where is my shed? Build Alpha is a tool to aid the trader - not make the trader.
I think the criticism about bad backtesters is unfair as well as TradeStation and MultiCharts do an extremely good job for an incredibly tough task. Sure nothing is perfect, and if you have software development experience you would know that but they do a really, really good job and they are 95+% accurate for most intents and purposes. If your strategy is overly intense/complicated then yes you should most likely be developing your own infrastructure. But even then it is not perfect; trust me, I work for a high frequency trading firm with PhDs and Masters level programmers and stuff still can go wrong.
Mark Brown, you have very strong words for someone who doesnt have a license. I'll leave it at that as I imagine you'll be very confrontational and probably enjoy bashing other people's hard work and efforts for no reason. Not sure what I did to you but hey the internet you can do what you want, I guess.
Build Alpha is very flexible and customizable and certainly not 'pre canned'. It offers two ways to build custom indicators (drag and drop GUI as well as full python environment where you can code your own signals if you choose - not required). Second, you can feed Build Alpha with any data timeframe and/or bar type and the software will operate the same.
And you're right "we do not offer a free trial" because it is not a "WE". It is just me. I can't offer a free demo; it would dramatically increase my amount of FREE support, detract from future software development, and my own trading/research. If you cannot live with that then that is fine. I dont pay my bills with software licenses and I do not need to give my hard work away for free but shout out to all those who think I should make them rich or improve their trading game for nothing - maybe one day I'll be in charity business.
You can ask any of the users that my customer service is incredibly quick and I care about all the users. I like to keep it this way and focus on those that are committed to the software. I know not everyone will like this policy but I'm a one man shop. Start your own business and run it the way you think I should.
Finally, for those of you that are interested or want to learn more please reach out to me here via DM, or email me at david@buildalpha.com
You can also hear my trading philosophy and some of my HFT tales in these interviews:
chatwithtraders.com/103
bettersystemtrader.com/79
Thanks Baron for letting me do this. At least the readers can hear both sides.
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Anyone can torture data long enough and come up with examples that beat metrics, any metrics, anytime. This is statistics 101.
Aid or break....
If you want to sell software to traders you must give them the opportunity to evaluate before buying. They cannot rely on examples you include in videos or in live sessions. If you are in business of providing trading software you have to be at least as good as the rest in the business. People have the right to suspect you do not provide demos because they may discover the flaws in your product before they buy. That doesn't sound good and Baron has been extremely kind to someone thinking he can sell trading software and traders will pay for it a large sum of money without an opportunity to test it.
AFAIK your program is probably only noise and it is known some noise may work for some time but then fail as it does. I could change my opinion if you provide a demo I can test for a few weeks. Most people here will test the demo without asking support questions because they are experienced in this kind of thing. My tests will reveal if you got something. Maybe this is what you are afraid of.