Originally posted by Pyrosius
Greetings,
I realize this question has been visited in one form or another in previous threads, but I haven't really seen a pointer to a specific product.
Basically, I'm looking for software which will allow me to backtest custom systems on intraday data. I've researched several of the more well-known products as well as the ones mentioned on these boards, but can't seem to find something which would work.
Tradestation:
Omega Research / Tradestation.com no longer offers their standalone products (2000i, etc), and their current product requires one to open a brokerage account with them get access to the software. They have a $99.00/month subscription for this as well, but it's only available to previous Tradestation owners. I called the sales department twice and they reiterated you have to open an account. I'm not sure I can justify wiring $30,000 into a new brokerage account just to have access to software I would rather buy.
AIQ:
I've heard good things about this product, but while they offer real-time data, their backtesting only is offered for EOD data, which is not what I want.
Metastock:
This would seem to do intra-day backtesting, but the sales people were a little light on knowlege as to what the scripting / programming language is to implement your system. With TS it's EasyLanguage which from what I gather is as close to an industry standard as there is. So I'm not quite sure how complex a system one could develop here, for example, can I filter a system by time-of-day or other such indicators? Additionally, Metastock has been around for quite some time and there haven't appeared to be any major upgrades. I've heard that this product is showing it's age and is buggy.
Neuroshell:
This does seem to do intraday backtesting with their daytrader version, but it's a neural network, which tends to look for indicators that fit your stocks rather than the other way around. I don't know, maybe it's better that way. Their site was a bit light and their sales people didn't seem to be around. I get the impression this product is more just an engine and doesn't have any charting capabilities or anything. I'm not really looking for fancy charts, just enough that show where the buys and sells would have been if my system were executed.
Amibroker:
This has the same problem as AIQ, it seems to be spoken highly of, but it doesn't do intraday.
And of course there are a multitude of real-time scanners and the like (TC2000, eSignal, Cyberquant, Ravenquote, etc), which is fine, but as I said, I'm principally interested in the intraday backtesting.
Any suggestions or additional information about the products I've mentioned or any you're aware of would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Pyrosius
