I will share my experiences with you. I backtested for years using purely technical data with very little success. After that I started testing by hand using catalysts and technicals which helped me find my niche. I used Excel to log in the trades and chart my performance, and Interactive Brokers papertrading simulator for execution. Make sure the vehicles you test have enough liquidity and relative strength to justify taking a position. The hard part is filtering through candidates and narrowing down the selection. If you trade one vehicle then you should not have that problem. Good luck.