need advice to help pick the platform & programming language

jokepie

jokepie

I am new to programming and do not intend to learn it for the sake of staying sane.

I need a platform that has easy point / click to put together the algo and good backtesting/ fwd testing abilities.

It will be great if someone with very little C language experience like me can manupilate the language in the platform, change the default formulas of indicators, be able to write my own equations.

Once i have tested the algo success fully I plan to hire a programmer to code this. Which is a better language for Black box or Grey box type algos ? I also want a small user interface may be in VB to change parameters etc.

Thank you guys in advance.

Guru
 
Go work at McDonalds.

THat WILL NOT WORK. YOu basically erefuse the sensible way and want something easy. BAD news: It never worked. Point and click falls apart the moment you try to show more complex setups - even one dozen boolean conditions turn into a nightmare.

You want to work as a cook without knowing how to cook and refuse to learn it. NO WAY.
 
Quote from NetTecture:

Go work at McDonalds.

THat WILL NOT WORK. YOu basically erefuse the sensible way and want something easy. BAD news: It never worked. Point and click falls apart the moment you try to show more complex setups - even one dozen boolean conditions turn into a nightmare.

You want to work as a cook without knowing how to cook and refuse to learn it. NO WAY.
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O ComeON NetTecture,

If there is a tool that is sufficient - for what i need to get doen Why do I need to learn programming. I dont have to invent the wheel.
If what you mean is - there are no such platforms ... i am out of luck... then i gotta either learn programming or hire a good one.

I like the MCD joke..
 
also, can you tell me which language to go for, like i said i have done high school C++. My broker is IB. And I want to create a lil bit of screen where i can input parameters. Create buttons for stoping the Algo, Clean-out positions etc.
 
Quote from jokepie:

also, can you tell me which language to go for, like i said i have done high school C++. My broker is IB. And I want to create a lil bit of screen where i can input parameters. Create buttons for stoping the Algo, Clean-out positions etc.
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A few observations:

1) I would start first with C# and see if you can get what you need with NinjaTrader. It's free until you trade live, and if you want to trade on your IB paper account, it's still pretty cheap.

2) I think you may be underestimating the complexity of having a programmer "code it" for you. Unless it's something simple, you're going to need to some kind of specification for what you want done and that's not always simple or easy.

3) What if you come up with the world's greatest algo? Do you want the programmer to have that code? If they write it, they will and if someone paid me some decent cash to code some algo I could safely assume that they had some faith in it and I might be curious enough to see how it worked.

My $0.02.
 
Thanks G

I have good specs ready but , i am struggling with th epoint that you made in no. 3

I will give ninjatrader a shot.

Thanks alot

Quote from TheGoonior:

A few observations:

1) I would start first with C# and see if you can get what you need with NinjaTrader. It's free until you trade live, and if you want to trade on your IB paper account, it's still pretty cheap.

2) I think you may be underestimating the complexity of having a programmer "code it" for you. Unless it's something simple, you're going to need to some kind of specification for what you want done and that's not always simple or easy.

3) What if you come up with the world's greatest algo? Do you want the programmer to have that code? If they write it, they will and if someone paid me some decent cash to code some algo I could safely assume that they had some faith in it and I might be curious enough to see how it worked.

My $0.02.
More...
 
Also, if open source is more your thing, you may want to check out TradeLink (I'm surprised he hasn't chimed in yet). It looks fairly flexible and might be easier for your programmer to get you exactly what you want rather than trying to extend Ninja for some feature it doesn't currently have.
As far as point #3, you can just have your programmer provide you with some function prototypes that you flesh out. This way they do the entire framework and you do the important bits (i.e: the algo).
 
As already mentioned, NinjaTrader is the way to go. You can't do anything complicated but you can build/code strategies with its Strategy Wizard GUI. You could then pass this Wizard built code onto a programmer to have more complicated conditions coded.
 
NT is useless because it has no portfolio simulator to modify your risk management strategies.

Easylanguage is industry standard and Multicharts has a Portfolio Simulator.

Hands down you'd never want NT because there's no development, and certainly no need to worry about anything unless you're trading just one contract when most people don't.

The only way to develop a strategy is to simulate it so that you can develop your position sizing techniques and NT doesn't do that, meaning it's an irrelevant piece of software that also doesn't store workspaces, making it even more irrelevant.

I remember the nausea of being asked to shut down NT after opening 100 charts, then having to re-open them every day at night. This is total nonsense and you need something much more sensible.

Multicharts is mine forever, and is the only strategy analysis software I would ever use.
 
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