Hey all,
I've been devoting some time to looking at Neural Net/Genetic algorithm software over the past week and wanted to share my findings and see if people had comments or wanted to share experiences.
Software I've been looking at: Neuroshell, Tradecisions, TradingSolutions.
I've only been able to actually try out TradingSolutions because they offer an evaluation version of their software - the other two vendors make you buy the software first.
TradingSolutions seems to be pretty decent. They have the ability to combine both neurally generated systems with hard trading rules. It also has good data management and integration with Interactive Brokers (all the vendors highlighted provide this). It provide a large number of indicators to use as inputs to any neural network.
What it lacks is portfolio-level controls. These may not be important to everyone, but in my research I've found that trading signals are less important than position sizing/money management. In fact, I've found that you can do, essentially, random entries on a stock or group of stocks and get decent results by just resizing the positions based on, say, a distance from a stop. One very unique feature that I liked was the ability to attach different time series data and perform a correlation analysis - this should make it a bit easier to identify good inputs for a neural net.
So TradingSolutions looks like it would be great for generating a system assuming you had a good system to begin with. It clearly isn't (this is true with all the vendors) going to spin your random thoughts into gold.
Neuroshell seems to have the best/most interesting neural analysis techniques and I've heard from many people that it is the standard in the field. Tough, however, for me to analyze. It too is lacking the money management tools. In one example they sent me, they showed a relative strength ranking system for creating a hedged portfolio - pretty interesting stuff. If you're looking for a well supported product, Neuroshell seems to do a great job.
Tradecision seems to have some really interesting features. I particularly like the way it handles external data (such as fundamental data). Say you wanted to pull in data on the COT report - this looked very easy in Tradecision. It may well be easy in the other packages.
Finally, Tradecision has some money management and position sizing tools. It allows you to define a position size using typical sizing methodologies such as Williams, Kelly's or Optimal F. I'm still not clear if it is really working a whole portfolio, and it looks to me like it can't do pyramiding. Lastly, you seem to be able to attach any script to manage stops. One issue with neural-based systems is drawdown - so I'm looking for a system that could define, say, an ATR-based stop on top of the system to improve drawdown. Of the three, I think only Tradecision has the ability to do this. On the downside, I tried to call Tradecision directly to get some more info but have received no call back - so support may well be an issue. Tradecision also includes an interesting moving average (Ingenious Moving Average) that seems to have some of the properties of the Jurik indicators). Incidentally, all the systems here can use Jurik. There is also a quote on the Tradecision website from Jurik saying that they recommend Tradecisions.
Neuroshell says that they are adding portfolio tools - I'll have to wait and see what they provide.
All three provide sample systems based on TASC systems highlighted in the magazine.
All three provide backtesting and reporting, with in-sample and out-of-sample testing.
That's what I've got at the moment. I would love to hear from users of these products as to what they think of them.
Feedback welcome.
I've been devoting some time to looking at Neural Net/Genetic algorithm software over the past week and wanted to share my findings and see if people had comments or wanted to share experiences.
Software I've been looking at: Neuroshell, Tradecisions, TradingSolutions.
I've only been able to actually try out TradingSolutions because they offer an evaluation version of their software - the other two vendors make you buy the software first.
TradingSolutions seems to be pretty decent. They have the ability to combine both neurally generated systems with hard trading rules. It also has good data management and integration with Interactive Brokers (all the vendors highlighted provide this). It provide a large number of indicators to use as inputs to any neural network.
What it lacks is portfolio-level controls. These may not be important to everyone, but in my research I've found that trading signals are less important than position sizing/money management. In fact, I've found that you can do, essentially, random entries on a stock or group of stocks and get decent results by just resizing the positions based on, say, a distance from a stop. One very unique feature that I liked was the ability to attach different time series data and perform a correlation analysis - this should make it a bit easier to identify good inputs for a neural net.
So TradingSolutions looks like it would be great for generating a system assuming you had a good system to begin with. It clearly isn't (this is true with all the vendors) going to spin your random thoughts into gold.
Neuroshell seems to have the best/most interesting neural analysis techniques and I've heard from many people that it is the standard in the field. Tough, however, for me to analyze. It too is lacking the money management tools. In one example they sent me, they showed a relative strength ranking system for creating a hedged portfolio - pretty interesting stuff. If you're looking for a well supported product, Neuroshell seems to do a great job.
Tradecision seems to have some really interesting features. I particularly like the way it handles external data (such as fundamental data). Say you wanted to pull in data on the COT report - this looked very easy in Tradecision. It may well be easy in the other packages.
Finally, Tradecision has some money management and position sizing tools. It allows you to define a position size using typical sizing methodologies such as Williams, Kelly's or Optimal F. I'm still not clear if it is really working a whole portfolio, and it looks to me like it can't do pyramiding. Lastly, you seem to be able to attach any script to manage stops. One issue with neural-based systems is drawdown - so I'm looking for a system that could define, say, an ATR-based stop on top of the system to improve drawdown. Of the three, I think only Tradecision has the ability to do this. On the downside, I tried to call Tradecision directly to get some more info but have received no call back - so support may well be an issue. Tradecision also includes an interesting moving average (Ingenious Moving Average) that seems to have some of the properties of the Jurik indicators). Incidentally, all the systems here can use Jurik. There is also a quote on the Tradecision website from Jurik saying that they recommend Tradecisions.
Neuroshell says that they are adding portfolio tools - I'll have to wait and see what they provide.
All three provide sample systems based on TASC systems highlighted in the magazine.
All three provide backtesting and reporting, with in-sample and out-of-sample testing.
That's what I've got at the moment. I would love to hear from users of these products as to what they think of them.
Feedback welcome.
