question to all mechanical traders

E

Emprise

Good evening.

May be here’s somebody who can help me…

I wanna test a strategy with automated trading... nothing spectacular, i think i don’t have to re-invent the wheel. It’s a simple breakout strategy with 1 or 2 filters.

The idea is only in my head at the moment, and i will test it with some (one) actual back-testing programs.

I heard many about the “almighty” tradestation and other well-known software, but i have no experience with these tools and don’t know how good they really are.

As i said before, it’s just a simple strategy with some filters.

Could anybody of the ET experts in mechanical trading recommend any software or give some advice where to look at?

Do you know also where i can get reliable data for intraday testing (which supplier)? I heard that it is very important to have reliable data to test, otherwise you can forget your back-tests.

I read many threads on ET about mechanical trading and i think there are some people who are real experts in that business.

i hope someone to find...


Thank you in advance.

kind regards

emprise
 
Quote from Emprise:


Could anybody of the ET experts in mechanical trading recommend any software or give some advice where to look at?

Do you know also where i can get reliable data for intraday testing (which supplier)? I heard that it is very important to have reliable data to test, otherwise you can forget your back-tests.

I read many threads on ET about mechanical trading and i think there are some people who are real experts in that business.

i hope someone to find...


Thank you in advance.

kind regards

emprise
More...

Investor RT www.linnsoft.com with TrackData as a data provider
 
use excel - for most basic strategies, it's faster than any charting software - search for threads on clean data, you'll have to pay for the highest quality data - best of luck.
 
I warmly recommand to use MQL4 from Metaquotes

It is a free API, very easy to write automated strategy.
and it also provides backtest for your "Expert Advisor".

check on their web site :
http://www.metaquotes.net/download
http://www.mql4.com/

I have been able to write my own strategy in less than a month and backtest it on several years.

And many brokers uses their platform called Metatrader.
 
Emprise - I have used Excel for some backtesting purposes, but found it quite cumbersome, and the input of raw data can be quite time consuming. TradeStation is probably your best bet. TS's database is not perfect, but it's probably good for 99.8% of what you're looking to accomplish. It helps to have a rudimentary knowledge of some type of programming language. Just pull up some of the canned strategies and start editing them to your own specifications. Good luck with the project. Thunderous
 
Unless you have any programming experience, you'll probably struggle to code the system in your head. The simplest and easiest path is to brief an experienced trading system programmer to code your system and maybe perform some simple back tests with it. Tradestation's Easy language is prabably the best option.

This will probably cost you a couple of hundred bucks for a simple system and backtest.

if the stategy makes money, then subscribe to tradestation and start forward testing it in real time to see if it holds up.

If it does, start trading it. If it doesn't, find another system.

Most good programmers are fast. They can code a system in 3 hours that would take me 3 months. So it's a cost benefit.

Runningbear
 
there are a couple of reasons you should start out with TS8.
1)ts8 is the best at training and getting your learning curve reduced.
2)as soon as you can do 10 r/t's a month, the platform is free and you don't have to worry about back data because its all there. not extensive tick data but 1 minute bars on up back many years.
there are lots of software charting packages out there that are as good but no one helps to train you as well as TS8. they offer 6 or 7 different live training seminars in many dfferent cities . I do not think they are the most reliable broker to place those trades for for research and writing your programs and testing, i just dont think there is a better way to startl.
 
Quote from flag:

I warmly recommand to use MQL4 from Metaquotes

It is a free API, very easy to write automated strategy.
and it also provides backtest for your "Expert Advisor".

check on their web site :
http://www.metaquotes.net/download
http://www.mql4.com/

I have been able to write my own strategy in less than a month and backtest it on several years.

And many brokers uses their platform called Metatrader.
More...

I would just like to add a comment here. Metatraders backtester is horrible. Metatrader 4's backtester is better than 3's, but I can assure you that your backtested results will not be close to reality. In my experience it wildly over or underestimates profits. More times than not it's overestimating. I only use it to see if orders are getting exectued as I'd planned, etc.

Having said that, it's an excellent platform for automated trading and there is a ton of information and resources for Metatrader and MQL4. I personally manage most all of my trading funds 24/7 via Metatrader 4 and my own automated strategies.

I've been in the game for quite a while and while I don't post much here I'm always reading. I figure I'm not much of an "elite trader." I'm more of a "sit back and watch my computer" trader :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top