Tradestation 7.2 opinion requested

Quote from misctrader:

I mean have you PERSONALLY dl 10 YEARS of a stock INTRADAY history? Which stock(s) and your step by step guide to doing it?

I always get this too much data you'll have to wait for another time stuff. Even on the weekends. So, it's off market hours.

Hmm...
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hmmm, i think the furthest i went back was 8 years...but didn't have a problem on many stocks doing that, so i assumed 10 years wouldn't be a problem, unless they were lying!

i did studies on about 500 stocks, which i got the data for 8 years on without a hitch...but again, with that many stocks, it was annoying manually entering each one and then having to transfer to Excel to do other things....

as for step by step, this is how i did it...

1)download after market hours
2) on my chart i have the same symbol in daily format and intraday format
3) change time frame for the intraday symbol to the one u want to look at (5 years etc...)
4)change the time frame for the daily symbol to a start date 1 year earlier (in our example would be 6 years)
5) This should do it automatically, after peak time, so the chart should change
6) If chart doesn't change and u get PD (partial download), run an optimization report and set the interval to something small, so that it only optimizes one variable.
7) then the chart should definetly change....

other than that, i'm not sure what else can be done...

u can try downloading in smaller chunks, if i recall correctly i first did 3 years, then threw on 3 extra, and then 2 more....perhaps TS can't download one whole chunk of 10 years or so...but once u have downloaded the individual chunks, u should be able to see all of them by changing the time frame to include all
 
Quote from misctrader:

bobcathy1,

Is TS7.2 available yet? I keep trying to go to the TS website and do the download platform now. And it said version 7.1 Build 1118??!

So, 7.2 is NOT available even after all this ads saying it is? I've waited a while and it's still on the same build.

hmm...
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Yes, I have TS 7.2 Build 1488.
They added some nice features and the Matrix order platform which is great.:)
 
Mr. Minty,

Thank you for your comments.

Regarding backtesting, are you saying that on Tradestation you cannot backtest a specific trading formula against a list of say 100 stocks to acertain which stock responds with the highest return on that formula?

Is it possible to run your formula EOD on a list of 100 stocks to if any have generated a buy or sell signal for multiday swing trading?

I have so many questions...I am actually thinking of just funding another account, at Tradestation to try out the software!

Or if anyone here is in the Seattle area and would be willing to let me have a look?








Quote from mr_minty:

I use TS 7.2 rather extensively and use it for intraday trading, mostly scalps or quasi-scalps. I personally love it. The charts are very clean, very customizable, and there seems to be almost no price lag, although that could just be b/c i have a superfast dsl line being right next door to the hub.. The data is scrubbed quite often it seems and the few times there have been price spikes, many have been scrubbed before days end and almost always by EOD... The stability has gotten much better over the last year.

I can't comment on how it compares to IB b/c i have never used IB...I also can't comment on how it compares to Metastock, since i have used TS since TS 4 and am fairly used to EasyLanguage, although from what I've read, it seems just as good if not better. But again, I have seen some mixed reviews. TS does have about 10 years of intraday data as well, which is useful.. I also can't comment on AutoTrade features since I haven't used them.

All I can say is that the TS platform has been very stable for me, very fast(or fast enough) for intraday trading, the charts are more than satisfactory for intraday trading, and the backtesting feature is very powerful, although my one gripe with it was that it couldn't backtest across a portfolio of stocks and couldn't manage risk within a portfolio. So what i had to do was backtest each stock individually and then transfer into Excel...This is tedious when u are testing a strategy on a large sample of stocks...there is a program out which does this well, I believe it is called TScout(?) It isn't affiliated with TS and I'm not even sure if it ever came out, but i went to a seminar that demonstrated it and it was impressive..
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Quote from mr_minty:

hmmm, i think the furthest i went back was 8 years...but didn't have a problem on many stocks doing that, so i assumed 10 years wouldn't be a problem, unless they were lying!

i did studies on about 500 stocks, which i got the data for 8 years on without a hitch...but again, with that many stocks, it was annoying manually entering each one and then having to transfer to Excel to do other things....

as for step by step, this is how i did it...

1)download after market hours
2) on my chart i have the same symbol in daily format and intraday format
3) change time frame for the intraday symbol to the one u want to look at (5 years etc...)
4)change the time frame for the daily symbol to a start date 1 year earlier (in our example would be 6 years)
5) This should do it automatically, after peak time, so the chart should change
6) If chart doesn't change and u get PD (partial download), run an optimization report and set the interval to something small, so that it only optimizes one variable.
7) then the chart should definetly change....

other than that, i'm not sure what else can be done...
More...

mr_minty:

thanks for your help. But to ask a simple question, how do you do #2? Can you put both daily and intraday chart in one chart like a split chart?

If you can show me how I'll try to get the intraday data going back. Also, I think it might be possible to write a VB script or something to do the automatic dl for large symbols set...

thanks
 
Quote from bobcathy1:

Yes, I have TS 7.2 Build 1488.
They added some nice features and the Matrix order platform which is great.:)
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Just did the demo on the Matrix order platform...blew me away!

If anyone is interested in seeing the Tradestation demo's, go to tradestation.com and in the top right of your screen click on site map. That is the fastest way to find the numerous demo movies, any item with a speaker next to it.
 
Quote from condorll:

Mr. Minty,

Thank you for your comments.

Regarding backtesting, are you saying that on Tradestation you cannot backtest a specific trading formula against a list of say 100 stocks to acertain which stock responds with the highest return on that formula?

Is it possible to run your formula EOD on a list of 100 stocks to if any have generated a buy or sell signal for multiday swing trading?

I have so many questions...I am actually thinking of just funding another account, at Tradestation to try out the software!

Or if anyone here is in the Seattle area and would be willing to let me have a look?
More...

You can do exactly what u say in order to find which one responds the best to your strategy..just save the results and put them in Excel and you can compare...

what i was trying to do was test a strategy across all different types of stocks to see if the strategy would work with ANY stock...and so then i needed to see an overall portfolio performance across all those stocks to see if the strategy performed or not....

I believe the second part of your question can be handled by radarscreen but am not entirely sure...what i did was change the code to show a 1 or 0 for the stocks i was interested in....1 for signal generated, 0 for no signal....sort of half ass but was good enough for me...radarscreen should handle up to 1000 symbols i believe, so EOD you will see your entire list and then can sort by 1 or all those that generated the signal....

I'm by no means an authority on TS, but will try and answer any questions i can...I'm sure there are more efficient ways to do things, but this was all i could manage as a non-prog...
 
Quote from misctrader:

mr_minty:

thanks for your help. But to ask a simple question, how do you do #2? Can you put both daily and intraday chart in one chart like a split chart?

If you can show me how I'll try to get the intraday data going back. Also, I think it might be possible to write a VB script or something to do the automatic dl for large symbols set...

thanks
More...

i edited my message so u can check back on that....

but for number 2, just right click on your chart, and INSERT SYMBOL...check on box prompt for format and press PLOT..
then u can choose what interval u want...then press OK...

this should insert the new symbol or in your case the same symbol but a diff. time frame...

if u want to change these time frames, just right click on chart again and select FORMAT SYMBOL....then u should see the symbol with intraday time frame and the symbol for the daily time frame...

try downloading, choose ASAP, and do it in smaller chunks...you should have no problems with smaller chunks of 2-3 years...i know when my cpu wasn't too powerful, TS would lock up if i asked too much of it...
 
Mr. Minty,

Pick up Amibroker EOD for $129 bucks (one time fee). It can backtest against a portfolio and give portfolio performance as well as complete backtesting results, trade by trade, profit/loss charts etc...

It will also handle any data format you throw at it, so instead of using excel you would export to Amibroker.

www.amibroker.com


Quote from mr_minty:

You can do exactly what u say in order to find which one responds the best to your strategy..just save the results and put them in Excel and you can compare...

what i was trying to do was test a strategy across all different types of stocks to see if the strategy would work with ANY stock...and so then i needed to see an overall portfolio performance across all those stocks to see if the strategy performed or not......
More...
 
Quote from condorll:

Mr. Minty,

Pick up Amibroker EOD for $129 bucks (one time fee). It can backtest against a portfolio and give portfolio performance as well as complete backtesting results, trade by trade, profit/loss charts etc...

It will also handle any data format you throw at it, so instead of using excel you would export to Amibroker.

www.amibroker.com
More...

Ahh...good news....thanks..I will check if they handle futures too....I've moved from trading stocks intraday to trading the ES...i'm currently looking at genesis software, which seems a lot easier in terms of programming (not that easy language is so difficult but for a non-prog i found somewhat intimidating) and also i believe genesis is geared more towards futures...
 
CondorLL:

Tradestation 7.2 is a major improvement over the last few versions and can do a lot of things well. So, instead of telling you what it can do, I'll tell you what it cannot do in the context of your question:

In general, while TS 7.2 can automatically place and manage your trades for you according to the rules you have written, in the real world, it doesn't work unless there's a live person monitoring the system at all times. Some of the issues have to do with Tradestation, some with the limitations of the programming language and some with stuff outside of TS's control. I know a few folks have written extensive code to try to workaround these limitations - I have no idea how successsful they've been. If you are willing to sit and monitor your strategy (or have someone do it for you), then here are some other items you should consider during your evaluation of TS 7.2:

1. You cannot backtest an entire portfolio of symbols. You can only test your strategy on one symbol at a time. There is a 3rd party product from a company called Rina Systems but that product is so riddled with bugs and limitations it's unusable for all but the most basic testing. You can fake some portfolio stuff using the built in TS RadarScreen/Scanning feature but it's a complete PITA.

2. You cannot place STOP-LIMIT orders directly within the strategy. All stop orders are STOP market orders.

3. If your strategy depends on limit orders, be aware that the order is held on the local PC until the limit price has been hit. At that time, it's sent to the market. Thus, your limit order will not be resting in marketplace.

4. All stop orders are market orders and are also held on the local PC until the stop price is hit. Thus, your slippage is probably going to be more than if you had had a resting stop order on the tradestation servers or in the marketplace of your choice.

5. You cannot execute multiple strategies on the same symbol. The way that tradestation tells you to do this is to put the multiple strategies on the same chart. Unfortunately, this means that the strategies will step on each other. As with everything else, there are complicated work-arounds with lots of limitations. A noteworthy corrollary to this is that you cannot be executing a strategy that is net long running with a strategy that is net short.

6. For backtesting, the product is not multi-threaded so if you want to run 15 tests simultaneously, they'll be run sequentially instead of in parallel. This limitation is most obvious when you have multiple processors on your system and you're doing lots and lots of iterations - TS just doesn't take advantage of the extra hardware.

7. When running a strategy in real time, you need to write a lot of extra code to make sure that the strategy knows what occured in the real world. The way tradestation is architected, the real world is divorced from the simulated world of strategies. The strategy will assume you're filled as soon as price is hit - we know that's not the case in the real world. So, you need to write a lot of extra code to sync up your real-world position with the strategy position - Tradestation does not handle this for you.

8. Tradestation does not allow you to import your own data. So, unless the data you need is part of the TS network you're out of luck. Some basic data such as Put/call ratio is not part of the data feed. Other data such as TICKs, TIKIs, TRIN etc only goes back 2 years for intraday data.

9. There is no foreign data (eg: no DAX).

Having said all this, I think it's still the best all-round product for backtesting. Other products may be better in one or two areas but for overall suitability to task, I still think it's worth your time to look at it unless one of the items above is critical to what you need to do.

-eLindy
 
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