Hello! I want to learn how to program so I can analyze market data. I want to do things such as finding the average daily volume of an instrument for the past _x_ days. What languages do I need to learn to accomplish this? Can it be done in Microsoft Excel? For data source I would try to use either Google or SterlingTrader...
you can do everything in excel and VBA(part of excel) http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/excelfunctions/qt/average_functio.htm and combine that with SQL and MS access(also part of MS office)
If you want to learn to program than you need relativly simple and versatile programming language. Currently MS C# is getting more popular and if you learn it than C++ and Java are are very similar. C# has good literature and help and it is free (express edition). If you want to do simple things than VBA/Excel are sufficient but it has limits and migrating to another coding language is more difficult. Simpler than C# is Visual Basic and both are similar especialy behind the scenes. And do not forget Maryna.
No one really ever find anything profitable by analyzing data (meaning open / high / low / close) data.
really? i can show you a tens(if not hundreds) of profitable setups at open price (only if they allow us to get into a trade at those prices) how about open away from couple flat days? common...if you can't find it-it doesn't mean that it's impossible..
It can be done in Excel but I prefer R by a long shot. See http://blog.fosstrading.com/ for many examples.
I found a website with programming tutorials. Dont know how good they are... http://www.programmingvideotutorials.com/csharp/csharp-introduction