What would you recommend for software for back testing and automating a system? What would you recommend for data service? Want to be able to get Interdata data as far back as possible. Just 5 min on up. No tick. What would you recommend for a broker? I currently have IB. How about hardware? Thanks, The Rookie (Antihero1776)
What would you recommend for software for back testing and automating a system? I will recommend what I used. I am really ignorant about programming so I used excel for automating my system, building on the IB API sample sheet. For back testing I'd recommend Tradestation (I used the 2000i version). These are not necessarily the best tools, but they worked for me, so they must be pretty simple and efficient. As I said, I am not an advanced programmer. I majored in Political Science, and only recently I taught myself vba. What would you recommend for data service? For live data, I recommend once again IB, and for the past data, I'd recommend AN Futures, or DiskTrading, but once again I am not an expert. But I can tell you they offer unexpensive data, and not corrupted. What would you recommend for a broker? I'd recommend IB, for its efficiency, for its scale (so many people use it, and that makes things better) and its low commissions. How about hardware? I'd recommend a UPS, of course, so you won't suffer from black-outs. I have a HP Compaq pc - I am just listing all the things I have anyway. I would rather buy a quality pc, made by HP, but that is 3 years old, rather than the latest technology but made by a worse company. I would advise buying two pcs, for backing up data among one another, and for emergencies. Also, I would avoid laptops, because they are not fit to stay turned on for the whole day and for years, they are less powerful, more expensive, you can't open them and replace parts... plenty of reasons and no advantages except maybe that with a laptop you don't need a UPS, and that you can bring it everywhere, of course (but that's not an advantage if you don't need to do it).