Backtesting Software

Discussion in 'Trading Software' started by WinSum, Jun 8, 2004.

  1. WinSum

    WinSum

    Does anyone know of a Backtesting Software that can backtest against historical bid/ask for stocks ?

    Also which Datafeed Vendor provides historical bid/ask for stocks that can be used for backtesting ?

    TIA
     
  2. Bob111

    Bob111

    qcharts does(don't know about others). but what you going to do with it? what is the purpose of backtesting? backtest what? spread?
     
  3. WinSum

    WinSum

    Bob111,

    It's rather complicated. It is not backtesting to see what the spread is on a given security.

    Basically, I need the ability to reference the historical bid/offer on a security. For example, if I want to know what was IBM's Bid & Ask at 10:00 am last Tuesday, I would need the backtesting software's scripting language to be able to support at getting those values programically.

    Does qchart support that ?

    Thx
     
  4. Yes you can find this info on Qcharts.

    Dont remember exactly how far back the tick data goes,
    but last tuesday is not a problem.

    Pretty sure it does at least 1 month if not a couple.

    peace

    axeman
     
  5. WinSum

    WinSum

    axeman & Bob111,

    Thank you both for the lead. I will give Qcharts a try.
     
  6. maxpi

    maxpi

    I think Qcharts has the data but they did not have a backtester last time I looked. Tradestation 2000 is really difficult to deal with but if you use it for backtesting and use QCharts data or Esignal data you can download bid/ask tick data into your computer and backtest on it. QCharts probably has a lot more data but Esignal data is high quality.

    Max
     
  7. WinSum

    WinSum

    Maxpi,

    Thank you for the clarification. I do have Tradestation 2000i and will use your approach to download Qcharts historical bid/ask to an ASCII file and import it to TS 2000i for backtesting.