Hi All, I currently use Tradestation (charting) and Thinkorswim (exectution) and am wondering about backtesting my strategies. I do not know any programming language and would like to hear other peoples methodologies on backtesting without being adept in programming. Is the only solution to manually backtest by reviewing my criteria against the charts one by one? Isn't this subject to possible bias? How have other people backtested?
have a look at forex tester 2, this program helped me ,but i already knew what i wanted to test.I wanted to do this quiet way, when i researched the matter i came across different programs for Metatrader5 ,I never used any of them http://fxdreema.com/alternatives http://www.ww.searchtube.com/index....isor Builder for MetaTrader 5/cb::searchtube/
Best solution for those that do not know how to program is to use software that searches for trading systems based on defined criteria and generates code for Tradestation, Metatrader and other platforms. Google Strategy Quant, Price Action Lab, Genetic Builder and for deep pockets Trading System Lab.
after reading your post came to my mind that once i looked at adaptrade http://www.adaptrade.com/ i never used this kind of method ,can't comment about its usefulness robust strategies are quiet rare ,period
Have you considered bringing onboard a software engineer to help you? It won't be cheap but will help you enormously in objectively determining if a strategy has statistical positive expectancy.
One of the many problems is that the best strategy found by such software is most likely a fitted one. You ought to be able to recognize fitted strategies and oos testing won't help that much given limited data. Not that they are useless but the concept is not very sound. This applies to all of the softwares mentioned. The only exception is the scanning tool of price action lab when used with portfolio backtesting to rule out curve-fitting but this will not give you a full system but only patterns recently formed. This is also a tricky concept as one must know what he is doing. I am not sure I still know...
You can use NinjaTrader indefinitely for free which includes an option to build and backtest strategies using a GUI interface. Specific information on this feature is located here - http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/strategy_wizard.htm
Is out there a software that would convert my trades one by one to code in simulation or backtest ? Based on a trigger (2 indicators of some sort) i make a trade after trade and software writes code as i trade. I am a Forex tester 2 user and i do this manually with no code. this would allow user to backtest next pair faster anybody knows of something like this ?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Mr LJ; Monthy charts, quarterly charts .....all data [AGAIN,all data]are amoung the best ways to back test/figure out some good trends. With a 10 month or 12 month moving average/candlecharts , 10 year ,25 years, all data/candlecharts ; that cuts OUT a lot of your /my bias .............................................................................. Wisdom is profitable to direct. Actually as George Soros said ''the market has a bias'' So no,, a bias is not auto bad.... Good question Computer systems/programs are not the key to FT Knox; Rich Dennis said in a Futures mag interview ''its the job of the market to wreck trading[computer] sytems'' I dont agree with much of politics of turtle Curtis Faith ; but his quote ''get your hands dirty with data''= greatquote Wisdom is profitable to direct