broker for testing/execution

Discussion in 'Strategy Building' started by ptunic, May 7, 2004.

  1. ptunic

    ptunic

    Hi all.
    I'm running some historical tests, so far it has been EOD but have a few intra-day ones to run as well. I've mostly been using Primate.com EOD data, Excel and Perl, as well as the 30-day free trial of Wealth-Lab.

    I'm having difficulty deciding on who to use for both the backtesting and the execution.

    1) Use Wealth-Lab + E-signal for historical backtesting. Use IB + Oanda + Esignal + Wealth-Lab for automated trading (except ForEx which would need to be manual).

    2) Go with Tradestation with the Stock/Option + ForEx + Futures accounts, and with their basic real-time live feeds. This would cover historical testing + execution (except ForEx which is manual for now).

    On the one hand, I sort of like the idea of having everything together in one package, ala Tradestation. It just seems it would be easier in the sense if I get something I like in the testing, going to forward-test mode or live auto-trade mode should be simple. Where as I'm guessing Wealth-Lab through IB isn't that much harder but it is a bit more coordination since there are 3 separate products involved (Wealth-Lab + IB + Esignal) so perhaps there is more room for error. I haven't used TradeStation for backtests yet, but I did call up Trade-station and they can do some of the things I want (such as using option or futures data to trade a stock, etc.).

    I've generally read people are happier with Wealth-Lab than Tradestation for development though. On the other hand I can always try Tradestation for a few months, they don't have any 1-year minimum or anything so maybe I'll go that route.

    Has anybody actually be doing intra-day trading with Wealth-Lab (automated), if so does it work fairly well?

    Thanks,

    -Taric