Been researching software to do real time scanning and backtesting on both EOD and intraday data. In the lower priced area, Ensign and Ami seem to be pretty powerful and have gotten good reviews here. Can anyone tell me what the key differences between the two packages are? I would be interested in real time scanning of up to maybe 50 symbols, as well as a powerful backtester. Are either of these up to that task, and if not, any other recommendations for a reasonably priced product? Thanks
Take a look at WLD. If you only need EOD then the website is good enough. I saw on the feature list that real time scanning is in the planning for the new version.
FWIW, I was considering ensign, but objected to paying 39.95$ a month just to use the software. I have started playing with the backtester with amibroker, and it is fairly simple to use. A limitation of the AFL (amibroker formula language) interpreter is that it does not support looping constructs. If your backtesting scenarios requires that, you will need to use javascript or VB scripting.
Getting accustomed to no looping is difficult. I use AmiBroker and do not know anything about EnSign. Be aware that the language AmiBroker uses iterates each step to completion before moving to the next step. It is much closer to machine language than, for example, Visual Basic. That being said I am pleased with the performance of Ami and am amazed at its low cost and the programmers intelligence and diligence. Updates are frequent and consistent. The backtester's abilities are minimal but work fine for me so far - keep in mind that I am a beginner. Working with trendlines on the charts is the best I have seen and very similar to AutoCAD, which is computer-aided drafting software. I figure, for $100 you cannot go wrong. By the way, you can get free end-of-day data updates from Yahoo automatically via AmiQuote (free for download on the AmiBroker site).