I am sure that Excel has the potential to be something useful but given the breadth of negative reviews, I will be looking into other potential platforms (IE: Trader's Studio, Matlab, creating a custom solution). I do not want to veer this thread off topic so I will be posting my inquiries on that matter in a new thread.
Sorry, Nitro, this is somewhat of a bullshit response. I just paid $125 per hour for some consulting on Excel VBA that would have taken me 3+ months to research on my own. Excel's programming language is mombo complex with over 10,000 distinct, separate, and unique properties and methods to deal with. It can be overwhelming to the less technical types. The Openoffice.org consortium is trying to "clone" Excel and it's object model and VBA interpreter. Guess what ? They're not getting there very quickly ... about 5 more man-years of effort and they'll "get close". Let's have a quick review of the man who architected Excel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi Nuf said ?
That was essentially my point earlier: When you overflow the capabilities of plain-vanilla Excel, and are forced to muck with VBA (with the complicated-object model Mr Sys mentions), you may as well take a step back and learn a sturdier and more flexible toolset.
As with any dev environment and programming language, YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW THE RIGHT TECHNIQUES to make it maintainable. That's one of the reasons I hired a consultant. Your perception is correct though....most programmed spreadsheets are just total crap and must be rewritten.
You need a "framework" or BETTER YET, a "platform" to make this happen quickly. With a basic programming language like VBA or Java and an API, you are starting from "scratch".....it's like building a house brick-by-brick. With a platform, you've already had an architect design it and build most of it....the rest is customization....just like Tradestation. However, and I've seen this happen just recently with a client of mine, if the architecture does not FIT YOUR REQUIREMENTS or MODE OF TRADING, you MUST go "low-level" and build brick-by-brick. It's a long, tough road.
Some of you may not already know that my broker OpenEcry already has a fully functional Excel DDL interface. Check it out... http://www.openecry.com/traderstoolbox/exceldde.cfm I have and continue to highly recommend them.
Wow. I really like their Excel interface. However, it's futures only trading. No equities. Also, I didn't find a way to get index quotes (I use interest rates in my system to trade the ES and ZN/AB). So I'd have to get a separate quote server.
I use QuoteIn for my future trading model (ES only). You might find them to be useful. Excel can be a great tool for traders who aren't medium/advanced programmers, because it already has a lot of the infrastructure and logic built into it. It's also very fast to develop a working tool with it. It all depends on your needs and where you are in your growth as a trader who uses automated tools to assist (or ultimately, assume) their trading. Good trading, Jimmy Jam
I use excel all day long for trading. Mostly for analysis and data capture via DDE links, but a little for order entry/automation. The DDE links are slow and drive me insane when they stick. The most I run is 1,850 links simultaneously. Although I do have some order entry done in excel, designing real time systems with orders being triggered isn't the easiest thing to do, and kind of scary with excel. A lot of my off market hours research is done in excel. I have the need for something a little quicker, so I am slowly learning c#, which I think will do the trick. I rather spend the time on c# than having to dig further and further into VBA. I hate digging around through my old spreadsheets trying to figure out how it works or what it does, afraid I might miss something and have it suddenly start shooting out orders or something.