I'm interested in trading e-minis and futures and have downloaded a few of the trading simulation software platforms from various brokers, but I'm noticing that all seem to easily let you buy the Bid and sell the Offer - making scalping appear to be overly easy - which I know in practive you're usually buying the Offer and Selling the Bid (vice-versus for short positions) and the spread is a few points, not what the demo programs show. Can someone recommend a trading sim that is close to reality so that I can properly judge if my "system" will produce acceptable results? Thanks!
>Can someone recommend a trading sim that is close >to reality so that I can properly judge if my "system" >will produce acceptable results? Hah hah hah. ROFLAO. Your killing me here Dude. Stop it...I mean it. I can't take it. Hah hah hah. Seriously, if your system is an intraday system it doesn't exist. Everyone says that theirs will do it (you'll soon hear from from a couple with web addresses) and I encourage you to consider the experience to be for amusement only. The edge (if you have one) in intraday trading is VERY thin and from my experience the +/- range from reality of a sim is as great or greater then the edges available today. JB PS. the laughter wasn't aimed at you in a critical way. It's just a question that gets asked a lot here with all the same answers each time (here come those vendors with their web links as we speak)
Yes, Imagine scalping and in reality you are down about $30 (on minis) from the get go, $12.50 on the way in, $12.50 on the way out, plus about $5 commission! LOL. The fact that you are even this far is a good thing. There is no easy answer. The only way to test a system for 100% accuracy is only to assume a fill if the price goes thru your limit order if you do not have access to the B/A data when testing. If you do have access to the B/A, then you can get greater accuracy, but even in this case, when you go live, it always seems different than the way you tested. Retail software mostly stinks. Also, try finding emini tick by tick B/A historical data on the eminis from ANYBODY. Not even the CME sells the stuff. nitro
Demos are useless for system testing. What you need is a trading simulator, and the best I know of is the one which comes with the IB front-end ButtonTrader. Currently it supports only the Interactive Brokers datafeed, but I believe it will give you the closest thing to the actual real, live trading experience you can find, and it's free for six months. Look in the "Software" section; there are a couple of threads discussing it and you'll find links to its website there. Also, I recall that someone gave it a very good review not long ago. Welcome!
Here's one of the threads I mentioned: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25037&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 - should answer most of your questions.
Idoogye, I've tried several, I like the platform from "Open E Cry" the best for futures, and Visual Trader from CMS for Forex. Like I said earlier when I started the thread, I'm under no illusion that "live" trading will be anything like the demos, but these have at least an interface that I like.
I've been using NeoTicker for a while now, and in the latest version they have a simulator than plays back tick by tick historical data. I think it works really well. *Almost* like the real thing