In the long run (and probably even in the short run) it's far, far better to acquire the skills to do it yourself than to outsource it. You'll have far more flexibility and control, that way, as well as a particularly useful skill to carry forward with you, for future occasions.
I agree with Xela. Communicating with a programmer to get what you want is non trivial. Then, of course, you will want to tweak, tweak, tweak ... Better to do it yourself.
If I was like many on this forum, and if you had anything good, I would program it where it make losses and charge you for it. And of course I would keep your ideas to myself, LOL, cha- ching, sell the crap out of it. Learn how to program very well, trust no one, people are the worst overall.
quite funny. under the current situation I'd say this - guys open your eyes... the market is yelling to you to buy technology... why waste time with some pathetic back test.
Maybe because backtesting can give you statistics on the probability of you being right or wrong. You can then use the stats to either take the trade or not take the trade...providing you with more in-depth info than just "market is yelling to you". In addition, you can use the stats to help you determine your position size management, stop loss placement and many other things that's useful in trading. Without that info, the market yelling at you may be just too risky for people to listen too especially for those that want more info to give merit to the market is yelling at you. For example, what if someone saw that the market is yelling at you before you saw it and they did it via having statistical data ??? I'm not judging but some folks use stats to see things that others have yet to visualize on their own or have yet to hear. it on their own. They hear or see what others are saying and then they backtest it to see if such is true or not true. P.S. I read a stats guy say the same thing as you just did back in February 2018 while others having been "screeming" the same thing back in the fall of 2015. wrbtrader
I casually threw in that post.. but it actually had a deeper meaning... right now we are in the 3rd inning of the AI revolution. people are starting to see what the future might hold.. this is a revolution unlike any before, this one will kill jobs and make a permanent separation between the haves and the have nots. the haves will be the ones that own the FAAMG stuff.. AI needs a critical mass of data to snow ball and these companies do, and others will never be able to catch. meanwhile this back test stuff, by the time a human figures it out, the machine is already miles ahead... meaningless. that's why this 'yelling' is unlike any yelling before where there was just a momentum play. In the last couple of years there has been a tectonic shift... the public just isn't aware of what's coming yet. meanwhile the smart money is trying to grab every share of FAAMG.... and the dumb money retail is still hiding in cash/gold/bitcoin, and still thinking the bull market will die soon. or is still doing some back test', as if there is anything to be found there.
I wasn't trying to be funny at all, this happens all the time, and China is very good at stealing technology. What many people do not realize, our goods have been tariffed for years, and countries like China want to continue to rob our way of life, it is about time a non political being sees what is happening. You don't need to back test the Navy China is building using our dollars and most likely will use against us. How is your language of Chinese? I pray it never gets where we are making that bowl of rice a day. I am huge on back testing, more so now that ever before as I have bought enough tick data to see what I produce over 25 years. The past will never show what the future will bring, and back testing has limits, and I never back test first. But it gives ideas on how to study and plan when activities go very bad, we tend to trade on the edge, but have to plan "just in case" time periods. You can produce stats galore, but one needs to know what questions to ask beforehand. #1) My order is manually paper trade an idea for 2 months to see if building program to backtest has merit. And future refine this "set of rules". #2 Back test over periods of data but not optimize-then spend a month studying the results. #3 Spend 3 months manually trading one lots to get better overall feel/results. #4 Send for programming to partner. #5 Spend 3 months after he programs to iron out problems. Yes, very long process, most likely longer than most anyone would think be necessary. But I don't plan vacations like I plan Trading Plans. Pack a bag, go to airport's bookstore, figure out where to go and read about what I want to see on the plane. Big deal. Bitcoin..ROFLMAO
1a2b3cppp, you questions about backtesting are very basic and too general. first of all, you can only backtest trading strategies that can be translated into strict logical rules and programmed into computer code. the only commercially available platforms i know of to program and test strategies are ninjatrader and tradestation. i recommend ninjatrader. second, backtesting and optimizing are crucial to developing and refining a winning system, but you have to know what you are doing. you have to use exaggerated values for slippage and commissions and most importantly, you have to leave at least 30% of the historical data out of sample when optimizing - backtesting. check out some threads i have created in the automated trading subforum and also check out the ninjatrader and morbidly obese mike's fora. you might find useful advice and guidance there.