The high regard in which you hold my alleged new handle is not deserved. I am new to the forum and have more to learn than to teach. I will share my defeats as well as my victories and do my best to stay out of the ever present flame war. Traders helping traders in my mantra. All while keeping a sense of humor. Tall order! Thank you for the invite to the strategy forum. I will make my appearance in due time. Until then....good trades!
Backtesting is horseshit. You need to develop a strategy separate and apart from backtesting. This is not to say that you can't take your strategy, which works on a particular instrument and create a filter through which to run trading candidates, adjust leverage and such. But, to look for an actual trading strategy via backtesting is a collossal waste of time. At least if you lose money in the markets while trading on a discretionary basis, you'll learn the err of your ways and understand that testing vanilla strategies against entire indices of stocks is imbecillic.
There are programs available today that provide reasonable real world simulations using historical data. As Mark said in his post, it is difficult for any one program to be all things to all people. What features have you not been able to find?
Uh, no it isn't. High, sustained expectancy is the essential key. Money management just changes the ordering that money comes in----or leaves----and that can make things somewhat more or less pleasant. Unless changing your size changes the expectancy, in which case it is part of your trading and not money management, by definition. In theory, practice and theory are not very different. In practice, they are.
Most people i've met that are succesful traders don't seem to use a backtesting program. I used to use Tradestation's easy language but i found it was much easier to set hard standards for trading and stick with them. dan
Without the benefit of back test results, what benchmark do you use to monitor whether your system has lost its edge?
Well it turned out, over the years that i don't buy or sell "naked" stocks or etf's without hedging with options. I know exactly how much i can make to the penny. Likewise the loss. The odds have to be in my favor or i don't do it. Thats the edge for me.