How to create my own index

Discussion in 'Trading Software' started by cunparis, Aug 25, 2008.

  1. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than to argue about whether I like NeoTicker or not. I don't have to justify or prove anything especially to you. I simply state my opinion. And my opinion can change in time as you duly noted.

    Neoticker was very unintuitive for me. I picked up Ninjatrader & Tradestation very quickly without reading any manuals. This was not possible with Neoticker. That could say more about me than the product so I would encourage anyone interested to try the trials of any software they're interested in and make their decision.

    The hardware key was a problem too as I like to run on different computers in different locations.

    Finally, the topic is about creating a custom index and not whether I like Neoticker so please stay on topic. Thank you.
     
    #31     Jun 7, 2009
  2. cunparis,

    So, uh, what progress have you made with regard to the indexes?

    Are they working as planned/expected?

    I've made several similar experiments over the last few years. Learned quite a bit but have usually been disappointed with results.
     
    #32     Jun 7, 2009
  3. raker

    raker

    I will say this ; the learning curve for neoticker is a long one it has taken me over a couple of years to get where i want to be but the capabilities inside the software if you give it the time to figure out is absolutely light years ahead of tradestation ,and what they have is a lot of pre-writen stuff inside , which if you were to try and do the same thing in tradestation would take lines and lines of code . I have been able to program some institutional style algorithms relatively easy with neoticker .

    But you have to give it time to learn what the software has to offer , if you dont have the time you will not discover some of its hidden capabilities , but hey it works for me and I wouldnt go into battle without it ..
     
    #33     Jun 7, 2009
  4. Previously I was trading stocks and I wanted to see if I could form an index and then get an edge for the stocks I was trading. I later started trading the indexes and commodities. I still trade my stock system but I've decided to accept the current performance so I can work on other things. This thread does remind me of my original idea so maybe I'll give it a try. Stockfinder looks interesting for this type of thing.

    Raker - I don't doubt what you say at all. I just tend to use the tool I can learn the fastest. Not necessarily the best tool.
     
    #34     Jun 7, 2009
  5. The problem though is this is a pain to do, the tool that is fastest to learn probly simply won't do what you want it to do.
    I've made the TIKI in ninja with strategy plot. I'm waiting for ninja 7 to get much more into cash/index analysis.If its not up to snuff though its just time to take the plunge into Neoticker.
    The real problem with neoticker is the demo is simply not long enough to get a good taste of the program.
     
    #35     Jun 8, 2009
  6. Most of my strategies could be written out in a paragraph or two. I like to keep things simple. I don't doubt that Neoticker can do some really complicated stuff but that's not my style.

    So I started with the easiest tool to learn & use and when I found limitations in ninjatrader I added tradestation. If I ever find something TS doesn't do that I really need then I would consider something else. For me it's not a problem to change because my strategies & code are relatively simple. Well provided that the software is intuitive and easy to learn. I find TS & Ninjatrader very similar so it is easy to switch.
     
    #36     Jun 8, 2009
  7. I was talking about as far as building an index goes though.
    There are some decent post on the neoticker forum about this stuff although not many seem to be actually calculating the cash index client side. If you google "fast cash" + neoticker you can see they already have a tool that should in theory set up the weighting calculations + loading the data.
    Like I said I'm waiting for ninja 7 as I also find it far more intuitive and find neoticker a mess when i've tried the demo. I do have a feeling though that after a certain learning curve though, there is alot of stuff in neoticker that would be much easier, this stuff being a good example.
    500 onmarketdata calls in ninja will probly not work out very well, let alone running weighting calculations on them.
     
    #37     Jun 9, 2009
  8. Now that you mention it, I will tell you that I had a strategy that traded a basket of 70+ stocks. While doing backtesting with this strategy, which uses 1m data, NT constantly crashed. It was so slow it was at time unbearable. Anything over 100 symbols would crash it. It was 1 multi-instrument strategy. I had to limit myself to around 70 to keep it from slowing to a crawl and crashing.

    So 500 would be out of the question.

    NT 7 sounds great but I can't "wait" for it. it's already way behind schedule. I doubt it'll be out of beta before the end of the year.
     
    #38     Jun 9, 2009
  9. raker

    raker

    Cunparis,

    I am not sure why NT crashes on you , it could be a number of reasons , one you are using the demo version, or an older version on NT or your virtual memory ran out on your computer or was just not powerful enough , in the past NT has crashed on me.

    I am not hear to plug NT as Tradestation is a good product with a large forumns community that shares codes with each other , however why i am posting as i rarely post is the title of the original thread , and this is where NT shines it was specifically built for developing market breadth statistics which include building your own indexes.

    I first got NT because i wanted to build a better tick indicator than the NYSE tick , and back in 2004 this website interviewed one of the principals of NT and he disscussed how to build your own tick index , this is when ELITETrader used to do interviews , i am not sure they even keep archives of the original interviews from traders and company interviews anymore .

    As far as computers crashing and so on I run 500 symbols calculating bid/ask statistics and up/down tick statistics updated every second with no problems . However i would say this think about it really the amount of computer power needed to calculate and update 500 symbols every second . You need your computer to be powerful enough to handle all those updates and information.
     
    #39     Jun 9, 2009
  10. Hi Raker thanks for your contribution. I think there is some confusion between NeoTicker and Ninjatrader. I was referring to Ninjatrader crashing on me. The fact that is often uses more than 1 gig of memory, it's not surprising that is crashes (i have quad core with 4 gigs so it's not me)..

    When I ran NeoTicker demo I didn't have any performance problems. And it does make creating custom indexes very easy. I was able to do this relatively quickly.
     
    #40     Jun 9, 2009