I think I've got some 'leads' to an edge for trading (I only look at commodities and ES). I'm wondering if there is some place I can pay to learn how to backtest, as I have no coding/SQL or any of that experience. Right now the edge I believe I have definitely is not an intraday kind of thing but more so an 'it's bound to go in-the-money eventually, and I just need to keep constraining to get down a maximized risk/reward'. For instance, on silver chart, it printed not too long ago on the weekly a very bullish hammer candle with a long tail wick. Looking at chart history and doing rudimentary backtesting, I can see that every time such a candle printed (on the weekly but also this should translate to other timeframe charts) with a long wick, eventually it had a 'sizable' move in the direction one would think (down if it was a bearish wick with long high side). Not every time, of course, but in general very high likelihood. I also noticed on silver just using Investing.com that every time it got on a run of 5 or 6 straight green candles on the daily, it went relatively soon to test the 200 and other important MA lines. That just happened with silver obviously yesterday. I also had tons of conviction because I just look at the inflation that's been created and think this is market makers and the London fixers trying to get the weak longs out of PMs with this major run down to keep the Potemkin stock mkt village propped up. I also like integrating long term (25 yr or so even) charts and drawing the trend lines that most broadly encapsulate, and if it is say a ton of % away from the high side of a downtrend line, and close to the support, looking to just get long and be willing to sit in a position (this is VERY long term trading--it can be anyway- as coffee recently offered this opportunity and would have worked out great already) but I still see it as just a keep it simple stupid kind of way to look at trading. Yes it could take very long, but I'm willing to wait. Same with say buying SH or some inverse ETF on ES and just waiting to be ITM sizably eventually as rarely does ES blitz through so high without having retracements back through an area, and you can wait for when it does get overextended via numerous measures like RSI, etc. Just wondering how hard it is to learn to code and I'd like to get a signal that alerts me of such optimal setups, and I'm sure this could translate to say 5 min or hourly charts. These strategies are pretty unrefined as I described, and could require taking some heat, but I would use constraints and something like SOLVER on Excel to maximize the right risk/reward and have a good exit point versus the other thing I was mentioning where i just stay long and eventually I'll be ITM (dare it to do something extreme).
have some ideas for more so short term trading, too, like on 30 and 60 min charts. Just would like to know how feasible it is for someone like me w/no background in programming to be able to enter in candle stick data and even if not optimize at least tell me what would happen if say when certain setups came on candle charts, and say take 20 ticks profit and 10 ticks heat, etc. (putting on parameters). I have been doing rudimentary backtesting of literally looking over candle charts on investing.com and going through what would have happened, but not efficient although I am generating some ideas I'd like to see more data, too, as 60 min charts only go back to last month on investing.com.
How about getting started in Excel on the weekly and daily ? 1, 2 or 3 bars candlestick formations are not that difficult to program in Excel (or any other programming language).
I guess I just don't know where to start. I searched online how to code candlestick charts and obviously it is OHLC, so it should be pretty doable, but I don't know how to do anything programming-wise. If I were to get the candles on the hourly going back as many years as possible that'd be awesome, and then it would be a certain wick size I am looking for as I generally am looking at hammer candles but more nuanced than that, but that is the big thing definitely. Seems like this should be doable and I'd literally spend $ and long days over course of a week to learn this. Essentially I'd want to identify the certain wick length candles which would narrow down all the candles available literally down to about 3 or 4% of them if that, and then from there put in Solver or somehow parameters to see what would have happened over course of the whole time, or different timeframes when each candle came whether the stop loss was hit or the profit target. This strategy actually in my rudimentary backtesting calls for not a good risk/reward ratio in terms of profit tgt per setup is less than the SL, but the % from what I looked through in chart history is high enough to compensate for this, so in Expected value terms it is still prudent. If anybody knows trader programmers or anyone who might help with this that'd be great. I am in Chicago area. This strategy I've been focusing on is not that complicated; pretty much epitomizes keep it simple stupid, but I have to get risk/reward in line and somehow optimize that.
For starters where to go to find data on the hourly candles and somehow get those imported. I'd want this to go back a long while, as Investing.com only goes back 2 or 3 months with hourly charts. Obviously I'm not just importing prices a la yahoo finance either, as it is candles and the 4 OHLC parts.
Right now am just doing manual backtesting using investing.com on crude (also was doing copper). On 15 min chart when I got a certain setup (it happened 15 times over 7 days, which is as far back as 15 min chart goes on investing.com) I set it up where I took 20 tgt profit, and allowed 15 ticks of heat, and got +125 ticks as it was a 10:5 w/l ratio, so not bad on any of the fronts, and not allowing a big amount of loss on any given trade. I tried using different SL and tgt profit but didn't improve, although I'd like to be able to optimize this instead of doing it manually and checking. Very tedious. Obviously would want a lot more data to see if this holds water.
I like your enthusiasm. It's like you discovered fire. There's lots of programs out there that can filter for your favorite technical patterns. Stockcharts, Prodigio, and maybe Tos. No need to code either. Some are simple automated scans that can send you alerts. Some are easy to use system building software that allows you to drag and drop logic modules into your project for a complete automated trading system. Give yourself a leg up on system design if that's what excites you.
Could you please expand a bit on the software listed in your post? I've been trying to start somewhere and you seem to know the right path. Thank you for your kindness.
Basically need actionable advice right now. And it's two parts, with the first more essential, which is to go through more backtesting to see if this holds up over time consistently enough. Then it'd be nice to have a way where it would signal when a setup came, but I could also see being fine with just knowing I have something legit and I can sit at my monitor and wait for these particular candles to come. I might talk to someone from interactive brokers or something next week and see if they have software. I read some forums about MT4 as well and getting OHLC from candles which is what I need. I particularly am focused on the wicks of candles. But I'd like to have conviction-adding criteria such as MA lines maybe or fibs, but some of this is also easy to insert manually on a chart. I'm not looking at this point for total algo. What I do like about my strategy I'm looking into right now is it is more passive and doesn't get caught up in the really short term volatility. I do like to do some on the fly game theory but that can be more a distraction, too.
Just looked at Prodigio. Not sure if that's what I'd be looking for. I'm in the midst of interviewing at prop shops around Chicago some discretionary some more so the HFT mkt making algo, but if I have something legit why even go to one of these places? Maybe just to a pure arcade if anything, otherwise just get an acct. at IB or somewhere that in the best case would be able to get me the historical OHLC candle data so I could backtest, too. I've done the sim on TT and know their charts are good with the candles and they go back I think as long as a person wants, but exporting just the OHLCs not sure I guess. I need basically to get 10 years' or so worth of 15 min. candle charts continuous for crude (also copper I was looking at; other products I can probably do the same kind of thing; only a commodities trader) and then somehow have a way to highlight where the certain wicks came about (without having to actually look at the chart and scope them out) and be able to run a test for each one to see whether SL or profit target was hit, and from there see how it works out # of losers, winners, ratios, etc., and ways to optimize how many ticks I should get on winner vs. loser. I'm not a phenom at Excel either so definitely would be interested in learning and paying someone who knows how to do this sort of thing.