Mechanica

Hey surf-clone.

Why bust someone's balls for the exact same thing you do? If you would have bothered to read on, he recanted his post. Of course you and your conjoined twin never were interested in facts.

 

Obviously the Price Physics marketing campaign is about to start--- the phoney professor of logic has been on tilt on elite for the last several days!

 

Hey, the disgraced trolling surfy is back.
Ever going to address your last wonderful trade on your closed journal?
How about the trade you posted, then deleted?
Remember what I said about the blind squirrel? I was right yet again!!!

 

I agree, I am only using the trial version of Amibroker and it is great, I read so many gleaming reviews on it...and they were all true.

good price and PLENTY of features : )

 

I think it is the best for the money.

 

Hi Trend Riding,

I haven’t been on this site for a few years but surprisingly enough last time on this site I started a thread that asked a variation on your question.

I can tell you that I have been using Mechanica for the last four or five years and have generally been reasonably happy with it.

However that said I don’t have a lot of experience with the “retail” type of back testing software that is usually discussed on this forum. The bulk of my experience is with proprietary back testing software that is custom written for a professional hedge fund/CTA group.

That said I do have direct experience starting years ago with Tradestation and SmartQuant. For the record I no longer use either of these software packages.

Regarding other less expensive contenders there are a lot better regular posters than moi on this site that can discuss with you the relative merits of the standard issue “usual suspects” back testing software such as Trading Blox, Trading Studio, Ninja Trader, Amibroker etc generally focused on the retail market.

The main advantage of Mechanica for me is it is easy to test global portfolio stuff using Markowitz, stepping and risk budgeting etc which addresses my particular needs.

Generally format is after fooling around in Mechanica I then have my programmer code my stuff up to do testing using the in-house proprietary software and if it all holds together the idea then goes into production in the global portfolio.

Being an proprietary trader running oil money out of the Middle East price was not an issue for me with the only concern being getting the best software. Also I have access to a full time professional programmer who handles coding my more esoteric concepts so if you don’t share these same circumstances it would be prudent to take your own situation into consideration.

I hope this helps and I really should see if I can find my old thread about Mechanica from years ago.

Cheers Smoker

 

Hi,

Can you elaborate a bit,
"...I then have my programmer code my stuff up to do testing using the in-house proprietary software and if it all holds together the idea then goes into production in the global portfolio."

Thanks.

 

Hi Stochess,

I am not sure what you are asking to be clarified.

I am not a professional programmer but am a physics/math guy so I can do quite a bit of high level coding by my self so use Mechanica as a pure research tool rather than a production tool.

After I have flushed out an idea in Mechanica and it looks feasible I then hand it over to my professional programmer who codes it up into the in house proprietary software and we test it again using a different price database etc.

Then if the idea still looks good it is put into production using our in house order manager system which is similar to the standard high frequency shops but we use our high frequency order manager system for getting on size directional positions rather than the market making and/or arbitrage type of business like the more conventional high frequency shops.

Hope this helps.

Warmest Regards, Smoker

 

Thanks Smoker.

By utilizing Mechanica only as a research platform, is it because of its programming language limitations , or any other reasons ?

By the way, I'm not sure if I can pick up its programming language. Is it possible for you to send me program scripts of some standard indicators, such as Bollinger Band and simple system, such as BB breadout ?

Thanks.

 

Hi Stochess,

No I use it because it is really easy for me to test general ideas in Mechanica before calling in the big programming gun to code a promising idea to run super fast in the in house prop trading system.

Also I like to see an idea tested on two different software platforms along with two different price data bases before production.

Finally our in house software does high frequency execution which is our solution for handling size. Mechanica does not have this ability.

It is pretty easy for a layman and for an very old fortran programmer such as moi it almost falls into place.

However if it is just beyond your current ability then you are just going to have to hire a programmer to do it for you. Most likely the next door neighbour nerd kid can do it for you as long as you have clearly defined algorithms for signal generation, risk budgeting etc.

No vague stuff but dead on and it shouldn’t be an issue. My programmer learned it in a couple hours.

No, it is not possible.

I do not use any conventional indicators/systems; everything I use is proprietary and for my eyes only.

However, the solution to your problem is easy:

1. Mechanica can provide you will examples of conventional indicators and systems in the same way every other software company does in this business.

2. Hire the nerd next door to program for you. If you can clearly define it then any reasonable programmer will have no trouble coding it. It is a simple scripting language which is a million times easier than Klingon.

Warmest Regards, Smoker