check out MultiCharts - they have stock scanner now, and are also Easylanguage compatible: http://multicharts.com/multicharts/reasons/datasheet.pdf
Neotickers PatternScanner/Quotewindows. Fully programmable, and you can import symbol-lists so you don't have to enter them one at a time.
It's actually free if you don't use our software to execute live trades. This help guide section explains how to add any type of column including indicator columns - http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/AddingRemovingColumns.html We also have a live free training webinar on the Market Anaylyzer on 9/11 - http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/trading_online_events.htm
I used to use TS2000i and around 2003 I realized a product called Stock watch pro.I used it and been very happy with it. Last year I tried to check it out and see what was going on with the product but their websote was down.Later on I realized that that product is now in ameritrades hands. Check their website.They renamed it but AT offers that product. I think its name is StrategyDesk now. It definetely needs to be checked out if they didn't change any of its features.
I think TS2K is one of the programs in this paper about backtesting flaws: Backtesting Flaws in two Popular Programs It's an old program and people should not be using it. There is a lot new and good stuff around like Ninja.
I read the multicharts data sheet regarding their grid app... they can actually interface the Global Server from Ts2k for data so you could use DTN Satellite and update 30,000 instruments all day every day, but DTN dropped the stocks a couple of year ago... I tried using MC language to call dll's to talk to the TWS API and was unable to get it running. It ran on TS2ki ok... that was years ago.. I've gotten erratic backtesting results from every package I've tried actually... I got to where I just don't trust any of the trading software packages for much of anything, they are almost all crapware to some extent..... In industry I used engineering software packages, you can't sell crapware to engineers, they will figure out that it's not working well and blackball you. Trading software is different, the customers may never figure out the software is not working right and when they do, they won't share with anybody because they are all in direct competition... With TS2k I was building my own data bars in Arrays and doing all operations on those.. I knew exactly what was going on with the bars I built to the very tick.. it was a bear to write indicators to work with the arrays of data though.. I also did tests with indicators that would output overall gains and number of trades, etc.. that was better, I could look at the chart and see exactly what was going on.... and most of these packages have to get the charts right, even traders can tell when the chart is horked up... eventually I abandoned backtesting altogether, it's too sterile of an environment to learn much of anything.. I spent the last six months screen trading and developing ideas... it's way more productive to do that. Probably even if the software was perfect in every detail it still would be more productive to screen trade than backtest regarding developing trading methods... I'm becoming concerned about the number of holes I have to open up in the firewall so I'm ruling out any software that requires a frequent license check. Sierra charts only needs a license check once a month and their stuff looks good but they don't have the grid app.. TS2k never checks the license, that is one thing I like about it... Openquant doesn't use the internet to check the license but they don't have a grid app either... Well written software will run in a user account and run natively in Vista... if software requires running in an admin account, and currently some do, or needs special setup procedures to run on Vista it's not well written, I'd stay away... it's probably going to exhibit other problems along the way...
This is so true. You sound like you have put a lot of work into trying trading software. I agree with your comments about engineering software. The same is true with accounting software. Any errors are found fast and corrected. This is not the case with trading software. Most reviewers concentrate on bells and whistles and avoid substance. I wonder whether Mr. Harris, the author of the paper trader3cnd mentioned, will be willing to share his full analysis. I think if companies sold backtesting software with errors they should at least admit it and upgrade their older versions at no cost. I gather, if one backtests the same system on two different platforms with the same exact conditions and gets two different sets of results it means there is a huge problem out there. This could be another factor that may have added to the high rate of failure of system traders who have been using those platforms. Anyone knows of any platform that has been certified to produce reliable back-testing analysis? After reading the paper by M. Harris I am frightened that I may have accepted crap as reliable results just on good faith in the past.
I think that at one point I did backtests on three different systems and got three different results... I always marveled at the people that wrote their own systems from scratch but they were right.. and they were the only ones that ever seemed really happy with their software too... I went to live screen trading with a sim account and learned a good bit more than I ever could from the backtesters... I've had major problems with testing done by hand too.. I got great results, tested it on some other randomly picked data and got the same results.. traded it going forward and it didn't work at all, completely random, went back and tested it on some other days of data and found it's really random.. then wrote up a test that I could verify and trusted and... it was random all the way.. I think I wanted to succeed and unconsciously I could pick the days that would give good results on the system initially because I had scrolled through the charts a few times... TS2000's backtester was written by RINA systems, I don't know if they are still around but they pretty much just wrote it and if you called them with questions about flaws they would steer the conversation to custom programming or some really expensive addons... everybody waited for the SP3 to come out and instead, Omega Research cancelled all upgrades to TS2000 and became a brokerage and brought out TS6...
Rumors have it that TS2000 was based on System Writer Plus code, an older MSDOS product of Omega, but some of the key developers left leaving no way out of the bugs. RINA was hired to solve the problem and they did their best adding some functions to try to overcome these defects. In the meantime, Omega would not admit their product was defective but they continued selling it and used it as a vehicle for their IPO while they changed their name to Tradestation Technologies. They then contracted some Russian company to develop a product from scratch. I repeat these are rumors and I do not know what the true story is. Maybe Tradestation should come out and speak the truth. Can anyone confirm the details of the above story? It appear as Tradestation marketed a defective product. Which is the other product Mr. Harris is talking about in this paper. I wonder why he won't reveal his full findings. Can you check it out? http://www.tradingpatterns.com/About_Us/articles/backtesting/backtesting.html
Maxpi, appreciate your suggestions, however, without wishing to sound ungrateful for your help............. 1) You cannot write a code solution to have a realtime alert alert only once. Global variable solutions such as Alertonce top out at a few hundred symbols alerts and then stop alerting once ( - is hypertraders order automation software a solution?). ======================= I think you can over come this by some clever coding... you clear a variable at the start then set it if you get an alert and use it as a condition for the alert... I don't think the hypertrader stuff is up and running, they have not upgraded their site since 2004... ----------------------------------- I agree it should be possible but so far I have not found it, nor it seems has anyone else - maybe it can't be done and that is why the alertonce funtion was coded into TS8. here are a couple that look like they should work but don't......... example 1) If CheckAlert and BarStatus(1) = 2 then Alert("Specified Criteria Found!"); Example2 ) use a simple flag to stop repeating the alerts. E.g. //Declare our flag variable Vars: RaiseAlert(False); //Reset our flag every day If date<>date[1] then RaiseAlert = True; //If conditions are met then send an alert, but only if the // alert hasn't already been set off today If {MyAlertCriteria} and RaiseAlert then Begin Alert("xxx"); RaiseAlert = False; end; 2) If ther is a way of sorting alerts in TS2k Radarscreen by time I have not found it - there needs to be a function 'alerttime' maybe this is codeable. ================ Just code it yourself. Radarscreen will sort by whatever variable you plot... it's been years since I worked with it, I can't get more specific than that ------------------------------------- I may be wrong but as far as I can tell there is no Easylanguage equivelent of e.g EXCEL's TIME NOW If Neoticker tops out at 200 symbols it is a non starter - i am running 5000 worldwide at pilot level and looking for software and vendor solutions for 25,000 plus - may have to break down to 5000 per box. I didn't know that Tenfore had a satellite feed.. is that a one way feed where they just blast everything at you? DTN Satellite blasts the entire set of markets to a box and you tell the box which ones you want. They stopped doing the stocks a while back though due to bandwidth constrictions... As far as I can tell Tenfore Satellite blasts all tickers from US Europe and Asia markets - footprint for satellite as far as I recall is Europe only. If you can stand institutional pricing Comstock covers all markets and their satellite covers US Europe and Asia - whether that extends as far as Australasia I don't know. My advice if anyone wants it is to subscribe through itservice.net as you pay no more get an extra layer off support from them - I have found them to be very helpful and knowledgeable. Hypertrader are alive and kicking - they just have not upgraded their website since they stopped offering their connection software for free - you can buy by contacting them direct and while they are not adding any new data feeds they are keeping their committment to the installed base by writing new versions if a data vendor makes changes that affect their software. Also a reccomended company in terms of their support.