Whats the difference between using the two in a backtest...? I'm not a micro scalper nor am I an HFT. I simply look to make anywhere between 1-2 trades a day (Open and Close - Sometimes the afternoon) I'm a newb when it comes to data analysis but I was wondering if someone could tell me the benefits of using OHLC Vs 1/5/10 min price bars for a backtest A lot of people say all you need is OHLC prices and your off to the races but I was wondering if someone with experience in this could chime in
newb, first go learn what a "bar" is, and what an "OHLC" is, and then decide if you really want to ask that question.
If you only had access to EOD OHLC prices... how could you derive value? Or if you had a data set for an entire trading day with1/5/10 min bars, how can you determine highs and lows for the day with just the data set?
you would need to learn some basics about programming. a loop and > or < comparison would do it. the answer to your original question is: it's strategy dependent. for intraday strategies, you'd want to use intraday data, for eod strategies, you might be able to get away with eod data assuming no intraday execution and/or tight margins. you'll need to test and then exectue to see what works for you.
propseeker, appreciate that Any suggestions on programming? I do all my analysis in excel right now and dont; know whether i should pick up R or Python