i am a discretionary trader with no programming knowledge who wants to get into the world of computerized trading. after reading a lot of threads about backtesting software i found wealth lab and tradeoptimizer to be the most interesting choices. How difficult is it to learn the wealthlab programming language without a programming background? Does anybody use tradeoptimizer? i have only found a review by avalanche which looked very promising. avalanche, it would be very helpful if you could give us an update. how does tradeoptimizer compare to wealth lab? thanks for your help.
I had your problem eariler and been hasitating few monthes between wealthlab and Tradestation, Until recently i decided which software to use for backtesting and automizing. Takes a look at this page for example: http://www.activetradermag.com/code.htm It has coding for both Wealthlab, tradestation for some certain strategies, as you can see very similar comparing them, with only TS "Easylanguage easier to understand or learn". I have heard many guys with no programing background give up on coding because they never made it. I agree that Wealthlab little more advance and that's why coding is more difficult too. Start with easylanguage, and later moving to wealth lab will be much easier if you need to. Learning coding is one pain in the @#&? business itself. So don't start out with wealthlab, because you might fail, becuase your aim isn't suited toward your obejectives based on knowledge that you might be having today. Most guys who use wealthlab started with Tradestation first day, and most still using it because charting and 3rd party support is much stronger than Wealthlab. Also there is risk going with smaller firm. What if tomorrow TS solves Portfolio testing, bid and ask data, or other issues that it has? Fewer will be then left using WL, right? Buy TS2000i for very cheap price and use eSignal datafeed and download manuals from: http://www.tradestationsupport.com/books I am using esignal for six monthes now and plan on moving to TS.8 next six monthes, while getting myself fimilier with EL by using TS2000i.
It's probably true that EL is easier, but note that Wealth-Lab 3.0 has a drag and drop interface for programming simple to rather complex systems. The entire script is generated by the wizard, so you don't have to write <i>any</i> code. And, the developers add new rules to the Wizard on request.
I chose Wealthlab and would do it again. They also have an active discussion forum and lots of scripts to download and learn from. And they give you fast feedback and help to get started!
You should check out Investor RT at www.linnsoft.com. No programming, easy to create and quickly run backtests and systems development. Great support.
WLD is way more open than Tradeoptimizer. Its language is based on Pascal and easy to learn. Program and language are well documented. Lots of PDF-files, and discussions on their website and the internet. They have thousands of users and several data providers are supported + an order interface to Interactive Brokers. You can just download the demo version including dozens of working code examples and give it a try. TO only supports QCharts in the moment. They will launch their own data and brokerage service soon, but without futures. By the way, make sure to check out Neoticker.
This is a part that fails you, if you want to become a programer. You sould be able to code most strategies on your own, and not to expect others to hold you hands very often, because then all these won't become very time effactive.
I have a system that uses an adaptive moving average slope. I programmed it into Tradestation in about five minutes. It was VERY easy and intuitive. I have been trying to get it into Wealthlab for about a month and havn't succeeded yet. I have taken classes in programming before, and I still can't figure the Wealthllab language out. It is simply too criptic for us with minimal programming experience. You can use the wizard to make a system, but that only works for systems that are based off of canned indicators which usually don't work anyway. Also, the desktop has a "clumsy" feel and fails to maximize space as well as Tradestation. I have used Neoticker, and I didn't care for it for similar reasons to those of Wealthlab. The main problem with Tradestation is that you have to use their data feed, which doesn't include foreign markets. For this reason you should try to get a copy of 2000i as mentioned previously. I want to get a copy myself, as I am using version 8 currently and am looking for more data flexibililty. The following link is to a company who is working on a charting package that is very similar to Tradestation that will hopefully address the concerns I mentioned above. If they can simply copy Tradestation while fixing some of the glaring weaknesses, they'll have a great platform. http://www.tssupport.com/products/multicharts/ They have no completion date or projected price. I just found these guys over the weekend, so I don't know about their reputation.