Hey guys, I have a few ideas on techniques that I think will work...seem to be working now However, I don't have a computer or the skills to code it in. I do my T.A. on websites and my stuff looks good on their graphs, but I can only backtest it so well. If you've got the talent, for the right person, I'll swap my idea if you'll backtest it. And perhaps we could refine it. And of course, keep my idea(s) confidential. PM me and give me an idea of your skill level if you're willing to collaborate. SM
No, I have a computer, but its old and sickly, and I do my T.A. off of the functions they have a Stockcharts.com. I'm a swingtrader, rather than a daytrader, so I don't have to be super precise and I make my decisions at night. But I don't have trade station or any of that. After about 200 trades, I've come up with a few methods that seem to work pretty well and I've refined them. But they could still use some tweaking. My "backtesting" so far has been confined to graphical analysis. And I'd like to verify for sure that they work....well...with as much certainty as is practical. What I'm offering is very fair. I think I have an edge. I'd like to verify that and make it better before I drop the dimes I'll need to to upgrade my system. Especially for someone who wants to collaborate. Maybe even show me a thing or two about computer aided backtesting. I am a quant, so I bring that to the table, (I'm an engineer with an MBA)...but I'm not pig headed enough to think that someone can't help me tweak what I have. SM
M., Thanks for your PM. Sent you an e-mail that gives some of my secrets. Note that this will work with different instruments with tweaking. Thanks, SM
A backtest rarely means squat (people only focus on what appears good). Especially when throwing up a bunch of things and seeing what sticks. Even more especially when tuning (curve-fitting). Especially using "T.A." (almost every trader wannabe starts out with T.A. - and they almost all lose).
Perhaps I'm just lazy, bit IMO, you'd be better off just paper trading your ideas in real-time to see how they work. This teaches: 1) patience (need to wait for a setup), 2) how to adapt to changing market conditions as they actually happen (just like you'd do in "Real" trading), and 3) good record keeping. Nothing says you can't run 100 different scenarios in parallel. "Real" back-testing takes a lot of work and requires some pretty decent software to give anything worthwhile.
And backtesting is relatively useless without massive walk forward testing. I agree with your suggestion to paper trade first...
Hey guys, Thanks for the advice. The good news is that I found a decent site to do my own backtesting. I joined stockfetcher.com Didn't have to download a program to my over-taxed computer. The coding language was not that difficult, but the instructions weren't written well for a noob (IMHO). But I did get it run. Backtested it. tweaked it. Backtested it. Tweaked it. And now I've got it running and I'm making money off it. No paper trading here. FWIW, I did have other "methods" that I use to trade and made sure those weren't violated, so I don't think I'm really risking much. I'm not green at trading...just (was) green at backtesting. SM