What do you think of TradersStudio?

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words, samuel_weber_74. However, you have a point regarding the yahoo group and we all need to make a more conscious effort to help it grow.

 

fundjunkie, it may look the same, but from my experience they are slightly different. Let me try to explain the difference as follows:

When one starts trading they are offered many software options and having a visual idea of the same does help.

With respect to point b), any people interested in TradersStudio might understand the same more if they can visualize and understand its features better.

While the point a) refers to those other users who have already bought TradersStudio but might need some visual guidance to understand things better.

You are correct in the case of 'advanced treatments'.

Thanks Derrick1983.

 

Anyway I did not mean to be discouraging
The group is open to non users, too, that is to people who do not own the software and want to ask questions about it.

 

Hi all,

I have been trying to automate my trades, do some coding and do a lot of backtesting. But I am not able to decide on the Trading software. Each seem to have its pros and cons. I have been looking at Tradestation, Traderstudio and NinjaTrader. What do you guys suggest?

JaiSreeRam - you bought Traderstudio recently. How is it doing?

I have put together what I am looking from a Trading Software:

1. Developing strategies is not enough. It should be capable of testing the startegies on historical data with a basket of stocks or protfolios or markets. I read that TradeStation can't do this. Sounds weird though.

2. The Software should have all the features from a developers stand point such as if-else, etc. I am using Strategy Desk from TD ameritrade and it is pretty lame from a developers perspective. How can you develop strategy if you dont have 'IF-ELSE'? duh!

3. It shouldn't be limited to technical analysis. It should have fundamental analysis data as well such as Debt ratio , Beta,etc for each stock. So that I can set the stock screening criteria.

4. It should be able to store favourite stocks charts with manually drawn trend lines and should be able to send alerts if those trendlines are breached. It know this is tough but still.

5. It should have pattern matching capability. such as it can tell the stocks which are forming head & shoulder pattern.


To all the pros please suggest a Trading Software which can do all these stuff or lets say most of these stuff. I cant take a dig at all the trading platforms because each has its own learning curve.

Please be unbiased. I really appreciate your help.

Thanks
Sumeet

 

I have previously recommended TraderStudio and while I think it is a still a platform with promise - albeit unfulfilled promise/potential - I have to inform others of some of my concerns.

Please see the post below excerpted from this thread:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=169673

===========================
Fundjunkie,

You are clearly a big fan of Traders Studio as I used to be and there is inherent bias in your comments.

I've used TS for about two years, I know and like Murray and consider him a friend, but I don't do my friends any good, if I deceive them or refuse to be candid with them.

I stand by ALL my comments in the previous post.

Intermittent beta releases with minor tweaks or bug fixes for bugs that shouldn't exist in the first place - is not what I consider improvement.

I do not at this time have a major need for RT trading...so you were absolutely incorrect in making that assumption and the attendant comments.

My firm position is that the Traders Studio EOD version has not had any substantial improvement in over a year, its speed is atrocious , many useful functions/features remain missing....again I maintain Traders Studio is a product of unfulfilled potential.

Let me comment on the speed issue:

I repeat the speed is ATROCIOUS ; consider this I was able to convert an existing system to a new platform, modify it and set it up within literally a few minutes – about 30minutes or less- and this is for a language that I am still learning – and the backtesting of this system occurred LIGHTNING FAST! Note also that this is a fairly long system – over 10 pages long. I am still amazed at this…and infuriated at how much time and effort I wasted with Traders Studio – the same system in TS would take me days while dealing with frequent inexplicable crashes. This raises another point: TS is incredibly unstable – crashing multiple times each day

I don't want to turn this into a TS vs XYZ platform posting but I will make the following points:

1. I am aware of at least 2 -3 other platforms that are constantly improving and increasing their edge over TS.

2. There are at least 2 -3 other platforms that have deeper/richer features/functions sets.


3. Support for TS is becoming very weak. I am a trial user of another competing product...and even as a trial user (still not well versed in the product) the support I have received
has been EXCELLENT!

4. I am sure I am not the only one who shares these opinions of TS...just look on ET and there are/were many people who came to TS and have now gone elsewhere. Additionally, TS lacks the deep engaged user base you will find with other platforms… That fact alone is very telling.

I still use TS reluctantly...but I am working on converting my systems to a new platform. The main promise of TS is the session/tradeplan mechanism and its rich reporting framework. I still do not know of another platform that has this great concept of sessions/tradeplans – properly implemented; actually platform GHI implements this via their DEF mechanism. I am still partial however, to Traders Studio session/tradeplan framework – possibly becuase I am used to it. This framework should have made it a premier multi-system multi-market portfolio R & D tool. Sadly the session/tradeplan framework is buggy, clunky and EXTREMELY slow. The reporting framework while fairly rich is still missing basic report stats. Finally to worsen matters, many useful functions/features remain missing and a lot of the existing ones have/used to have bugs and the entire platform is both extremely slow and buggy.

Perhaps you now see my frustration.

I have shared thee issues with Murray directly, but I think since I have publicly recommended TS to others..I need to in the spirit of honesty and fairness disclose my concerns/frustrations publicly. Perhaps this will propel Murray to realize the full potential of his platform. If and when he does I will be there rooting for him; until then I must inform others of the many shortcomings of TS.

 

CPTrader wrote: TS is incredibly unstable – crashing multiple times each day

I have owned TS for 3 years now and any issues re crashing have been fixed in the latest beta which is very stable.

I also disagree with most of the other criticisms of TS that CPTrader posted. TS is one of the best research platforms available with some of the most advanced technical analysis tools & all provided at a reasonable price.

I also do not understand the comment about tech support as I have found support to be excellent and much better than most other software companies.

 

I should add that over the last 16 years I have owned licenses to over 10 technical analysis software products and of those only 2 remain in use on a daily basis. One of these is TradersStudio (Studio).

The most ridiculous purchase I ever made was software that was supposed to make TradeStation portfolio based. Between TradeStation and the add-on product, I spent many THOUSANDS of dollars and NEVER got any useful results. The output was many times SLOWER than Studio and could not come close to what it con do. Tech support was handled by an unfriendly person who didn't know how to deal with the many issues I had in getting the software to work.

IMHO any serious researcher should be using TradersStudo even if they own another platform.

 

I really do not want to go into an extended debate on this matter with rdencpa or fundjunkie...because we all have our biases and motives - and these issues can degenerate quite quickly into personality clashes. As a long time user of the platform and a friend of Murray's - my postings were made with a lot of reluctance. In fact I could have made these postings over a year ago...but remained patient and quiet and give Murray the benefit of doubt.

I will state/repeat the following:

1. Traders Studio is a platform with incredible promise and potential - that remains unfulfilled.

2. I consider Murray a friend and like him personally. Nonetheless I am not a good friend if I can not speak the truth - in private and in public...especially when I am on public record as endorsing the platform. I will never be a psychophant - even to my friends.

3. Our experiences may differ... you may find the platform stable. I do not. It crashes everyday including this morning. It hogs excessive amounts of memory and I have a 2.8Ghz/4GB RAM system and yet sometimes Traders Studio slows down my system to the extent that I just have to shut it (Traders Studio) down - again this morning. This is my ongoing experience.

4. I have used the platform for over two years; so any accusations of my being impatient are grossly unfair. There are issues that have been outstanding for over a year...no exaggeration. I think I have been exceedingly patient.

5. I have contributed a lot of time and effort to make the platform beter. I trust Murray realizes that.

6. Support for me has decreased; especially when I ask questions that support would prefer not to answer or is unable to answer. That is a fact. part of this I understand was due to personal reasons, but still....


7. The aim of these postings is not to drive away customers from buying Traders Studio..but to PUSH, to PROPEL Murray into dedicating resources in a diligent fashion to rapidly improve/revamp his product and enable it realize its potential. Every user of Traders studio who shares the view that the product is one of unfulfilled promise/potential should join me in urging Murray to do the right thing and revamp his platform instead of holding brief for him, making mediocre justifications or engaging in relativistic comparisons that ensure the continuation of the far from ideal status quo.


[p.s.] 8. There is a lot of comment about how cheap Traders Studio is and its great value. Perhaps true, but there are cheaper more stable platforms. But cost is really NOT the critical issue. At $425 - the current "Summer Sale" cost - the platform costs 9 ES points. I have lost multiples of that due to errors with the platform. As I have told Murray I would gladly pay an extra $1000 if he revamps the platform and addresses it's weaknesses. I don't believe in "penny wise; pound foolish". It seems many people are accepting the platform's weaknesses due t its cheap cost. Who gains, who loses under such a scenario? The user loses in the long run... becuase a good platform pays for itself - any short term gains are lost due to platform errors, platform inefficiencies and deficiencies. The developer gains in the short run - because he may increase his sales--but ultimately even the developer loses - becuase he begins to lose customers - old and new.


9. You will note that I have not mentioned any competing product in any of my posts and I will not do so in PMs to those who have asked. The aim of these postings is not to advertise other platforms but to PUSH/PROPEL Murray to release a fully featured, highly stable version of Traders Studio ASAP.

 

First , I would like to thank you for your input over the past two years. Many of your ideas were good and we implemented them during this period. I would say honestly, we spent 6 month or more of work on your ideas both ones we added because they were good and ones which we added because we wanted to make your happy.

I will admit development did slow this past year. This was for several reasons. First we did, have some staff changes in terms of programming and these issues are now stable. This was due to health issues which a programmer had and he could no longer work. This is no longer an issue and we have now secured the resources we need to complete our work on TradersStudio.

Another related issue is that during the past year I developed a trading program for ETF which is traded by my partner. We currently have about 30 million under management. I have added many feature to TradersStudio as they related to my trading the past year, this is one reason that I have kept the updates in beta, so I can add things I needed to. This process is now done and we are finish up TradersStudio Pro, we have drawn a box around features needed and will implement anything else as addins so we can get the product released.

We are also opening a manage Futures program by years end. This means that TradersStudio, as a key component of a live money management operation, will continually be developed & improved irrespective of economic volatility.That development will endeavor to remain on the critical path of robust productivity. I think this is one of our edges as I am a real system developer and trader. No other platform has that now, not even Trading Blox because Curtis is no longer with them.

We have added hundreds of new functions in the past year, not just bug fixes as CPTrader states.

I will admit that TradersStudio lead over other platforms has decreased, but we still do things no one else can like Walk forward testing on a portfolio. We can also power the program and automate research using Macro’s. Robert Pardo uses TradersStudio for his research in walk forward testing, he one of the top CTA’s in 2008 and manages money for Dunn. He could use any platform but chooses to use ours because he can’t find another one which can do what he needs at any price, except write his own.

In terms of support, I always talk to you on the phone, answered your e-mails and even called you when I receive them. I know you feel some feature you wanted were put a side but, you have always gotten the best support from me.

For example the Quarterly timeframe features you wanted, I will be honest were not that important given the other priorities we’re dealing with. Most people do not use Quarterly timeframe analysis. The same is true of Quarter so far as well as Week so far and Month so far, but I am adding them as functions now because I am coming to the end of the list of things I must fix before release and can add some special requests.


In terms of a deeply engage base , it’s easier to get people engaged when most customers are really playing and not really trading , for example you have not really engaged the base because you are developing systems which are your trade secrets and that fine. Another reason is because I market on ET, I think my forums suffer and customers ask question on ET or now even on the Yahoo user group which has become very active.

This trade secret issue often made it hard to address issues you found in the beta because trying to duplicate them was very difficult and often times took 3-4 rounds to do. You pushed TradersStudio to boundaries that no one else was getting remotely close to. For example your system code was much, much longer than any other user’s , it took me an age to duplicate, for example, editor crash issue or report overflows because your code permitted million of contracts to be purchased in long term trade plans, For example you brought forward an overflow condition caused by buying more contracts than could fit into a long integer while simply stating that the trade plan crashes. I finally figured this out after hours on the phone with you and several months of frustration for both of us. This is just one example of how the fact that I could not even see a output report, ate up our support resources and even slowed development down at times as we repeatedly addressed issues.which existed but were not exposed except in special cases, which were covered in your code. I would say over 50% of the issues found in the past 18 months were ones you found. This process of working in the blind didn’t help either of us. I understand that how this bussiness is but it did slow things. Often times no other customer had reported the same or similar issue, so they were hard or impossible to duplicate.

You also use 20+ session in a trade plan, this is doable and in fact in newer version much more stable. Most people don’t combine 20 or 30 sessions, so these issues you found while doing this were very hard to duplicate. Again, the requirement to provide support blindfolded didn’t help.That said, finding and resolving those issues was a good thing. I just wish the process by which we got there could have been a little more open. The time taken would have been cut dramatically.

I disagree that the Tradeplan framework is buggy and clunky, I don’t believe it’s currently missing any basic reports we have added six new reports based on your input in TradersStudio Professional. Many of these were your ideas which we added because they were good ones.

Also you have been a beta tester, and often times we added things and they were not in terms of interface the way you expected but they were functional and flexible. In addition yes some features had bugs when you tested them but these were early betas . By my reckoning you have not really tested a beta for several months. I don't think you tested the last few I made available to you.

In terms of speed , I do agree TradersStudio needs to improve. After professional is released we will be working on a multi-core version , which we have already started on. We will be porting more code to C++ for speed and support for Multi-Core processing. My bet is TradersStudio will be up to 5-6 times faster on a quad core machine, after we finish this.

Finally, our beta programs are open and anyone who signs a beta agreement can become part of the beta program. I would remind you that the beta agreement tells you that you can not discuss bugs in pre-released versions. So unloading like that while not having worked with new beta's for 3-4 months is not exactly fair. I understand you’re upset but I do have to address other issues for other customers, like charting and others.

See, trying to make your point by making things look worst than they are, does not help. All this does is hurt the TradersStudio brand which reduces money available to improve the product.

I need TradersStudio for my own trading which for the ETF's is currently active and for Futures we will start that program up shortly. Trust I am doing what is best long term for the product which was to secure this active trading , which helped the available money for development. My goal is to make TradersStudio not only the best platform for my trading but also for our customers.

 

I have been using TradersStudio for more than a year now, and have found it up to the mark in terms of performance, development, support and improvements. Although, one might agree on the progress part which has slowed down in past year, but the reasons were given and if one sees the world over, progress has been dismal owing to the global economic depression.

I had emailed Murray and he seems dedicated to TradersStudio. He had mentioned that he is using TradersStudio for real trading and I do not have any reason to disbelieve him. I have received a few Betas and agree that sometime the new features have bugs, howver, it shuld be noted that they are Beta versions.

TradeStation releases version after version about once a month, which I am sure is more often due to bugs. I did review other products and TradersStudio was by far the most suitable for my needs. I did not find AMI broker good enough as it was quite tough to do things which I found much easier to do in TradersStudio. I guess it is a matter of opinion.

I have installed TradersStudio 2.5.5 on my PC which is a stable version. Although, the new features are missing in the same, it does not disrupt my trading.

Considering the support, this continues to be their strong point and is yet to see any of my queries left unattended or unanswered. However, I agree on the manuals and documentation which could be more user-friendly. Despite this, they have been done reasonably well and with a bit of effort and seriousness, one can pick up TradersStudio well.

I may be an old customer, but that does not make me completely biased so as to close my eyes to shortcomings if any, after all money is involved and no one would like to lose money because of a faulty system.