Comments on: How to decide on a Backtesting and Trading Platform

By: MS

MS — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:40:52 +0000

Stay away from Prodigio robot platform. It’s free through Think Or Swim. It just doesn’t deliver what it promises. The back test is slow, trailing stop is inaccurate, and assumes you have unlimited funds giving unrealistic returns. They don’t allow you to turn on your own strategies once you build one with the excuse the feature is in maintenance. So you have to use their pre-made strategies which you can’t back test. So I had to paper-trade day to day with Prodigio using their premade strategies. I had a lot of trades but no profits. They are churning commissions and not caring about the client making a profit obviously.
So I’m looking around for a robot similar to Prodigio but does the job correctly.

By: Jez

Jez — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:05:12 +0000

As per other comments throughout the blog I still believe Trading Blox Builder is the best option despite its higher price (even if not perfect). In hindsight, I regret having gone for its cheaper competitor (TStudio) first and not TBB directly…
Its not ideal obviously (for that you would have to build it yourself at a much greater time cost though!) but it gives you a great headstart.

By: Clarence

Clarence — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:22:12 +0000

Hi Jez, any followup thoughts on backtesting software now that you’ve had some time to tinker and reflect? I was thinking about tradersstudio 2.5 as it is significantly cheaper then blox. Right now I’m only dabbling (and I use that term lightly) in automated systems.

Btw, I feel fortunate to have stumbled upon your blog as it’s very helpful.

By: Jez

Jez — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:52:47 +0000

The 2 that come to mind are OANDA (ideal for small sizes but $600 API fee – monthly, with reduction based on traded volume) or IB. Although NinjaTrader has a few connections with some FX brokers which seem to be good too..

By: Mike K @ Automated Forex System

Mike K @ Automated Forex System — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:27:49 +0000

Great information on choosing a trading platform. I’m wondering if you have any suggested forex brokers that are best for automatic trading systems.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:35:37 +0000

One inexpensive setup is:

IB Realtime Data->Amibroker->IBController->IB TWS

You only pay for Amibroker, everything else is free.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:16:29 +0000

Thanks for an other interesting article!
Nicolas