calamitychris

Hi, I am looking for help in running back tests on various futures contracts with a strategy that I developed. The strategy is unoptimized so as to avoid any curve fitting whatsoever. Testing on other contracts (ie "out of sample" data) will give me an idea as to the robustness of the system before walking forward. Obviously for helping me out, you'll get the unprotected code. I can't post the TS formatted performance report here so here is performance for the past 5 years on the ES Emini (10 year is also profitable). IM me if you're interested tks Last 12 month $22,277.50 26.34% 1.90 92 32.61% 1/1/2010 $15,780.00 17.33% 1.90 62 33.87% 1/1/2009 $19,640.00 27.49% 1.72 99 29.29% 1/1/2008 $25,372.50 55.08% 2.00 107 29.91% 1/1/2007 $31,425.00 214.65% 2.97 81 35.80% 1/1/2006 $9,640.00 192.80% 1.72 56 28.57%

OptionsMike, Here is a great review on various backtesting systems 2204355 I'm Feeling Lucky!

Whirl, if you are looking for reliability and redundancy(hardware and internet), then I would consider a hosting service with a solid datacenter. There are plenty of good ones out there and they are relatively cheap. If you go this route, then you can access your trading platform anywhere via remote desktop or even VPN from your iphone if you're a nerd like me. This is more practical and a lot cheaper then shelling out a bunch of money for a home trading workstation IMO I would consider a beefy workstation for strategy testing and the like, but for implementation, stick to a hosting service.

turns out I am a complete moron. The output window on the development platform was closed.. hence all my issues. thanks everyone:)

OK, I'm at a loss on this one and am hoping someone has encountered the same problem. I cannot verify any new strategies on Tradestation. When I am done with a particular strategy and click 'verify', nothing happens. No syntax errors, no notifications, nothing. Obviously I cannot test any non-verified strategies, so I'm at a standstill. Anyone experience this, or is it just an ID10T error? thanks:angry:

Relative newbie here; coming back to trading after taking a long hiatus and I'm committed to testing my strategies now before going live. Anyways, I was hoping to get some input on some trader's experience with strategy testing. I have been back-testing a couple using TS's strategy tester and so far the results have been positive. Anyway I would appreciate some thoughts from seasoned traders, specifically: 1. How far back should one test a given strategy in order to trade it with confidence? 2. In your experience, has strategy implementation been on par with back-tested results and to what extent? 3. In your experience, how long is a given strategy valid before re-calibration is necessary? I should also add that I am testing my own strategies. I'm convinced that the ones for sale are crap, otherwise people wouldnt be selling them appreciate anyone's thoughts on the matter

waveslider - I assume you're talking about a scalping strategy? I use the index chart for my signals and then move to the futures chart for timing and entry.

I was curious if anyone else uses the index charts for trading futures? I recently started looking to the futures chart for indicators and realized that the index chart is much more reliable (in my trading approach) I started thinking about it conceptually and a few questions arose: 1. Does the futures market drive the market index or is the futures market simply reactionary to the market index? If it is the latter, then the market index is the source that drives the futures so then it would make sense to look at it for indicators. 2. If one only trades during market hours 0930-1600 EST, would it not make more sense to trade a chart that only records that activity. It would seem that a futures chart would be more unreliable because it combines both volatility(market hours) and non-volatility(after hours).

I've been reviewing the trades I have taken over the past few months and noticed that the first trade of the day is my bread and butter. Perhaps its because its I am fresh and unclouded by market noise or my strategy works better on the open. Either way I have a bad habit of trading after this and giving back a lot of profits Does anyone have some personal rules for overtrading? I've been thinking about quitting for the day, once a profit it realized. Sometimes I just feel the need to continue trading and its just gets me in trouble. Thanks

Thanks for the replies. Dogpile - that last quote is pretty poignant. It can relate that to myself. When I focus on results, I end up over trading and chasing the market which is bad news. I just need to learn to let the market prove itself to me.

I had a pretty tumultuous trading month. At first I made 32% on my trading account and then lost ALL of the profits. After that, I was up 25% and lost all of the profits AGAIN and then some (-10%). Fortunately I closed the month at a +25% profit. After consulting my log, I realized that the two major losses that I took were a result of my not following my trading rules. I hate to think what my account would look like if I had not deviated from my original plan. It seems with me that I'll have a string of profitable trades and then will become careless and cocky and then shoot from the hip on a trade that destroys all of my previous profits. And that trade setup is NEVER part of my trading strategy. Does anyone have any tips on how to remain disciplined and stick to your trading plan? I'm coming to the realization that the only way to learn in trading is to lose money or watch someone else lose money. Unfortunately I cannot do the latter because I don't know anyone else who trades...

I thought I would post this just to make you glad that you put in your hard stops today. I just gave back two weeks of profits ($2700) today. Luckily I am still in the black and this loss is not debilitating but it was a good reminder to me that mental stops are BS. My normal stop is 5 points but I thought that I would loosen the slack today given the fact that the S&P is teatering on major support. I had to leave my computer without putting in a stop order and when I returned I was down $1500. I decided to wait until the next major support zone but once that was compromised I finally bit the bullet at a $2700 loss. :no: I have only been trading for about 6 months, so if any of you veterans out there can give me some insight on stops, I would greatly appreciate it. Happy Trading!

Here is a list of prop firms. Most require a 7 series license, but others will hire based off your track record http://www.traderslog.com/proprietarytradingfirms.htm

I just take my profit for the day and divide by 50 (for the ES). For example, if I made $300, its 300/50, so +6 points.

Noticed that the weekly is trading at major support-might be a decent swing trade. Just wanted to give a friendly heads-up Here is the link to my blog that I recently started. http://thelongnshort.blogspot.com/