ratmpower

Nice post. Like many traders, I also back test my strategies and believe that past performance is somewhat indicative of future performance.

Instead of looking at the chart for every single stock and trying to identity the chart patterns, I am looking for programmatic library that can automatically do this for me. Does anyone know of any such library?

this platform is free: http://www.strategyard.com

for stocks try http://www.strategyard.com

I am not sure if that is as simple as you put it. The problem you mention is exactly what every investor in the world is trying to solve and each have their own solution. The crux of the problem is how to use historical information to make probabilistic prediction about the future. And this is not straigtforward. People use chart patterns, trend analysis and all sorts of things to attack this but there is no proven strategy that always works since the market displays very close to random behavior. - Strategyard.com Develop and test your investing strategies for free.

Well, the danger is not in blindly following the rules. It is in blindly following bad or incomplete rules. Let us say you do NOT blindly follow the rule, but you use your judgement or rationale or gut-feeling or whatever you call it to make your trade decision. Even in that case, you are still sub-consciously following a rule inside your mind. Its just that they are so complex that they cannot be expressed in mathematical or programmatic terms on paper.

I have implements two automated strategies 1. One that automaticaly buys stocks that make new 52-week highs 2. Another that automatically buys stocks that make new 52-week lows Both strategies hold stocks for one month before selling them. I will update this thread with the results as they become available.

Day trading is very tricky. I would not recommend day trading if you are just starting out with strading stocks mainly because of the following two reasons: 1. There are additional requirements for day trader 2. Day trading strategy requires very recent market data and lots of computing power, because you have to make buy/sell decision very fast. If you are 5 minutes late, your previous computation becomes obsolete very quickly. I would recommend short-term trading strategies where you try to close your position in weeks/months rather than in the same day. As far as resources go, there are plenty out there for free. For chart and market data: yahoo finance, google finance, FINVIZ.com - Stock Screener are good. For developing and testing your strategy, http://www.strategyard.com/ is very good. Good luck

Looks pretty good. I think net equity curve is much better indication than numeric metrics. For a trading strategy to be working, the curve must be above market at all times and always increasing. ----------------------------------------- - Strategyard Develop your trading strategies at http://www.strategyard.com/

Automated trading works very well if you can come up with profitable algorithms. The trick here is to realize that there are others who are doing exactly the same thing as you, and so you want to be one step ahead of them. You should thoroughly test your strategy before executing in real market.

what kind of data are you looking for?

This is also pretty good - FINVIZ.com - Stock Screener Not sure if it has trend lines though.

You can give it a shot. Think about it - if someone had found magic formula to make money, then they don't need to be selling it. They can simply use their formula to make millions. So why bother selling it to others?

How do you come up with these lists?

if you can have double major you can do both. i would recommend finance.

i have found great video tutorials on you tube for beginners

Yes 2012 must be at least better than 2011

When you are basing your strategy on trendline, make sure that there is no major event scheduled (earning announcement, FDA approval etc) for company - as these events are known to break the trend and start new trends.

One of the basic question that often comes up is - do you buy when price reaches 52-week high or when it reaches 52-week low? The argument for buying at high is that it indicates the stock is in increasing trend, whereas the argument for buying at low is that it is cheap.

Yahoo and Google Finance are pretty good, but they are good for informational use only.