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I've just returned to Metastock in the last few months.
Used to use an early version to test systems (not
that I'd actually trade one) on daily charts, but switched
to Supercharts for a couple of features that Metastock
didn't have in those days. This time around, I'm using
MS pretty much just as an interface to e-Signal.
However, to get hard numbers on a horseback observation,
I just wrote up a system and tested it on T-bonds. Nothing
fancy. Just go with an oscillator whenever it crosses up
out of oversold territory or down out of overbought. Made
money on bar lengths from 1-minute to daily. Then it dawned
on me what those raw numbers translated to. I'd be as
happy as the next man to have made $133K in bonds since
the beginning of June (maybe even happier!), but somehow
it didn't seem plausible.
Near as I can figure, the System Tester enters and exits
trades on the opening price of a bar, using indicator values
that can't be calculated until the close of the bar. Thus trades
that would have lost money in the real world look like they
made money in the system-test reports.
Could anyone really be stupid enough to write their software
that way? If so, it makes even Miami Lice look good.
(Well, maybe not in any absolute sense, but by the apparent
standards of their industry.)
Somebody please tell me this program isn't useless for
anything beyond turning raw data into pretty pictures.
Owen Davies
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