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That's right. In the System tester go to option, then in the equity section
you can change the testing to point only.
I've got MSBT and it's definitely worth the small price you pay for it. It's
not too user friendly but once you get the hang of it it's ok.
Herve
-----Original Message-----
From: Lionel Issen <lissen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, 5 September 2001 6:21
Subject: Re: Commissions
>The system tester in metastock eod gives the option of commission in points
>or percent. This has been true going back several versions.
>Lionel Issen
>lissen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Yarroll" <komin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 9:25 AM
>Subject: Commissions
>
>
>> Hello List,
>>
>> I'm continually battling with a problem maybe you could help solve?
>>
>> I trade futures exclusively and for this reason I'm interested in
>> "points-only" testing in Metastock. I do believe that a valid idea has
to
>> be properly tested, and that means tested against as much data of all
>kinds
>> and going as far back into history as possible.
>>
>> However, with this approach I'm up against a very real problem. I usually
>> test against stock index data and it obviously comprises quite a few
>> incompatible price ranges. If Nikkei used to be above 30,000, then Dow
was
>> below 200 for quite a while back in history.
>>
>> Inevitably I have a problem with commissions. With points-only test I
have
>a
>> points-only commissions as well, and it would be ridiculous to apply the
>> same points to Dow in 1925 and to Nikkei in 1989. I would rather need
>> percentage commissions, but that's impossible to have in Metastock.
>>
>> Right now the only options I'm aware of are:
>>
>> 1/ Truncate my data into periods with similar price ranges (eg., 200-400;
>> 400-800; etc.) and apply Metastock points-only different commissions to
>each
>> price range individually. This is what I'm actually doing.
>>
>> One obvious disadvantage of this is that I'm practically buried under
>piles
>> of charts, notes etc. Moving all this stuff manually is what takes most
of
>> the time, and what could be done in days (with % commissions) takes weeks
>> :-((
>>
>> Another serious disadvantage is that this assumes testing in neverending
>> sideways (trendless) periods. So usually the amount of work is doubled by
>> the necessity to run the results against validation data sets with
>strongly
>> trending markets. For example, with Taiwanese index losing almost half
her
>> value in a year time you'd have to use just a few months of data for
>> testing, but then see what happens to your ideas in a sharp transition
>> period.
>>
>> 2/ Use no commissions at all - hoping for a good win/loss ratio - if it's
>> high then probably commissions wouldn't matter much.
>> Except, of course, when they WOULD matter. Second problem: sometimes a
>> useless win/loss ratio doesn't preclude the overall profitability of a
>> system :-((
>> Much less work here anyway, and if some of these approximations captures
>> your attention then you can always process the work as usual (point1).
>Gosh,
>> how I love to hear about "approximations" in testing context :-((
>>
>> 3/ Use Omega TradeStation Strategy Performance Report which is easily
>> exported to Excel, trade-by-trade. Commissions set to 0 of course. In
>Excel
>> you can do the usual work (and so much for many of TradeStation advanced
>> testing capabilities:-(( }
>> However, TS IMO would be even slower than Metastock {in fact, to the
point
>> of uselessness) in handling the amount of charts required in tests. Also
>> optimization speed makes it inferior {no offence here, Omega fans!
>> It's superior in just about every other respect... In fact I code
>everything
>> in TS when stuff has been tested in MS}.
>>
>>
>> Frankly, all this situation with testing impossibilities is quite
annoying
>> and it seems nobody really cares... Most futures testing is done on 1-2
>> contracts and no more than 1.5-2 years back (if not even less) - which is
>> completely suicidal IMO.
>>
>> Any ideas please? Testing across a BASKET of contracts would really speed
>> everything up and I immediately got excited when I heard of it... There
>was
>> talk here about MSBT addin. I've checked their website, it does have %
>> commissions alright, but it doesn't allow points-only test. Maybe there
>is
>> some software... AmiBroker? (Supposedly runs a test on multiple
>contracts?)
>> OmniTrader? etc.
>>
>> Thanks, and all the best
>> Yarroll
>>
>> PS. Talking about backtesting as described above... If it all worked as I
>> just hope it one day would, there would be different pitfalls to
>> encounter... Like 2-3 winning trades from the 20-30,000 range would
>> inevitably skew the results of a test which would have 20-30 losers in
the
>> 200-300 range..
>> So maybe the Metastock "idea" (or, necessity) to test in separate price
>> ranges shouldn't be so annoying after all ;-))
>> Could data somehow be normalised? So as TA indicators would just go nuts?
>> Or, maybe something else should be constructed, percentage wins or losses
>> vs. initial investment for every entry, just forsaking Tester's "Net
>Profit"
>> completely? (Just like Metastock "percentage" tests, only without the
>> brainless compounding:-(( }
>>
>
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