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Marshall:
What is your level of experience in the markets?
Considerable.
It certainly sounds like you do not have a great deal of
experience with the MetaStock programming language,
and the canned systems are not the answer.
Correct.
Why would I want to spend $1,500 on software for
real-time trading which was obviously built for
end of day trading, and hasn't been adequately
adopted to real-time, and have to spend much
more money to have it "customized" for my original purpose?
If you rush
into it, I guarantee you will be slaughtered in the markets.
Was that your experience personally?
You might be better off returning MS Pro, buying the
end-of-day version and investing the difference in research
material and a sabbatical to spend on research.
Done.
Regards.
Regards who?
I wonder why you wouldn't do me, and others, the
courtesy of signing your note, especially given the
strength, and somewhat personal nature, of your
comments.
Marshall Shoemaker
marshall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
843-216-5461
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marshall Shoemaker" <marshall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <mmanfull@xxxxxxxxx>; <support@xxxxxxxxx>; <formulas@xxxxxxxxx>;
<abarker@xxxxxxxxx>;
<metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 8:53 AM
Subject: backtesting daylight only futures trading systems
>> Dear Coach, Tech Support, Formulas and/or other MetaStock colleagues and
>> users,
>>
>> I own MetaStock Professional and today,
>> Monday, 12/17/01, is the last day of
>> my 30 day evaluation period, so I would
>> appreciate a reply within a few hours
>> if possible.
>>
>> I wish to use your tool to trade emini
>> S&P500 stock index futures contracts.
>> I have used the System Tester/compare feature
>> to identify 6 Equis and PS trading systems
>> which appear to have been very profitable
>> trading the December contract, 5 minutes bars,
>> from 9/17 to 12/12.
>> However, there are a few changes I need to
>> make to all the systems in order to make
>> the trading "context" realistic for me,
>> and probably many other, futures traders:
>>
>> 1) I cannot hold positions overnight, thus
>> only wish to enter the market after opening,
>> 9:30 AM, 10AM actually being the preferred time,
>> and be sure to exit it by close, 4:15PM, 4:00 PM
>> being my preferred time. I understand from
>> two of your tech support guys that this "market hours only"
>> trading parameter requires modification to
>> the system formulas, i.e. there is not an easy
>> pull down menu feature which allows the user
>> to throw time boundary switches.
>> What would the modification
>> be? How complex is it going to be to alter all
>> the pre-built trading systems so that I can
>> do System Tester/compare analysis under this constraint?
>> Are you going to charge me for this modification?
>> How much? When can you get it to me?
>>
>> 2) I do not expect or require to always be in
>> the market. Most systems I have seen are not meant
>> to keep one in the market no matter how sideways
>> the action is. It appears to me that the System
>> Tester set up an "always in" parameter when it
>> did the compare analysis. Is this necessary?
>> Or can I have each system run under the framework
>> of its best results, i.e. entering/exiting/waiting
>> out the market so as to make the most money, or
>> do all the systems need to be "always in" in
>> order to do a comparison?
>>
>> 3) I do not yet know how to use, but understand
>> that it is fairly straight forward, i.e. doesn't
>> require custom formulas, to program in stop
>> losses in the system for backtesting?
>> Is this true?
>> How hard would it be to program in an automatic
>> trailing stop loss?
>>
>> 4) I understand from the manual and onscreen
>> help that users who trade futures contracts
>> are encouraged to do points only tests
>> because of the challenge of accounting for
>> margin leverage in the futures contracts.
>> Does this mean that it is impossible
>> to do realistic, hard dollar backtesting
>> of futures contract, accounting for
>> commissions and margin, or that it is
>> just very difficult to create custom
>> formulas to do the calculations?
>>
>> Thank you very much.
>> Marshall Shoemaker
>> marshall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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