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I've had TS2Ki for a couple of months now. It seems
like the best of the best for trading system
development [haven't looked at MetaStock], much better
than any of the free websites I was using for sure. It
is weak in that you have to keep data on the local
hard drive and the charting is hokey and "difficult"
to use compared to Qcharts for example. Quote.com's
data methods and charting are both a lot better as far
as convenience, than TS2Ki, but Qcharts is limited in
the selection of tech analysis techniques and does no
system testing at all. The TS2Ki system testing is
limited to one issue at a time and that almost keeps
it at an "introduction to system testing" level,
systems have to be tested over a folio before you know
much about them unless you specialize in one
commoditiy or future, etc.
As far as expanding into folio backtesting I have a
couple of beliefs that I would apply. One is that the
software does not have to be all that great, it does
not have to be super fast for most tasks, it just has
to be well thought out so that it does what you really
want it to do. RINA systems has some pricey stuff that
system backtests over folios. I have never seen it in
action but have to assume it's pretty good, they wrote
the backtester for TS2Ki and licensed it to TRAD.
Their software calls TS2Ki like a function and they
told me that "anything you can do in TS2Ki you can do
in their product", I can't recall the name of it, they
seem to have several products that are similar.
Another way to go to get some software that will do
exactly what you want is to use Excel and Visual
Basic. I got the tutorial on VB from Microsoft and had
an Excel program getting quotes from quote.com and
doing some RadarScreening in only a few months of
spare time. It did not have a graphical interface, it
did not have very many indicators, only the few I
wrote into it, it was not elegant or saleable but
since I spent a couple of weeks in the design and
flowcharting stage to make sure I knew exactly what I
wanted it to do, it did exactly what I wanted it to
do. I can't wait to get through with the system
development phase I'm in with TS2Ki and get back to
that Excel/VBA program, it will be very sweet when
it's done, backtesting over folios large and small,
putting the results right in Excel for sorting, switch
to RadarScreen mode with a push of a function key, a
fair amount of work but worth it. If you are highly
organized VBA development can go very, very fast.
I just don't believe that waiting around for the
"incredible software that does everything" will work
out. Lots of businesses that focus on having the
greatest stuff fail and lots of ones with more or less
mediocre to trailing edge technology do fine.
Max
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