At 06:17 AM 11/3/2005, Larry wrote:
If you have decided to code your systems so that you must run Monday's
data again on Tuesday to get a value that you had on Monday so that you
can start trading on Tuesday with that value then you are correct - the
question is why would you? The simple way is just pass the value along
and not re-run the same data again and again and keep adding to the data
that must be run again and again.
There has to be some misunderstanding here and I cannot figure out
what it is. When you turn on TradeStation and apply your system, it
automatically starts running the system from the start of the data
until the last bar on the chart. So if the last bar on the chart was
the data from yesterday, you get back to where you were yesterday. It
takes a fraction of a second. There is nothing you have to do to write
your system to do this. It happens automatically.
In one Forex system that I use I need the direction of my GOD closing
trade on Friday - was I long or short when I closed the position for the
weekend - never hold a position over the weekend - this direction is
based on the complete week's trading. As I run this on tick data your
way would have me re-run the entire weeks worth of tick data to arrive
at the value that I need to start with on Sunday for each currency that
I'm running. My way - collect the value on Friday and pass that value
to Sunday's start. Sunday's start 'reads' the value from the Global Var
that was 'written' on Friday and you're off and running. Which is
simpler re-run a weeks worth of tick data for each currency or pass
along one value with a Global Var?
Fine. If that works for you keep doing it. But I can assure you that
99.99% of all TradeStation users don't do it that way. Most people
have a chart for each market they trade so when they turn on
TradeStation, all systems run on all markets in all charts on all past
data in less than a minute and they are back to where they were when
they turned off their computer. Perhaps you should try it this way.
You might like it better. :-)
The caveat is very simple - your way - all data must be re-run to
re-establish the needed vars. My way - collect the var and pass it
along to the next day - no need to re-run any data.
It would be interesting to know how you prevent TradeStation from
running the system on all past data since that is what it does
automatically when you turn it on.
Sorry. I do not get your point here.
Well lets see if I can make it clearer - over the course of the last
several years - (I still have one of original Omega products, "Wall
Street Analyst" from 1996 and my original dh's of "WOW" from the company
that Omega bought just to get their code) - my partner and I have joined
just about every discussion, form, list, user group, whatever that we
could find - reading the posts - sometimes interacting with the posters
- meeting with users - even on occasion interacting with each other to
spur along a dialog to get others to post - on the rare occasion that we
were on the same form.
We arrived, independently, at the same conclusion - most of the people
that have TS are either looking for a system to use or are writing
systems that will never see the light of day or have a copy of TS but
don't have a clue what to do with it. They keep trying to write or find
the Holy Grail - they keep tweaking and tweaking and back testing and
back testing but never never risk a trade.
Perhaps. But in the ten or so years I have used TradeStation, I have
worked with a lot of very clever people who are doing lots very
innovative things with the product and making a lot of money. Trading
is a business and most new businesses do not succeed financially. But
the people who started them inevitably learn a lot from the experience.
TS claims that it has sold, depending on which numbers you want to
believe, up to 50,000 copies of the TS product line - where the hell are
all the users? If 50,000 people were actively using TS you couldn't
swing a dead cat without hitting a TS trader.
How many software programs have we all bought that we never end up
using. How many anything, (sweaters, shoes, tools,) have we bought
that we never end up using, I don't think TradeStation is any different.
I don't deal well with - would've, could've, should've, "traders".
That's a shame. I have learned a lot from novices with a trading idea
that could only have come from looking at the problem in a fresh new
way, unconstrained by knowing the "conventional wisdom" of what can't
work...
Bob Fulks