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Re: best testing software for intraday trading?



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Brian asked:
>I appreciate the suggestions everyone provided. In searching around I also
>came across neoticker and ninja trader. They seem to have intraday
>capabilities too. Anyone have any opinions of them?

Since one of the guys for whom I write code moved to NinjaTrader, I
also made the transition.  He now relies on me more, because Ninja
uses C# as its programming language, which is more complex (and more
powerful) than EasyLanguage.  The reason he switched was because he can
have a huge number of charts open, all updating in real time, without
bogging down.  TS2000i couldn't do that.

I am getting comfortable with it.  It has a fairly steep but
worthwhile learning curve.

Pluses:

NinjaTrader is free!  That is, if you're just doing backtesting.  If
you want to auto-trade with it, then you have to buy it.

Plots are easier in indicators. Unlimited number of plots on a
chart.  You can plot on the indicator area or the price area.  You
have control over individual price bar color (making paintbars easy,
just say BarColor=Color.Blue to turn a bar blue in any indicator).

Powerful structured programming language, but you need to be
comfortable with a language like C++ or Java if you've never used C#
before.

Excellent support forum.  I post a question to the general
population, and more often than not a NinjaTrader support person
will answer.

Pretty cool interface for looking at realtime data like where
everybody's stops are.

Communicates with Interactive Brokers and several others.

Gets data from a variety of sources, including Yahoo and IB. Even
gets history from IB (and I didn't know IB even retained any price
history until I got NinjaTrader). There's a forex brokerage that you
can auto-trade with for free too, without paying for the software.

Minuses:

No control over width of individual bars or indicator data points.

Can't read your own EOD data files (like from Pinnacle). File names
must conform to a certain format. No support for continuous-contract
futures data. I am told this will be fixed.

Data files cannot have open interest (I am told this will be fixed).

Programming language isn't straightforward.

Small indicator library (but tons of stuff available online).

-Alex