A cheaper alternative is Amibroker:
http://www.amibroker.com/index.html

I have not tried this software but judging from users' comments, it seem very good.

I think there is another one called NextView, right?

One severe limitation in the Nextview charting software lies in its inability to produce a proper trend channel like reliable software do, hence I rather prefer E-Signals on Tradestation platform which is a cheaper and more established alternative. With this setup, I get to assess most global datas be it equities, indices or commodities which are available from the global data vendor, and at a cheaper rate too.

Koka:

Care to share how much does that cost you, data feed and software?

tradestation 8 can be found in ebay.. cheap; data service pls refer to http://www.esignal.com/

TradeStation 8 CANNOT take eSginal feed. In fact it cannot take any feed other than TradeStation Securities' own feed.

TradeStation 2000i (no longer supported, no longer upgraded, no longer bug fixed) can take many 3rd-party data feed and off-line EOD data.

TradeStation 8 is leased From TradeStation Securities. Buying a copy any where else is useless since if you cannot log-in to TradeStation's feed you cannot get any data. Sorry NO 3rd-party data whether real-time or off line EOD data.

TradeStation Securities is now a brokerage company unlike its previous incarnation Omega Research which was a software development company.

CSK, relaz man...

The tradestation2000i is the correct platform instead of TS8 which i mentioned.

TS2000i is an outstanding platform which is still used by many ardent fans of tradestation today, and it CAN be hooked on with E-Signals but you must inform the data provider so that they can turn on the right version.

Relaxed, I am very.

Just correcting a (your) mistatement and stating the facts so that others will not make the mistake of subscribing to TradeStation 8 only to find out later they cannot use 3rd-party data feed and therefore no Global data.

The reason why TradeStation 2000i is still used by many is because many need international data (non-US exchanges) which the TradeStation8 do not provide. Many also need to read their own 3rd-party data format.

"..., and it CAN be hooked on with E-Signals but you must inform the data provider so that they can turn on the right version.."

This is not correct too. I am told by eSignal that you have to subscribe to the correct eSignal package that will work with TS2000i and the eSignal TS2000i plug-in. The plug-in is free from eSignal. eSignal cannot do any "turn on the right version" if you subscribe to the wrong package.

Like I just freaky said "..., and it CAN be hooked on with E-Signals but you must inform the data provider so that they can turn on the right version.."

Hi Zodiac,

I am not sure which software you are referring to. I have used 3 in this forum.
One is TradeStation 2000i, one is codenamed RafflesPlace and the other is
codenemed Turtle Trading System.

TradeStation 2000i is no longer a product supported by its developer as it is now an
obselete version, 3 version behind the latest. But it is the last verion of it that
supports 3rd-party data.

The other 2 software I am writing.

Raflles Place is a general purpose TA software but there are a lot of competition in
the market, some expensive some cheap. Furthermore, a lot of EOD data vendors
in the US provide their own free TA software to their data customers. Its development
priority is low unless I get a surprise requirement from somewhere.

I am giving high prioity to Turtle Trading System software (product name may
change) because it is a niche product. A lot of people make a lot of beginner
mistake by jumping into TA with the wrong thinking. To them, the secret in success
is in the indicators and the wrongly perceived ability to tell where price is heading.
My own experience after many years later tell me that this is a very big wrong first
step.

This software will have the Turtle Trading System as the first of systems in
the collection. Over time, more will be added. It will be portfolio enabled and have
money management rules for testing to simulate real sitaution. Not the buy here
because the indicator is... sell there because the indicator is... arbitrary type of
thing.

But rather the entry rule says go long (or short) at this price, risk management
rule says position size is x contracts, money management rule says cut your loss
when this price is violated, exit rule rule says let your profit run until prices
reverse to this level. Pyramid rule says I can add to my position by x contracts
provided the position risk does not exceed y%.

I am already very far behind in the schedule and I need to rush. Over the past few
weeks I redo the GUI to give it an up-to-date look. I feel this is a must otherwise
the software will look aged and that will not be good. I will be changing the icons in
the toolbar to keep with the times - hot, cold, disable icons. The software can now
take on the WinXP theme.

In the screenshot:
The first one shows the software with the WinXP Silver theme setting. It can be in
XPBlue or XPOlive even when the WinXP default theme is set to XPSilver.

The second one shows the software with the XPBlue theme even when WinXP theme
is set to Window Classic. This behaviour will be the same when the software runs
on older versions of Windows as far back as Win95. It can still be set to show
XPBlue, XPSilver or XPOlive even in these older Windows.

You are right that ease of use is important. Here is an example:

In the Display Properties, any change to any of the settings will immediately
change the chart display in the background without having to click OK and exit the
Display Properties window. This way user sees the changes immediately without
having to repeatedly come back in to change and exit again and again until satisfied
with the display.

Just added the capability to download Yahoo! data on the fly.

There are some issues with Yahoo data; like they sometimes may not have the
last few days data available, or they may not have historical data for some
symbols, or they may have problems when they change their data vendors like
Jan of this year.

Inspite of this, Yahoo! is still a ready source of data. Since they adjust their data
for splits/dividend/bonus (bonus adjusted as split), it is better not to keep their
history in the local drive but to load it on-the-fly as and when required, much like
what realtime vendors do except that this is not realtime data. This ensure the
data you load from Yahoo! is current as fas as Yahoo! data is concerned.

OK, time to join my kids with some WWE wrestling on the PS2 on this Sunday
afternoon

Been playing with various data downloading scenario of Yahoo! data, like
providing the option to specify daily, weekly or monthly data on the fly, plotting
raw or adjusted data. Doing QC check with the downloaded data against their
chart and realised that the data they use to produce the charts on their website is
different from those they made available for download.

So, looks like Yahoo! data may not be relied on for good reliable research work.
But Yahoo! data vendors are the big name data vendors that charge an arm and leg
for their feed so why such discrepancies? You can verify by taking a look at
their IBM chart. Then at this page click on the Historical Prices link near the bottom
of the page and check the adj. Close data, pay attention to data from mid-1990s
and earlier.

Also I have mistaken they adjust for bonus. The example on Noble shows. I remember
having checked some time back that they did but now it seems they don't. I don't
know whether this is due to their having changed their data vendors in Jan.

Hi CSK,

yes, like what you said, the download data source from YAHOO! finance sometime have missing days and ALWAYS doesn't adjust for stock split for US stocks (I cannot remember for Singapore stocks). However, you can use the last column "ADJ. CLOSE" to adjust the stock price yourself. But the volume will NOT be able to adjust and is not reliable if stock split occurred. As for the missing days, if you download it again, sometime it appear back again.

I have been following your postings since SI forum days. And I happy that your product, "Raffles Place" and "Turtle Trading" are almost done! It does look professional from your screenshot posted here.

Did you write the code yourself? I guess so. It seems that nowsday, anyone can develop software DIY without going through those wasteful 3/4 years for the computer science diploma or degree. And can easily compete with those programmers who earn a living developing software.

Anyway, just to say a big "Thanks you" that your postings does help me as a trader.

:lol:

Hi Pirate,

I am using the "adj. close" to allow the feature to chart the prices adjusted but it will not adjust for everything, as my example on Noble shows. This may then cause the software to give unreliable backtesting results.

Yahoo! having missing data or their history not up to date by 1 or 2 days (which is very common) can have undesirable side effect on the product. I have notice elsewhere that people who buy software that download Yahoo! data always direct their Yahoo! data problem to the software developer. The problem is not that of the software developer and there is nothing they can do. The problem lies with Yahoo! and only Yahoo! can do what they need to do. But because the users bought their software from the developer so the money issue make them wrongly assume the source of the problem.

I have to weigh carefully whether to make the ability to load Yahoo! data a feature of the software to avoid a technical support nightmare and some people do go overboard and unreasonable with their support demand, like demanding that the developer to get Yahoo! to correct the problem as what I have seen elsewhere.

Right now, the software reads CompuTrac and MetaStock format data so it will work with data vendors. ASCII data is an option I am considering and in fact I have already written the codes to read them. However, ASCII data files suffer from lack of an industry standard. The fields may not be standard and also may not be in the correct place. My past experience in supporting TradeStation 4 and 2000i is that reading ASCII data continues to be an issue even when TradeStation has very flexible capabilities to read various types of ASCII format.

Yes, I write the software myself. I am a self-taught programmer. I used to have a partner on the project but he migrated to Canada a few years ago. There were other distractions the last few years and I have to be careful not to lose my project intellecture property rights.

There was also a delay caused by my going into the .NET technology. All the .NET languages suffer from code security as .NET complied programs can easily be decompiled. Good obfuscators are very expensive but no guarantee of its effectiveness in the future. I had to abandon my work with .NET and revert back. Money and time lost.

Those 3 or 4 years for a computer science diploma or degree is only good if they want to work as employees but make sure don't get retrenched when older than 35 years old. Employers in Singapore do not value experience and their programmers usually lack user experience therefore their products akward and not user friendly. If you have experience in your field and willing to pick up a programming language, you can come up with much better products. Your DIY products are your own intellecture properties and there is no way you can lose them through retrenchment.

It seems Yahoo! data is very popular worldwide, most important being they are
FREE and cover a lot of stock exchanges.

My experience working with Telerate's OEM version of Tradestation 2000i was that
the ability to load data on demand freed users from data maintenance. They didn't
have to worry about data downloading and data adjustment. The adjustments
were made by the database people. Using Yahoo! is quite similar in this respect.
What is needed is a software that load and chart these data on demand, easy to
use and cheap. I know there are already software in the market that can do this
but the user interface don't seem to be friendly.

I have skinned down the Turtle Trading software to come out with one that do just
this. I see no point in keeping data on the local drive since every dividend (and
these are very common) and splits result in history being adjusted. So why keep
and chart data that may soon not be current. Every direct load on demand always
chart current data, provided of course that Yahoo! or their vendors keep them up
to date in a timely manner.

One problem, if you are only interested in SGX data, is that Yahoo! have them in
only 2 decimals. But if the target market is worldwide then this is not a problem.

How about a basic software with maybe several basic indicators at US$29/- with
free email tech support, updates for bugs, updated when Yahoo! make changes to
their URLs so that it will always work.

Too cheap?

Freeware? No, I need to eat.

I just did a test. The US stock market has opened and this is a busy time for the
Yahoo! servers. There seems no difference from the tests I did earlier.

Using SingNet 512 Broadband:

Loading 75 years of daily ^DJI took about 22 sec.
Loading 42 years of daily IBM data took about 11 sec.

I have long historical data, the longest being the DJIA going back to 1896. But in
present time I have problem looking at them if I want to go from the present and
back to as far as possible.

The only way to see them is to squeeze the bars together so close that it loses its
definition. The main cause of this problem is that most, if not all, present day
software can only plot up to monthly periodicity. The maximum one bar can
represent is one month of price OHLC.

To see the definition, you will have to space them out and then scroll left and
right. But then then chart will not be able to tell you their million stories smoothly
without discontinuity.

CompuTrac/PC, written in the early 1980s using QuickBasic, could plot quarterly
and yearly periodicity compressing from daily data. It can also create data files in
these two intervals if needed. Yes, the CompuTrac format does support the
Quarterly and Yearly intervals. It gives resolution to the chart. For many years I
miss this feature. But not any more.

This afternoon I expanded the charting feature to plot quarterly and yearly
periodicity compressing from daily data. I made double sure that I follow the data
format specification.

The screen shots are from 1024 X 768 resolution.

This is a smaller chart window showing yearly interval data for more than a
hundred years of the DJIA. We can come back in a hundred years time to see it
fill up and then resize the chart wider for another hundred years.

You might wonder what ever happen to the sexy XP look that I was giving it. Well,
those are licensed 3rd-party controls. When I ran into a bug with the pull-down
menu and failed to get a reply for more than a month, it reinforces my bad
experience with 3rd-party products. It was exactly bad experience that made me
develop my own charting engine in the first place. So this is the approach I will
adopt from now.

I am still using one 3rd-party DLL. Other than this, all other tools and controls will
be native from the development platform. I have to say I trust the reliability of
Microsoft. Now the app has regain its faster speed. Loads under 3meg memory
while the sexy one uses 13 meg memory.

Time and money wasted again.

The CompuTrac DOP files hold the key to proper price display and therefore
correct entry/exit price and therefore P/L calculation. Without them, while you
may be presented with what appear to be reliable reports and charts but what
actually goes on in the program codes may not be what you are comfortable with,
that is if you know the going on in there.

MetaStock has drop the use of the DOP files. And with it, accuracy. This include all
software that read MetaStock format without reading the DOP files. Beside
potential miscalculation, there is also the problem caused by converting between
the old Microsoft Binary Format (MBF) and the IEEE format.

The CompuTrac format was designed in the eary 1980s and since it was written in
QuickBasic, it uses the MBF format for the binary data file. This was before the
IEEE standard was adopted by the industry in the late 1980s. Programming
languages nowaday do their calculation in the IEEE standard therefore there need
to be conversion when reading from and writing to MBF files. Remember the
MetaStock format's structure is still very much the CompuTrac format strucuture.

The sample below show the raw data display without formatting. Formatting the
display does not change the real numbers. It is like grooming to make a person
looks better but undering the grooming..... take it away and there can be a
completely different personality.

Like in MS Excel, you can format a cell but you will not change the actual number.
You can format it to show you 2 decimal but hiddden from you the number still
retains its very many decimal digits.

The difference that price conversion factor can make. But don't be fooled by price
presentation on the price scale formatted for display, formatted to look right.
Remember the MS Excel example.

Gold move in tick of 0.1, T bonds in 1/32, Soybeans in 1/8, Nikkei in 5, Crude Oil
in 0.01, Swiss Fr in 0.001, SGX stocks in 0.005, 0.01, 0.1, etc.

Fed Funds in tick of 0.005. And yes, Fed Funds may be either 3.5 or 3.75 % come
Sep. Very likely 3.5 % next month. Is there a FED meeting next month? Probably
so, and they annouce the hike to 3.5 then. It is now 3.25%.

I am no expert in FED and economic activities. But this is what the market is
saying the FED has to do. And the FED has to do it. The market set the interest
rate, not the FED. They cannot decide but they can just rubber-stamp it.

This is the matrix of the raw calculation data array. This matrix helps me to check
all the calculation and the eventual Turtle System positions and performance. This
Debug tab will be removed from the final shipping version. What the matrix does
not show is the LastProfitableTrade filter. Therefore the ProfitLoss shown are also
not that of the actual system but just for my checking. They are of a one lot
position taking all signals.

The Turtle Trading System is well known and is a complete trading system. It is
the ideal platform to teach and learn proper technical trading approaches and
habits. By this I don't mean that this is the only system to use. It may not be
suitable for everyone. But it is a good platform to learn what are the things to
have and why in any complete trading system.

The first release version will not have portfolio feature yet but will come with free
upgrade to the next version with the feature within a few months of the first
release. The portfolio feature must of course have the ability to show your
portfolio Profit/Loss in your chosen base currency since trading in instruments
across countries is common.

Hi CSK,

with your superior trading skills, i guess your trading income will be many multiple times more than your revenue from sale of your software!!! i don't think you need to depend on your software to bring food to the table :)

by the way, do you pay taxes on your capital gain from singapore stocks? this question have disturb me for a few years. i have ask IRAS numerous times, they always say that capital gain is not taxable here in singapore. i know that they did not give me a wrong answer, but i think it only apply to typical singapore investors. but my worry is that few years later, they may regards my capital gain as a trading income. because, whether the gain is capital gain or trading income is a "question of facts", that is very much depend on their interpretation on my trading activity including factors such as frequency and volume of transactions, interval of time between purchase and sale, manner of financing the purchase of shares and etc will be taken into consideration.

as you see, i'm a good singapore citizen, if IRAS say i need to pay now, i very willing to pay the taxes. but i don't like the idea that few years later, they then come tell me that their interpretation of my trading activity in the past constitute as trading income and ask me for the taxes plus interest! will very much appreciate your advice in how you deal with IRAS in this area. Thanks in advance!

the other good news is that we do not need to pay any capital gain taxes if we transfer back our capital gain from foreign markets after 2004 :D

Hi Pirate,

My trading skills... actually I am a only back seat driver. Hot air only.

That's why:
Freeware? No, I need to eat.

Regarding taxes, I have exactly the same questions. I also don't know the
answer. But ask the Simex locals and they will tell you they have to pay taxes on
their trading income. For them, this is their source of income and is not capital
gains. Some pay concessionary tax of 10% if they meet certain requrements, like
setting up a company to trade.

If one has an employment income or a busines income then the IRAS may treat
trading profits as capital gains. If one trades someone else's fund and say take a
certain pct share of trading profit then this is considered as income and taxable.

So the general answer is yes and no.

Unless one is very well capitalised, in the long run it is difficult to be profitable in
trading. Trading someone else's money is always a headache. There will always
be problems along the way.

If the software is well recieved, it is easier to make money out of it then trading.
Bill Gates once said that if you sell a software for $100 and you sell 10,000 copies,
that is $1,000,000.

All the more reason why:
Freeware? No, I need to eat.

Hi Pirate,

In the US, it is clear cut. I think it may still be the same. If the position is held for longer than 6 months then, as an individual taxpayer, this is not taxable. Any position less than than 6 months and profit is taxable. If I recall this is something called "trading the box"? Not so sure.

I still remember in the old Compu-Trac/Apple software it has the Equity sub-system to keep track of account trades information. It checked for the holding period, classiified every trade tax status and then calcualte the taxes for the year.

Hi CSK,

yes. it very clear cut in US, but here in singapore, it quite ambiguous, as it up to singapore IRAS' interpretation. And that may result in unfairness, some pay, some don't pay; some pay more, some pay less. also, there didn't exist any known standard of accounting for losses here if we need to pay capital gain taxes.

the good thing about trading in US, is that as a foreign alien, we need not pay any capital gain taxes to the US IRS which is a extreme clear advantage compare to their own citizen. with the changes of singapore income tax act regarding the foreign-source income not taxable, it very favourable to be a singapore trader trading the foreign market especially US market. it not quite bad to be a stayer here in singapore after all ;) i don't know why there are so many quitters.

come to think of it, if there is a clear cut capital gain taxes in singapore, i would rather trade foreign market only and not singapore market. some more the singapore market is damn backward in term of order management compare to the US brokerage firm. you can't even put a stop-buy or stop-sell order into our local brokerage online system!

------

as day passby, i can see that your products are getting nearer to your potential customers. any idea how you going to market it? my opinion is that marketing is as important as your product itself. you need to communicate the benefit of your product rather than feature, which a lot of software writers fail to realise. but trading is such a irony endeavour, those that believe in Turtle trading system would have already reach a stage where they have their own trading system and might not need your product. those that don't believe in mechanical trading system like turtle system will not even try your product. have you consider this before? or i'm wrong about your potential target customer?

-----

i'm a software programmer too, i have been written software since the APPLE II and IBM PC. it really fun then, and i'm still have fun now by writing sharewares and freeware. i would say that combining software writing and trading is really the best of both world, it help reduce the mind fatigue when market is not trending :) hope you are enjoying writing your software and not solely aiming to be the next microsoft :P my profit from my trading is more than what my shareware is generating now. from my past experience, it more easy to grow money through trading than from the growth of software sale. actually, Bill Gates is quite a marketing genius, if you're really interested in selling software, i would encourage you to look into marketing.

-----

i'm writing some freeware because i thought i can be profitable in trading. and can still feed my myself and my family. your above sentence is quite scarly to me. you think it is difficult to be profitable in trading in the long run? i ask because i know you trade since the 80s and may have experience something i might not have encounter.

not really understand by back seat driver and hot air ... you mean you only paper trade? which i believe it not possible. base on what i have read so far on your posting, your mind and skills are really excellent.

Hi Pirate,

You have more experience than me in writing software and yes those points you
mention are very valid. I have looked at various aspect of how to market the
products I am coming out with and will follow the sort of "norm" approach of those
traders in the US who also write trading software. Their approach is actually not to
go on an expensive marketing bliss but to make go slowly. The main reason being
they are not software houses but trader cum developer.

Even before I wrote this article on web, I have already been approached by banks
and fund managers to write the Turtle indicators for TradeStation2000i. Then after
I wrote the article, I received requests for the sale and the TradeStation
EasyLanguage source code which I turned down. Easylanguage protection are
easily broken. So I found out there is a demand for the Turtle system software.

Right now there is only one other such software but it is going to set one back by
US$2,995. Crazy. Other than that there is no other. Even if there are privately
written ones for TradeStation 2000i, they cannot do evaluation on a portfolio basis
because of limitation of TradeStation, even the latest version. MetaStock cannot
do at all.

There is demand from over the world but I don't know how much. I can only get
the feel when my software is launched. The people who are interested are
probably those who have been in the market for some time and have gone
through the ups and downs. They will then appreciate the need for proper trading
system evaluation.

Why did you take the shareware route? I think the conversion rate is low. It is
unlikely I do freeware although at one point I did comtemplate writing a freeware
downloader for SGX data. For this reason I will probably not go into Linux.

I don't paper trade. I do real trading. But my skills are not what you make out to
be. Still learning.

I have a very rough patch in my personal life in the last few years although not
trading related but the effect is big. So much so that at times it was difficult to
trade. I think that's why people like Gann always said that one must be mentally
and physically fit. Not many see the linkage between mind/health and trading.

I have two frustrating experience within the last one year. I was trading for two
people. Both closed after they took some huge losses from their own trading. The
first one probably felt uneasiness after some whipsaw in early Oct last year in Yen
and Swiss Franc. He stopped the arrangement then. This was just before a big
trend. See chart. I was so upset that I didn't take the next signal in Eur and Swiss
even for the other account. It ended up this other account was so unhappy that I
missed the trend. He stopped the arrangement the first week of May. Again just
immediately before another big trend.

Both big trends occurred after a losing trade so they were valid breakout signals.
The equity curve on Swiss shows the US$ P/L on a one lot basis without pyramiding.
Look at what the potentials could have been.

Generally people do make mistakes and have bad patches. So being very well
capitalised is important. It helps if you have another source of income.

I am probably doing a world first. I am quite sure this has not been done before
and I can safely lay claim to it.

In the Swiss France chart just one post before this, you see the Turtle breakouts
and trailing stops superimposed on the price chart . If you read this article, you will
see how the 2N stops changes according to the numbers of units of pyramid. So
some sort of flexibility in changing the stops on the indicators have to be made.

Presently, no software can do this. None that I know of. But the one I am writing
will be able to do this. That's because I link the indicator to the trading system.

This is a world first - indicator adaptive to trading position size - and proudly Made
in Singapore.

What's all this talk about foreign talent in the past few years. What's all these
indirect messages that Singaporean don't have it. So much so that they tried but
couldn't show it with DBS so now they try to show it through sports.

Singaporean can lah! Just need to think a little bit and ideas will flow. I point finger
at the local education system of the past and present. I don't know about the
future but looks like not going to change.

I hear kids in US like to go and stay in school but here they dread going to
school. Their thinking and creativity are still being supressed by long time
entrenched stupid school routine and practices. And they have to follow the mould.

To give Singaporean a boost, I just did a crude speed test of the software using
the Windows clock. For the fun so not neccessary to add timing routine into the
codes.

Loading 35 years od daily FX data, calculate the indicators and trading system,
plotting the charts and stuff took less than 1 sec. 55 years of daily S&P 500 took
about 1 sec while 110 years of daily DJIA under 2 sec.

Intel Celeron 1.70, 512 meg RAM

Singaporean can lah!

In a post on Jul 28, I mention I am still using a 3rd-party DLL, all other tools and
controls are native from the development platform. Well today I realise that they
still have not solved the rounding problem I brought up to them 3 or 4 years ago.
See the US Fed Funds Rate thread:

http://s7.invisionfree.com/ChartistsUnited...p?showtopic=362

So I have to drop using their rounding method and I do my own rounding? But
bugs I found with the MetaLib DLL over time makes me quite uncomfortable.
They have also stop answering my recent questions. So guess I may take this last
3rd-party DLL out and use my own Compu-Trac files routine. But I will lose the
ability to read extended MetaStock files. Decision decision decision.

Add-on edit:
I took out the MetaLib "Reader.iRound = 3" line and the raw price is read correctly.
This line I added I think in the last 2 days because I though the bug was fixed
some time back but now obvious it wasn't.

This chart is correct without using the MetaLib iRound property. I am already using
the most accurate possible data type variable array so I will just leave the data
read raw. The chart is from data read raw without any rounding. something I have
been doing. I took out all iRound lines I added in the past 2 days.

Older MetaStock Downloader versions also have rounding errors when writing to
files. This I found out with data written few years ago with MetaStock Downloader.
Their latest version have solve the rounding problem.

Some useful information on rounding from the Microsoft website:

How To Implement Custom Rounding Procedures

Just added the codes to copy the chart to the clipboard. This allows for standard
Windows cut & paste function without having to launch a screen capture software.
Useful for putting the charts in market reports or just to send an email.

Two examples shown. One with quite normal size and the other with small size.

Reposting... from the Turtle Trading System thread.


One major obstacle to sticking with system rules is temptation. It is like when you
are happily married with a happy family and then a sexy lady (or an incredible
hulk) enter into the picture. Temptation right? Whether or not you succumb
depends on your own discipline.

Geez, what has this to do with the market, you may be wondering. Well a lot
really. But only if you have been there long enough, got involved, got hurt and
then said, "I thought I was clever. I thought I was right. But I was very stupid."

It is a human tendency to count chicken before they are hatched. Leave this to the
chicken farmer! You don't do it. But will you listen? Very likely, NO. I tell you why
and what you have always been doing, always counting chicken.

Look at the chart. The system went long and it is showing an unrealised profit
($110 per lot) as well as an unrealised loss (-$120 per lot). Both excluding
commission and slippage.

Now, which one are you interested in? Since it is human tendency to count
chicken, it is obviously the profit, right? This is the problem. The common reason
is if you can get out with a profit then why be stupid and get out with a loss. Or
you have been listening to too many often repeated advice (wrong advice) that
you won't go broke taking profit, no matter how small.

Do you know what is letting your profit run? Do you know what is the difference to
cutting your profit? Even if prices were to turn down down, hit your stop and you
take the loss, it is still the right decision to stick to the rules.

Look back to mid-Dec2004 and early-May2005. They started out the same way. In
fact, they must all start out the same way. Where would you be in Mar2005 and
July 2005 if you had cut your profits?

Now you have to decide whether you want to get excited by the sexy lady (or the
incredible hulk) and be a chicken counter.

I design the software like this. It shows the scenario in graphics so that you can
visually visualised it. Every picture tells a thousand (or is it million) stories.

I think I have done quite a bit of postings the last few days. I will now go into a
week of hibernation mode so that I can make another spurt of software
development to take Turtle Farm that much closer to final product launch. By that
time the only thing left will be the Help file which will double as a soft copy manual.

Take care.

I have finally implemented the Directory-Tree and CompuTrac/MetaStock (CT/MS)
files view replacing the files only view previously. This is something like the left
side of the Windows Explorer but with the ability to display CT/MS filenames which
are not standard Windows filenames.

This allows for easy navigation from folder to folder. Also, hitting the up or down
arrow keys will change the selection and the chart will change accordingly. When
the selection moves into the next folder (eg. from B to C), htting the enter key
with the selection cursor at C will open the C folder and display the list of CT/MS
files in that folder. Or if you want to jump striaght into a particular folder just use
the mouse and click.

I like to visually scan through symbols and this flip-chart feature is handy. In
other softwares that I use, I need to open dailog boxes to change folders and I
cannot automatically move into the adjacent folders.

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned about the problem with using 3rd-party add-on
libraries. When you find something that is not right, you have no control on it being
corrected and how long.

The bug I had with the sexy XP style GUI controls drop down menu is not replied
yet which means not fixed yet. It is already 2 months and not a single word from
them. Luckily, I dropped those sexy controls to revert back to the much trusted
native ones from Microsoft. Faster and take up less memory.

I am still using another 3rd-party library, MetaLib, for reading MetaStock files and
there is one issue I reported last week for prices greater then 100. See this link to
see how it goes:

http://www.trading-tools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=302

It may not be there after a while as they do some forum house-cleaning now and
then. My past posts were all cleared after a while.

Hope they will fix the issue.

It is exactly one week ago when I first brought up the question of MetaLib's lack of
data precision for prices > 100 in their support forum. Except for the twice one line
reply, there was nothing else heard since Sunday. I really don't know whether
they will fix the problem. Like I said earlier when you use 3rd-party add-on you
are at their mercy. If they don't fix the problem then the choice for me is clear -
drop MetaLib and use my own CompuTrac routines. Yes I will lose the longer
filename and the 2000 files per folder that the MetaStock format support. But
considering that I have to choose between precision and quality in system
evaluation and backtesting or substandard unreliable quality, the choice is very
clear.

Previously I prefered to correspond by email as that would be nicer so that
product problem need not be made so public. However they stopped replying my
emails. The last issue I brought up to them was the inaccurate weekly and monthly
data downloaded by MetaLib from Yahoo! MetaLib probably use the wrong dates
for split adjustment. See the attached chart. Emails I sent to them on this issue on
the 4th, 5th and 14th July were never replied. Up till today the error is still there
and not fixed. So I got around the problem with my coding. I download daily data
and compress on-the-fly to the required periodicity. Yes it takes longer to
download daily data than weekly or monthly but at least I could work around the
problem.

The lesson is never never use 3rd-party add-on for critical part of your project.
You have to DIY. This was why I DIY my own graphic engine in the early stage
and had taken quite a bit of time. But it is worth it. If I spot a problem I can fix it
immediately. Not to be hung by the b@%%

Trading Tools has finally upgraded the MetaLib to read the 7 decimal of price
accuracy. Now I can continue to use it with ease of mind. The CompuTrac format
have this accuracy since the beginning and it is normal that the same accuracy be
expected.

If you are trading US T Notes cash and futures and your data vendor do not
provide you this price accuracy then you should change your vendor.

This screen shot shows the 7 decimal place accuracy. In the final release the price
and price scale will not be shown as such but in the standard factional quotation
display.

Here is a free charting (for now) software with data:

http://www.chartnexus.com/products/index.php

Probably I may re-learn Metastock. May be for tech support reason related to the
Analyst's DataServer. But somehow there is something about the its chart
presentation I realised some years ago when I was using it that I couldn't get
used to. Can't pinpoint what it is, maybe it is the grid (can it be changed?) or
maybe it is the actual high/low on the Metastock chart not that accurately drawn.
Or maybe its lack of crispness. I don't know what.

When I first used ver 1 of SuperCharts in 1993, I fell in love with it. Naturally too
when bigger brother, TradeStation came along. Now that I am writing my own, I
know what I want.

Looking at the three charts here, there is something in the Metastock chart that
obscure the picture. If only I can find out what is causing this.

Free Charting Software: FCharts SE

I was pointed to this software called FC Charts SE by our user Globevestor, those who are interested please take a look at:

http://www.spacejock.com/FreechartsSE.html

And here is the review done by Globevestor.

http://info.channelnewsasia.com/bb/viewtop...9e5232d5#253368