Metastock Forex Brokers
October 10, 2006
After using paid charting packages such as eSignal, Intellicharts, Metastock, and Xtick, I just don't see a compelling reason to NOT use the freely available Metatrader. I've become semi comfortable with Metatrader except that I just haven't taken the time to learn to program in MQL4 which is short for Metaquotes Language 4. Just like my conversation about brokers yesterday, there is no perfect charting solution. You just have to choose which have the features that you need most. I will continue to use Metatrader not only because it is free but because the other paid packages don't provide me with anything more.
There are a lot of brokers out there that use the Metatrader server trading platform. Why? One reason may be because they don't have to spend the time and money to develop their own. You simply download the Metatrader client terminal and connect to any broker that publicly allows trading through their Metatrader trading platform. Brokers are providing their own price feed so one of the things that will be different within the Metatrader client terminal between brokers are the prices. So if you decide to use Alpari as your broker, you can do so by logging into their server from within Metatrader. If you then decide to switch to Interbank, the only change are the login and the prices. If you switch, the prices will re-populate with that particular broker's price data. In addition to these changes, the time on your charts will also change which is the one annoying thing about Metatrader. If Alpari is at time zone GMT and Interbank at GMT -3, this will be reflected on your charts. The time in Metatrader is not based on your local computers time.
This finally brings me to the reason for this post. There are no major forex brokers that use the Metatrader platform but I wish there were because the ability to trade directly from within the platform could be its biggest strength. Instead of purchasing an expensive API, you can automate your trades from Metatrader. The H-system trading system I've been using for the past 3-4 weeks is a perfect candidate. I've been sleep deprived during this time because a lot of the trades are opened during the European session. I've seen a lot of advertising from Interbank FX I just don't know how much I could trust a small broker with my money. Does anyone have any experiences with Metatrader platform brokers? I'll certainly be looking into this because I just cannot ignore the power that Metatrader can have when combined with a live account.
Popularity: 6%
Amibroker is great and cheap
March 16, 2006
As I’ve written in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of backtesting. I’ve used esignal (my data provider), metastock, and now amibroker to automate the backtesting process. If you ask any experienced and successful broker, they will say that you are absolutely crazy to not back test and forward test your system before going live with it. Here’s a quote from an experienced trader, chaffecomb:
I’ve absolutely no idea how some people can trade without first backtesting, however that’s just the way I’m wired! …
Check out his website. He tracks multiple trading systems that he developed and basically trades on autopilot. http://users.bigpond.com/morleym/index.htm
Out of the 3 systems I’ve used for backtesting, I really think that amibroker is the best and it’s the cheapest. Here are the pros and cons I’ve noticed for each:
Esignal
Pros: Nice reports and graphs post-backtest; the ability to backtest already written custom indicators with minor modifications
Cons: Expensive; no ability for optimization
Metastock
Pros: Full featured suite of already made trading systems
Cons: I found the entire product very confusing and I’m a programmer; Expensive
Amibroker
Pros: Intuitive user interface; fast; ability to optimize backtesting
Cons: they don’t provide data so you need to download free data or use your currency provider (esignal plugin)
The most important backtesting functionality is the ability to optimize your trading systems. For example, what if you wanted to backtest a moving average crossover. With esignal, you would have to manually change the moving average periods you want to test which would require an individual backtest for each moving average pair. With amibroker or metastock, you can use variables and have the program go through an entire range of moving averages all in one shot. It really is a powerful feature.
I’m using amibroker now and I don’t see how I would ever use anything else. In addition the full version was only about $250.
Popularity: 4%
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