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Financial Trading Software?

Posted by Cliff on from the not-spending-money-to-make-money dept.

finance-geek asks: "What software do you use for trade evaluation? Are there any good free programs out there? I am a former programmer now working at an investment fund, and I am shocked at the limited number of applications for evaluating and back-testing trading models. We currently use Wealth Lab , but since they were recently purchased by Fidelity, we are less certain about the future of their customer service. I checked out SourceForge.net but only a few programs looked interesting, and it will take me a while to evaluate them. Any suggestions?"

2 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. As somebody who writes this stuff during the day.. by cmowire · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The real problem is getting a reliable (i.e. non screen-scraped from Yahoo and preferebly scrubbed for accuracy) set of data and storing it.

    And, even if they'd *like* to, exchange rules *forbid* vendors from giving away real-time (i.e. non delayed-by-20-minutes) feeds.

    I think, for the most part, if you don't have a lot of money, sophisticated tools are a waste of time, because you'd get better results putting them into mutual funds, bonds, ETFs, and savings accounts. If you've got a lot of money, the cost for some good tools (and a data vendor who properly scrubs the data) is money well spent.

    --
    Gentoo Sucks
  2. why trade? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You do realize that unless you are professional trader (who has access to data seconds before it goes out to individual investors) you are playing a losing game? Roughly 70% of individual traders lose money, once you figure in taxes and comissions. Think about it: if RANDOMLY pick a basket of stocks, buy and hold for 5-10 years, you will most likely come out AHEAD of a majority of active traders. If you buy and hold an *index fund* and the market goes up, you will outperform traders.

    Sure, buy-and-hold doesnt "feel" like you're "doing something", but don't let that fool you.

    It's like dieting. The only way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories, everything else builds on that foundation. There are no quick fixes or "secrets" that some people know that others don't.

    Now, day-trading can be FUN (I do it occasionally, even options, but never expecting a profit) but you have to realize you are PAYING for that entertainment. It's easier just to do paper trades.

    I bet the reason there is so little open-source or free trading software is that a lot of this trading software is developed strictly to sucker YOU out of your money. Back-testing strategies? You can't learn anything about the future by past behavior.

    My recommendation is to write your own trading software and get rich. You won't get rich trading, that's for sure.