How to develop trading system - part 2

We have used last post to decide which market we would like to trade. Today, we will check which data provider and trading software choices are available in South Africa.

Simply, to design proper trading system one must have correct data. This is very important because if you have wrong or incomplete data, there is a chance of making system that looks good, but it is not worth the paper it was designed on.

Another decision is to be made here: What is going to be time frame on which one would like to trade?

If you would like to concentrate on end of the day time frame there are many options available in South Africa. Just use Google or search engine of your choice and you will get lots of answers.

If you would like to trade intraday time frame, such as we use on this blog, you will have only three options that I’m aware of. Local option is company called Hisat, prices are modular and from business perspective we find them to be fairly acceptable. They have very simple charting capabilities. Two other options are international and one could consider E-signal and QuoteCenter. E-signal has its own advanced charting capabilities and simple backtesting tools. Quote Center is on the other hand associated with Equis that supplies MetaStock software. Price range for last two for intraday data is from $130 upwards.

ALSI TRADER is currently using Hisat data feed.

When it comes to backtesting software – it is as important as data feed. There are numerous options on the market and simple Internet search is going to give you few options. Looks like this field is getting even bigger with many quant blogs growing over last few years. Simply put, there are two options available: Client side software that is installed on your PC and it is running as any other regular PC program. This is once-off purchase. One of the available solutions here is MetaStock or any other software that you might choose.

Other option is server based program for which user pays monthly fee to use it. Sometimes software like this is bundled with data and one pays only one fee for using it. Solution that comes to my mind here is Trade Station.

ALSI TRADER currently uses Meta Stock Professional 10.1 for its backtesting and charting capabilities.

For more information look at previous post:

How to develop a trading system – part 1

Trade with trend!

Note of disclosure: No one of above mentioned suppliers requested this review or knew in advance what I was going to write. I do not accept any reimbursements for the reviews I write.