[Yader]

Hello everyone,

26 from WA state. Been in the market for oh, 3-4 years. Have a biochemistry degree, enjoy charts, indicators, inferences, etc. Don't use the biochemistry anymore but the artful science of it still lives in me. The market is a great outlet for it.

I took the first 7-8 months to read and learn and watch the market and paper trade. Then I jumped in and well 2007 came along. I take it as a great learning experience to have first hand experience of what craziness looks like. Glad I had some money management ideas in my head at that point.

Currently I'm reading "Technical Analysis" by Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist. It's alright. Great overview, and I mean overview. Not much in the way of trading strategy. I find the book nearly humorous. Came out somewhere between 2005 and 2007, before the crash. So sure they are that we were not headed for an implosion. It really has solidified in me that markets are not always rational, they do not "behave." Systems will not work in times like these unless you're going with market direction.

That being said I'm highly interested in systematized trading. I'm afraid at this point that TS is a bit out of my price range. Anyone have suggestions as to what I could use to get started? So far all I've known is stockcharts.com, freestockcharts.com, and thinkorswim.

Look forward to getting to know everyone!

[zapisy]

TS is free, you just have to place few orders during the month.

[MadMarketScientist]

Yader, first of all a big welcome to TL. Thanks for joining the trading conversation.

I'll echo the prior comments that you can get tradestation for no charge - they have a promo now I believe where it's free through the end of the year - though you would need to fund and trade an account there. However, it is quite powerful and probably would satisfy almost anything you'd want.

There are many other options of course -- if you were a forex trader you could focus on a broker with the Metatrader platform which is free of charge.

Or, think about Ninjatrader which can do quite a bit on charting and order management and can be very close to free depending upon the data provider and also where you trade.

Most of all, do not let free or low cost be your decider on trading platform. I've been in this business working with and trading along individual traders and one of my biggest pet peeves and source of failure I've seen is people trying to cut corners on things like data and charting, then without hesitation putting hundreds or thousands of dollars at risk with the click of the mouse. With a solid platform it will pay for itself many times over.

[Yader]

Thanks for the TS recommendation. I took a look at their site again this morning.

Here's a little more information about what I'm looking to do. So far my trading experience has been a hodge-podge. I've found I don't like massive amounts of digging trying to uncover fundamental longs. Nor do I care to earn a degree in finance, although I can read basic financial reports and regularly do my own DD on Edgar. I don't have the time to day trade as I do have a fairly demanding non-profit that I direct. In the evenings I get time to check over the market and so with well placed stops I feel relatively safe not being able to monitor the day's activity. Swing trading seems to be my forte and I seem to have a knack for shorting.

That being said, everything I've done so far has been manually done. Each trade has been evaluated on it's own merits taking into account as much information as possible. This unfortunately leaves many decisions up to my own bias at the moment. I'd like to continue to minimize my subjectivity, although I do feel I'm well disciplined.

Ultimately what I would like a program to do is scan say 100 stocks of my choosing and give back buy and sell signals based on set parameters of my design. They're going to be pretty simple parameters to start (eg: buy on the 6 day MA crossing the 12 day MA when stock price is above the 50 day MA, sell when the 6 day MA moves below 12 day). Before using the buy/sell parameters of my choice I would like to backtest it on the S&P, Nasdaq, and individual stocks so for the past 30 years. MY parameters may stay quite simple or they may get more complicated, that'll depend on what works I suppose!

I'm only trading with a small amount (~5k) so I'm not looking to spend a massive amount in commissions, nor am I looking to trade 5000 shares/mo. TS seems a bit prohibitive with an account of my size. I would like the ability to learn and figure this all out and come up with a system I'm satisfied with before beginning to trade with it.

What's everyone's opinion?

[MadMarketScientist]

With tradestation you'd have Radarscreen (I think that's what it is called) available to you which definitely could monitor those 100 stocks to your criteria and let you know immediately which ones qualify.

Maybe you can also look at think or swim which I think would have the capability to do the same as a scanner and has a good reputation.

Did you ever consider straight calls or puts for your stock swing trades?