Systematic Trader's Tool Box

We’ve been systematically trading in one form or another since the mid-90’s. During that time, we’ve used a variety of tools to help facilitate our trading. The Systematic Trader’s Tool Box is a summary of the current applications and platforms we currently use and we hope these can help fast track you to becoming a better trader.

If you’re taking this journey seriously then I’d suggest you’re here to make money and, like any professional business, can’t afford to cut any corners. Usually, the first place a novice tries to save money is on data. However, quality data is a key element of successful strategy design, build and implementation, and it’s also a key element in giving you confidence in what you’ve built. The cost of a single bad trade due to poor data will be substantially more than the nominal expense of a quality data provider.

Data need not be excessively expensive, but it does need to be clean, accurate and, importantly, user friendly. To this end we use and highly recommend Norgate Data. 

Over the years we’ve used many platforms for strategy testing;  from Excel, SuperCharts, TradeStation, MTPredictor, MultiCharts and Amibroker. It seems that some platforms were great at doing certain tasks, yet poor at others. There didn’t seem to be one that did everything with ease.

But then along came RealTest. In our opinion, the cost, flexibility, and power of RealTest stands above the rest and is our choice of software. RealTest allows strategy testing diversification on almost every level, portfolio, multi-strategy, multi-timeframe and across different currencies.

Execution brokers are an integral part of trading success, both in terms of cost and facilitation.

Selfwealth is our broker of choice to execute basic strategies in both Australia and the US. Their flat fee commission structure is beneficial for larger traders with orders exceeding $20,000. Their HIN based registration adds an extra layer of investor protection.

Interactive Brokers is our broker of choice for more advanced strategies that trade frequently or require special execution technology such as API connectivity.

Managing various strategies that straddle multiple trading accounts can be complex. Not any more.

Share Trade Tracker (STT) allows us to consolidate all the trading data, from many different accounts, into a single location. It’s interface with Interactive Brokers makes it easy to import large amounts of trade data in, or, for less active portfolios, manual input is also available. STT enables the user to have as many portfolios as needed, then connects to Norgate Data or Yahoo to pull price and dividend data to keep the portfolio values updated. Lastly, STT can generate a myriad of reports for tax reporting.

STT is complimentary to members of The Chartist.

A true mentoring course. Craig Fisher and Nick Radge have been mentoring traders in coding, trading system design and implementation since 2015. Mentoring is for 6 months and includes one-on-one sessions with Nick and Craig via Skype, Teamviewer, email or phone. All information is provided by a Learning Management System followed by regular contact with your mentors.

Students from around the world have done the course and many have gone on to successfully manage their own capital, and some even have started new businesses with their new knowledge.

Always evolving, trading software took a huge leap when Marsten Parker introduced us to RealTest in Jack Schwager’s Unknown Market Wizards.

Marsten has been trading for 22 years with an annual compounded return of 20% over the past 20 years. Marsten is a systematic trader but trading was a side-interest. Originally a violinist, Marsten realised this would not be a viable long term career so instead focused on computer programming. For his own use, he developed software, now known as RealTest, to design and test multiple trading strategies.

Marsten Parker’s chapter is titled “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” – a sentiment we share here at The Chartist.

Trend Following goes against almost everything that your stockbroker, financial planner, accountant and your fund manager will ever tell you. This book will detail a road less travelled; it is a compilation of objective and practical strategies for the active investor that goes against traditional thinking.

If  you don’t have a definable strategy with a documentable edge, then this is a great place to start.