TradeStation Vs Metastock

[McStay]

I am a fairly new trader still learning the ropes .. I primarily trade index and commodities futures ..

Been using sharescope for a while, but find it too imited for my needs .. ie, its primarily a UK equities tool.

I am thinking of going for tradestation or metastock ..

I would prefer metastock b/c it is not bundled with a dealer account and can be purchased outright instead of leased ..

however, TradeStation seems more suited to my needs because I have some trading systems (that I have been impressed with ) in TS code off some books that I am very eager to play around with. So, TS seems to be taking the edge in my choice.

Please, can folks share their opinions on both software ? I am particularly keen to understand how easy it is to adapt a TS easy language code and code it in metastock code .. ( I am not new to software programming )

All posts will be much appreciated ..

 

[commanderco]

I am a fairly new trader still learning the ropes .. I primarily trade index and commodities futures ..

Been using sharescope for a while, but find it too imited for my needs .. ie, its primarily a UK equities tool.

I am thinking of going for tradestation or metastock ..

I would prefer metastock b/c it is not bundled with a dealer account and can be purchased outright instead of leased ..

however, TradeStation seems more suited to my needs because I have some trading systems (that I have been impressed with ) in TS code off some books that I am very eager to play around with. So, TS seems to be taking the edge in my choice.

Please, can folks share their opinions on both software ? I am particularly keen to understand how easy it is to adapt a TS easy language code and code it in metastock code .. ( I am not new to software programming )

All posts will be much appreciated ..

Firstly, maintain an individual stance from your Broker, you may wish to change one day.

Secondly, both TS & MS can help you make money or lose money equally. The secret to success does not lie in the platform.

Thirdly, there are plenty of people on forums who will help you re code your secret formulae.

Fourthly, do not spend a penny more than you need to on platforms ... why ... refer to secondly
above.

For what it is worth, I run MS pro occassionally simply because I am too old, too tired and too crafty to be sucked into learning a new platform. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I trade for my family not for someone elses profits.

 

[TheBramble]

McStay - welcome to t2w.

You can still use TS2000i which is independent of any broker, but which supports feeds from many sources - brokers and vanilla datafeed suppliers alike. Shop around for the best price or worst case, buy direct from the authorised distributor in your area.

(£1169 from this lot, but that was just on a quick google. I'm sure you'll be able to pick it up a LOT cheaper)

http://www.sharework.de/static_content.php/file/mainpage_uk/language/en/currency/GBP

I have used (and do occasionally still use) both TS2000i and Metastock though rarely found the need to translate code between them. Fairly sure it can be done. Certainly manually if not via a conversion tool.

 

[McStay]

Million thanks to commanderco & TheBramble .. your comments have been most helpful ..

My concern with using TS2000i stems from bits I have read on the net that its no longer supported .. is this true ?

Also, regarding MS, whats the best package to get ? with QCharts ?

thanks ..

 

[commanderco]

Million thanks to commanderco & TheBramble .. your comments have been most helpful ..

My concern with using TS2000i stems from bits I have read on the net that its no longer supported .. is this true ?

Also, regarding MS, whats the best package to get ? with QCharts ?

thanks ..

I run Q charts.
I think Esignal & Qcharts are as good or as bad as each other, but things can change

 

[ZDO]

McStay,

TradeStation is a better overall product than MetaStock - plain and simple . That said - both products carry some antiquated design technology forward from way back when and both are gradually improving. The higher costs of TS are only justified if you can truly leverage the technology to profits and is not worth it for nicer bells and whistles. In reality, very very few really do well using TS automated systems (but the causes for that include factors not related to TS proper). MS continues to plod forward in 'script' mode while the actual potential and promise of TS may now be finally becoming available. I dreamed of doing some highly adaptive, complex stuff in TS since the early 90's. Only in the last two years have I actually been able to implement those things using dll's and ADE (which is a contribution from outside corporate)

If you are a good programmer, you can make translations from MS to / from EL - but it is not always easy. Many useful functions, code snippets, etc are already written in both. I personally would not want to be involved in getting anything but the most rudimentary TS system moved over to MS

TS2000i is no longer supported officially, but most issues are now known and the fixes are on the TS boards. Most new EL code can easily be retrograded back to 2000i level - but that gap will widen significantly in the next couple of years as TS has added new graphing, (99 plots per study now instead of the old 4 max,etc.) technologies and new keywords (esp in portfolio and position data) that will be difficult to replicate in 2000i

Come back if you have more questions.

hth

zdo

 

[alexander]

Think of it this way: does the market care whether you are using MS or TS?

Seriously, get TS only of you are an expert programmer otherwise most of its capabilities will never be of any use to you. MS is enough for most people and has excellent graphics. There are some better programs, one is Wealth-Lab but this one also requires programming skills.

Alexander

 

[turtle trader]

Think of it this way: does the market care whether you are using MS or TS?

Seriously, get TS only of you are an expert programmer otherwise most of its capabilities will never be of any use to you. MS is enough for most people and has excellent graphics. There are some better programs, one is Wealth-Lab but this one also requires programming skills.

Alexander

I'd disagree with that - I'm definitely not a programmer, but with enough work & patience, have been able to get TS to do most of what I want (more than I ever did with MS). I believe it's worth the extra cost.

Back to a point in the original post - I also had reservations about having an account with them, but now I have, I wonder what my problem was. I have an a/c with IB as well, and do most of my trades through them, but quite like the ability to run different strategies in different accounts.

Simon

 

[ZDO]

McStay,
My previous comments where about the software only.
Where accounts are concerned:
TS for electronic futures - outstanding re fills, entirely seamless, backoffice, emerg. phone orders, etc.
For for pit traded futures - use another IB !
Individual stocks - so so.
Forex - Use another 'bank'

zdo

 

[McStay]

This forum is awesome .. thanks everyone for the replies .. have been most informative. I look forward to the day I will know enough to be able to post contributions that can be of use to someone in the forum ...

One more question, please ..
Regarding data services .. if one is a short-term trader (few days to 2 weeks) .. will real-time data give one any advantages ? thanks.

 

[Trdr]

I'm a MetaStock user primarily and also use Omega ProSuite TradeStation but just to be able to use an addon. I'm not a coder and my choice of MS is based on having received it as a gift. I find MS very easy to use and prefer it to TS.

Commanderco's point of not being tied to a broker is important, complaints appear on EliteTrader forums re TS as broker.

HyperTrader offers several free connectors that provide free realtime collection of price data from Interactive Brokers for eg for both TS and eSignal version of MS — see HyperServer Lite at:
http://www.hypertrader.it/freetool.shtml

An alternative to either MS/TS is: http://www.amibroker.com/
considerably less expensive at $229US for the realtime version.
The very active forum where the developer is 'online':
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/amibroker/

 

[TheBramble]

Regarding data services .. if one is a short-term trader (few days to 2 weeks) .. will real-time data give one any advantages ? thanks.

It'll certainly give you an edge in the timing of your Entry & Exit.

edit: But only if your chosen timeframe entry setup lends itself to similar treatment in RT. By that I mean, if you're going Long on an MA cross on the Daily chart, you could in principle consider using that exact same criteria to time your trade the next day (I am using this as a purely hypothetical example and have not ascertained its literal application in the real world ).

However, I did have in mind that with an RT feed you'd be able to check the LII action/depth etc. prior to entry/exit. But unless you're already into that aspect of trade placement, it's an extra layer of learning and not what you were asking.

So, I'll change my position. If you're a longer than intraday player, an RT feed is probably not worthwhile or useful.

 

[ZDO]

McStay,

If you use limit (or market) orders to enter then realtime data may help
(or hurt - depending on you and your system(s)).
If you use stop orders to enter, realtime data less useful.
If you go in eod, realtime data even less useful.

Basically same for exits. Helps if you're into time stops or the 'action' right after entry.

Having real time data radically changes what you percieve period.
Because of that - most likely it would also change the way you trade...

hth,

zdo

 

[commanderco]

This forum is awesome .. thanks everyone for the replies .. have been most informative. I look forward to the day I will know enough to be able to post contributions that can be of use to someone in the forum ...

One more question, please ..
Regarding data services .. if one is a short-term trader (few days to 2 weeks) .. will real-time data give one any advantages ? thanks.

You are talking about the next period beyond the initial EOD swing period.
This period will give you a larger points gain ( or loss) and a larger drawdown.
Personally, I would not fiddle with tuning up your entry, but rather I would focus on the trading rules pertinent to the trading period that you have chosen.
In other words ,stay away from RT .... it will only confuse you.
You must trade within your chosen period, or change the period and the rules.

 

[hypersteroid2000]

metastock language

This forum is awesome .. thanks everyone for the replies .. have been most informative. I look forward to the day I will know enough to be able to post contributions that can be of use to someone in the forum ...

One more question, please ..
Regarding data services .. if one is a short-term trader (few days to 2 weeks) .. will real-time data give one any advantages ? thanks.

HI Mc stay,

I am new in metastock and I dont understand very much on programming system and language. how to transfer TS system into metastock??????????????? thanks for your answer

 

[hypersteroid2000]

Hi I got a quetion in regardding metastock language and trade station language. I
am a
current user for metastock. Say, for example if I want to translate
tradestation system language into metastock language , could it be possible done????

 

[Trader_Herry]

Think of it this way: does the market care whether you are using MS or TS?

Seriously, get TS only of you are an expert programmer otherwise most of its capabilities will never be of any use to you. MS is enough for most people and has excellent graphics. There are some better programs, one is Wealth-Lab but this one also requires programming skills.

Alexander

A supplement:

Metastock does not support the following:
- different types of bars/candlesticks, including those defined by volume, tick, range etc.
- market profile
- playback

It's system testing and coding is too simple. That means you will be confined when you write your trading system.

Tradestation does not have "playback" either.
Not sure about the others.

 

[djahma]

Regarding Metastock, I've been using it for the past 5 years. With it, I've 'programmed' simple indicators of my own and run basic scans of stocks to give a direction to what I should graphically analyse. To do elliott wave labelling and fibonacci analysis, I found Metastock was the ideal product. Then, with the layouts, I created workspaces to carry multi-time frames visual analysis.

The heavier programming of trading systems using a mix of libraries/indicators/experts I did using Metatrader 4 (the holy grail is still to be found for me). It's near C syntax is not that hard to grab. However, the debugging and results analysis could be improved.

And recently, I discovered something the aussies seem to love called AmiBroker. To my surprise I discovered it's a product that has the best of both Metastock and Metatrader. With it, it's very easy to create lists to navigate in my database and create multi-time frame elliott labeling. It's possible to scan your selection of your database with whatever indicator you can easily create. The drawing tools are almost as rich as Metastock is.
As for creating trading systems, I'm only putting myself at it, but through the use of dll libraries, I believe I will have more power available to code. I'm placing a fair slice of this hope in classes that were not available in Metatrader.
Also, with AmiQuote, I'm finding it easier to maintain my database up to date. It can retrieve data for whatever you can find on yahoo msn or google finance. You can also pulg it in any data feed you want: eg. esignal.

MetaTrader was provided for free by my broker, but Metastock was out of my pocket and the price may explain why I've stuck to it so long. Amibroker is just perfectly priced.

I hope you could find some valuable insight out of my humble experience.

 

[bashatrader]

"And recently, I discovered something the aussies seem to love called AmiBroker"

One of the best. Accurate backtesting, portfolio level testing, excellent charting, you name it. Amibroker and my other program APS Automatic Pattern Search form the best combination for my trading system development. APS can find patterns and generate code for AB. Then I use AB to test, analyze and improve the APS systems. It is such a smooth and flawless process with AB.