Author: dale

Date: October 06, 1998

There may be two separate issues here. One is how to create a trading system. The second is how to code in Easy Language, Omega's Supercharts (and Tradestation) programming language.

The process of designing a mechanical trading system is not one where I would claim to have great expertise. I've fiddled with this but have not found a purely mechanical approach I'm happy with (perhaps desiring too much perfection, *smile*). If you haven't done it already, call up Omega Research (or go to their WEB site) and they will send you a free introductory book by Charlie Wright to designing trading systems that I thought was pretty good. Art has referred to this in an earlier posting. There are a number of other good books on the market on system design which I'm sure you could find in good bookstores or online (I've been able to check some of them out of a nearby university library).

The second issue of programming/coding sytems, indicators, paintbars, showmes in Supercharts requires you to use EasyLanguage. While some people dispute how "Easy" this is, I found it pretty straightforward, particularly if you've had any programming experience. The difficulty is probably more a function of thinking up good ideas that actually work when applied to real data. A warning, if you really want to code elaborate systems you may have to move up to TradeStation. You can do a lot in Supercharts but Tradestation will take you to another level. I know the cost seems high for Tradestation but if you need elaborate programming to do what you want, the cost will fade compared to all the money you will make *smile*. I've personally stuck with Supercharts as I didn't want to go to this next level.

Now for details. I've never bought a book on EasyLanguage programming but I can point you to a number of ways to educate yourself.

1. I'm working from an older version of Supercharts and have a printed manual (I suppose they don't even give you a hardcopy anymore). I found lots of good although not elaborate explanations on basic use of Easy Language.
2. Open up trading systems/indicators already programmed into your Supercharts and see if you can understand them. If you want, make a copy first so you can edit them and make changes to see the effect without changing the original. I'm a firm believer in getting your hands dirty to learn.
3. Every month in Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities there is a section called Trader's Tips which will provide code in a number of languages (Easy Language, Metastock, Excel) for creating systems or indicators based on articles in that edition of the magazine. Some of the examples use elaborate code for Tradestation but even these will give you ideas for how it works. At Omega's WEB site, they even have some of these already coded up for import into your computer (look under Learning). These examples provide an excellent means to relate someone's discussion with the actual code which makes it work.
4. At Omega's site they have a section called Learning which has a number of resources for learning about Easy Language. Some of these cost money, like Videos and some books, but some are free. Some of the free ones are even downloads so all you have to do is pull them into your computer where you can study and dissect them at your leisure.
5. I've been getting a free magazine from Omega that has lots of examples of Easy Language coding. Much more elaborate than I knew how to do.
6. You can always get someone else to do the Easy Language programming if you just don't want to learn. At Omega and in the back of Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities you can find ads for people who will code your ideas into Easy Language. At a handsome cost I'm sure, but it might be worth it if you have a complicated idea you just can't figure out how to implement. You can also buy systems for Easy Language which might serve as a learning tool or you could even trade them.

Hope this helps. The hard part is probably not the Easy Language programming but coming up with workable ideas that you can combine in interesting ways. This takes imagination and work because frequently you start off with the "sure-fire winner" only to discover it doesn't work quite like you expected. Wright's book has some good thoughts and pointers on this.

As an aside here, if you have an idea that you can specify ("Buy after the market reaches a new high"), code it into the ShowMe or Paintbar studies so that you can see ALL of the occurrences on some historical data not just those you identified by your desire to find something useful. I can't tell you the number of times this has opened my eyes to how often a particular condition occurs when I didn't "see" it in situations where I would have lost money. Keeps you honest when developing ideas.

Author: dale

Date: October 14, 1998

1. I believe what they are offering free right now is Version 4.0/4.1. However, I don't believe this new version covers mutual funds, though they may have now expanded this. However, their older version 3.0 does do mutual funds. I suppose if you ask you can still get the older version. If you want to look at mutual funds, make sure you check this out.
2. Pricing for the old version is half a cent per day per security to update with a maximum per day cost of 99 cents. So once you get past 200 securities, there is no additional cost on a daily basis. However, you do have to pay a cost to download a security initially, I believe it is 39 cents per year per security you pick up to a maximum of one dollar per security for as many years as they have. If you only have a few dozen funds/stocks to track, you could be spending less than a quarter a day.
3. Telecharts has some great market breadth technical indicators as well as the funds and stocks.
4. As part of the download for Telecharts, you get nightly commentary from the Worden brothers (the owners of the service) which is sometimes interesting and usually trys to show various technical analysis lessons. The new version of TC2000 has a lot more commentary with it which might be interesting if you are just starting out.
5. TC2000 has a nice little screening program built in which you can modify to tell the program to look for certain conditions. For example, show me all the funds that just crossed over their 40day moving average, show me all the funds that just reached a new high. This can be very useful in helping you narrow down which funds/stocks you want to examine more closely. The newer version also has additional built-in screens on fundamental data for stocks. Again a very nice feature not found in some more expensive programs.
6. Although TC2000 is primarily seen as a data download service, their charting program is not bad. You can add most of the popular indicators. TC2000 has a few of their own propietary indicators which are interesting. You can draw trendlines; change the number of days in bars (1-9); change how much of chart to see (expanded versus compressed); scroll through time automatically to see how the chart unfolded (good for practice); use bars, lines or candlestick charts, and a number of other things.

All in all an interesting program in my opinion. Worth a closer look particularly if its a free trial. Just make to check into the mutual fund question if you want to track funds.