Progster's Picks

People sometimes ask me, "Besides what you develop yourself, what other resources/products have you found that you would recommend?" On this page, as time permits, I'll call out various sites, products and developers that I have a high regard for. Some of these folks I know personally, some only through their work. Either way, comments on specific products are based upon on my own experience with the principals and/or their products. These are (some of) the recommendations I make to personal friends. I hope and expect that you will find these references interesting, educational, and profitable!

Blue Owl Press   Dr. Howard Bandy

Among the best books ever written on technical analysis and system-based trading are those of Dr. Howard Bandy.  It is rare to find books that cover so much important material, explain it so well, come with runnable code (for AmiBroker), and tie it all up with recommended best-practices for real-world system trading.  Each of Howard's books is a distillation of investigation, study and thought that you could easily spend years assembling yourself without guidance - and even then you might not write it up so well!  Not to be missed.

Trading Journal Spreadsheet  Greg Thurman

A superbly crafted tool for defining, logging, and summarizing your personal trading campaign. You know you need to keep records, but have you settled on how? Are your records telling you what you really need to know? Greg has done the heavy research, thinking, design, and coding to make it easy. More than a mere spreadsheet, TJS is practically an entire eco-system for managing your trading as a business. Highly recommended.

Adaptrade Builder Adaptrade Software

Adaptrade Builder is a system discovery and code generation tool for TradeStation, MultiCharts, MT4, and AmiBroker.  Using performance-oriented specifications defined by you, Builder will analyze market data for tradability based on a nearly infinite set of combinations of technical analysis conditions.  When systems that meet your specifications are found, Builder will allow you to examine the tested historical performance to confirm and then generate trading platform code at your command.

StrataSearch  Avarin Systems

StrataSearch is a program that automatically seeks out new trading strategies from scratch, evaluates, optimizes them, and combines them into a self-improving multi-system which can generate daily signals for trading. Powerful, unique, and easy-to-use, StrataSearch deserves the attention of anyone who is serious about trading system discovery using daily data for analysis.

Jurik Research

Mathematically superior indicators for those seeking the sharpest possible edge. (Also note: CFT can support your custom programming needs using Jurik tools.)

JAM Strategy Trading

JAM offers several unique products, including GVStratControl, which can be used to provide a high level of user-driven real-time flexibility in the TradeStation auto-trading environment. (Also note: CFT can support your custom programming needs using GVStratControl..)

MESA Software  John Ehlers

The "rocket scientist" of traders, John Ehlers is known for his application of digital signal processing techniques to market data. For all you electrical-engineer/scientist types out there, if you want to see how your college education can be applied to the technical analysis of financial markets, John's books, articles, and lectures are the ticket. Along with tons of technical information, the MESA site features the complete source code to the books "Rocket Science for Traders" and "Cybernetic Analysis for Stocks and Futures" for a very modest price.

Unicorn Trading  Alex Matulich

Alex's site has several goodies, including a Monte Carlo position sizing tool, technical discussions, and free EL code. I particularly like his take on expectancy.