Replies to post #75 on Strategy Desk Users' Group

[Tony G]

From an experienced Strategy Desk User

Backtest, Backtest, Backtest. Just like the commercial haha.

I would say that you need a good, if not great knowledge of Technical indicators to really benefit from the Program Trading in Strategy Desk. You don't have to master them all, but pick 1 or 2 and get really really good with them. Stochastic, RSI, MACD, Moving Averages, Bollinger Bands, whichever you prefer. But pick at least 1 and understand it in depth as well as possible.

One of the great visual tools on the charts is the ability to color the bars based on your own formula. So let's say you like Stochastics. You can paint the bars different colors based on your Stoch formula. This helps you visualize right on the price action if you are picking the right indicator and values to monitor. Set the chart type to Color Bar, then Right Click on the chart and select Color Bar Setup. Here's an example:



When you backtest, look at the results on a chart. I tend to learn the most about what went wrong with the losing trades. Say you had a strategy with 5 winners and 2 loser trades. Figure out what went wrong with the losers. Did you buy too early? Sell too soon? Get caught in a head-fake? It's often necessary to add more criteria to your entry and exit formula to fine-tune and avoid the false triggers. Such as look at 2 different indicators/averages and make sure BOTH separate conditions are ripe before entering.