Professional Stock Trading: System Design and Automation

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Summary: Bridging the worlds of trading and computers
Review: First of all, I am amazed that the authors have been so generous in sharing this code, pages and pages of TradeStation code for various technical analysis patterns. This is clearly the result of many years of hard work of developing and testing trading systems. My only caution is that this book may not be for beginning traders - the book jumps right into a fairly technical 40-page introduction about their trading model and systems, which are all standardized on volatility, a brilliant stroke. Lots of good trading system ideas outside of the realm of traditional technical analysis...

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Summary: If U want to venture into the world of tradestation
Review: From the preface of this book by the authors.
"The reader should have several years of trading experience and a background in technical analysis. Proficiency in either trading system development with languages such as Easy Language or software develpment using a computer pogramming language such as visual basic will complete the expeience."
This book in addition to "Trading Systems and Methods" and others web sites that sells you systems in Easy Language code and the 5 weeks that you need to learn how to use Trade Station.

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Summary: My story
Review: I bought this book in August last year and wanted to share my story. Bear in mind that I had already been trading for about 3 1/2 years when I got the book and had taken plenty of lumps in the market, losing a lot of money in 2000 and 2001. The only difficult months were before the war in Iraq (losing months were November last year and this March), when the systems were flat because there were lots of gaps that went against me during those crazy months. I discovered that the methods in the book combined with the Value Line rankings was the key, and I only mention this now because I wanted to give something back after turning a modest account in the mid-five figures into an account in the high six figures (almost exactly one year after getting the book), much of it being made during just the past three months. I am truly grateful to the authors for helping me achieve my dreams. I cannot thank them enough. Believe me, I didn't think it could be done because most of these trading books aren't worth a darn anyways, but I can state unequivocally that yes, it can be done.

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Summary: Nice Job
Review: I don't think the code in the book will make you money but that is not important. What is important that there is a professional approach to trading and a lot of the BS in not only left out but pointed out. Buy this book to get a realistic approach to professional trading.

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Summary: Volatility trading system is good
Review: I give credit to these guys for providing the complete system rules for entries and exits along with some position sizing algorithms. There are many, many books on patterns, and few of them ever give performance statistics. At least with this code you can import it into TradeStation and be up and running in a matter of minutes. That said, some of the systems are good and some are not so good. I suspect that the pairs trading system might have worked when there was intraday volatility but the market has changed since then. The linear regression system (V) is good and should be applied to momo stocks. It has been phenomenal in this market, don't think I'd use it in a bear market. There is another system in the book that is even better but I'm not gonna say here. It's my bread-and-butter, so there ;-).

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Summary: Enjoyable reading
Review: I like this book--even though I don't have TradeStation to actually try the source code out on. It's a great nuts-and-bolts look at the actual step-by-step coding of several different sample systems. I recommend this for any novice trading system developer using the TradeStation platform. For non-TradeStation owners, I don't particularly recommend it, as many of the useful tidbits found in the explanatory parts of the book are drawn from other famous trading books. Without TradeStation, most of the book is rendered useless. Still, I was able to make use of the book because I am a programmer and can convert the tons of provided source code into Wealth-Lab Developer or Amibroker's proprietary languages. And the sample systems gave me some great ideas on how I can improve my existing systems.

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Summary: Excellent sampling of Tradestation-based systems
Review: I like this book--even though I don't have TradeStation to actually try the source code out on. It's a great nuts-and-bolts look at the actual step-by-step coding of several different sample systems. I recommend this for any novice trading system developer using the TradeStation platform. For non-TradeStation owners, I don't particularly recommend it, as many of the useful tidbits found in the explanatory parts of the book are drawn from other famous trading books. Without TradeStation, most of the book is rendered useless. Still, I was able to make use of the book because I am a programmer and can convert the tons of provided source code into Wealth-Lab Developer or Amibroker's proprietary languages. And the sample systems gave me some great ideas on how I can improve my existing systems.

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Summary: For the REAL trader
Review: I loved this book. Being a techie, not only are these guys decent programmers, but also they are definitely real traders. The day trading chapter is worth the price alone. Yeah, it has the standard Level II tutorial but after a couple of pages it gets real interesting, especially their ImClone example (looks like they wrote it in early 2002 before the Martha Stewart scandal broke). Oh, one other thing... these guys aren't afraid of speaking their minds and are appropriately cynical, not to mention pretty funny too (make sure you read the footnotes - I was rolling on the floor for a few of them). There's one chapter where they flub one of the charts, and I won't ruin the quote for you. They seem to have a lot of fun and not take themselves too seriously.

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Summary: Excellent, excellent
Review: I purchased this book because I had read that it was an excellent source of TradeStation EasyLanguage code. That is true. But more importantly (in my humble opinion) is that you get to see how two professionals approach the markets. I have been more interested in how they are doing things like setting stops or taking entries than in the actual systems. If anything their systems are similar to how I have approached the markets - breakouts, pullbacks, patterns and sentiment trading and a few others. Each system's logic is explained in great detail and with clarity; the code is right there if you want to put it right into TradeStation; other useful tools like TradeManager and GetShares functions will be very beneficial to my trading. Overall, I can see this being a very useful book that takes the a lot of the mystery out of writing EasyLanguage functions for TradeStation. I highly recommend this book; it is packed with tons of useful information and the most insightful information may be in the code itself.

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Summary: The code is worth thousands
Review: I purchased this book several months ago and was initially overwhelmed by the code in the book, which is written in TradeStation's EasyLanguage. At its most basic level, the code consists of systems and indicators for finding traditional technical analysis patterns such as triple tops and pennants, but the book also presents some advanced concepts for combining and encoding these patterns on a chart, including a system using sentiment measures that is absolutely brilliant. The book contains many chart examples, but I would have been keen to see the specific parameters that were applied to each chart. You must be able to commit many hours experimenting with different combinations of input parameters and the so-called filters such as moving averages, volatility ratios, and other metrics. You cannot just plug the systems into your charts and expect stellar results for every symbol, as Conway & Behle explain in the first chapter; however, I think they present a good methodology for stock selection (I currently use RadarScreen to scan for trading candidates - you have to make sure all of the Acme indicators are enabled for RadarScreen). The chapters on pairs trading and float analysis were interesting because this content is rarely covered in other technical analysis books; however, I found the pairs trading difficult to backtest, so this system is probably the most subjective of all the systems. The authors present an intraday pairs system, but I would have been keen to see a daily system, so I'm trying to convert the code to do this. To summarise, this work has proven to be an extremely valuable book and put money in my pocket after much labour. I think some people will just give up if they think they can just plug a canned system into a chart, but this book proves there are many ways to skin a cat, and thus I highly recommend it.