BuildAlpha

New features and upgrades to the Build Alpha software. You can now create multi timeframe strategies. That is, trade the 30 minute chart with confirmation from the daily chart for example. You can also create strategies that are forced to exit end of day and do not take any overnight risk.

Trading is basically buying and selling of things to capture a change in price. There are many types of trading activities which are there in the market. Due to the development in the technology, there are many softwares and tools made for the convenience of different trading activities. Among all trading activities, trading in stock market requires the utmost help. For this purpose, Build Alpha helps the trader the most. It is one of the leading softwares in the trading market which has done wonders with its expert skills. With the changing trend of the market every now and then, the human expertise and knowledge is not efficient to analyze all the trends keeping in mind all the factors that affect the trend. This is how the human expert’s evaluation turns vague in front of the software analysis. Trading software helps in trading and analyzes the movement of the various stocks, currencies and commodities worldwide. Many brokerage houses provide their clients wi...

The market is “overbought” or “oversold” are common phrases you will hear across the finance space. However, it is actually extremely rare for these conditions to be true. Today, we’ll attempt to show how trading rules can provide a better picture of the market while enhancing trading performance. BuildAlpha : First, let’s simply define overbought as a 14 period RSI of greater or equal to 70.00 and let’s simply define oversold as a 14 period RSI of less than or equal to 30.00. Below is a chart showing the RSI of the S&P 500’s ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) with the overbought and oversold levels plotted. From January 2002 to May 2017 here are some stats: Days overbought 214 out of 3,878 or only 5.5% Days oversold 60 out of 3,878 or only 1.5% Days in the middle roughly 3,604 out of 3,878 or 92.9% Of course when these overbought or oversold conditions are true the markets do appear easier to trade as volatility often expands and it seems easier to skim some m...

In this week’s Free Friday strategy (#9) I display a strategy built using inter-market signals. Inter-market signals/analysis is the ability to generate trading signals and filters for a primary market based on what another market may be doing. For example, you may only want to buy the stock market when gold is trading lower or when bonds are below their 200 simple moving average. Build Alpha now let’s you test these exact sort of scenarios and build strategies taking into account up to 3 markets (plus Vix). This specific strategy was built for SPY (S&P500 ETF) but takes into account Gold (GLD ETF) and holds for a maximum of 2 days. There are no other exit rules or sophisticated risk management; all trades assume only a 100 share position for testing purposes. The entry: 1. $SPY’s 2-period RSI <= 90 2. Gold’s 50 period simple moving average is greater than Gold’s 200 period simple moving average 3. Gold closed below both its 10 peri...

Trading in financial markets is a tedious job. An expert’s advice is always required to invest in capital markets for a new trader. Listen to all fund managers, their views of in vesting based on different market conditions. Always do lot of research and take guidance from experts before investing. A new trader must utilize a stop loss, avoid greed and do not trade with fear while investing. Make a portfolio of strategies or shares from different sectors and maybe receive help from your broker. There are experts who provide market tips which enable beginners to make a wise decision, but on the other hand, you can take the help of this new trending software which is proving to be one of the best solutions in the market: Build Alpha . Fresh investors always go for those stocks which have reasonable valuations or big growth potential. Different market analysts have their own investment strategies owing to the Bull and Bear phase of the market. There are ...

Happy Friday! For this Free Friday edition, I am going to do something new. I am going to make this slightly educational and give away some code. I get tons of questions every week, but they mainly fall into two categories. The first question is in regards to adding custom data to Build Alpha . You can add intraday data, weekly data, custom bar type data, sentiment data, or even simple single stock data. The second question is in regards to using or learning Python. In this post, I will attempt to “kill two birds with one stone” and show a simple Python code to download stock data from the Yahoo Finance API. In fact, we will use Python to pull and save data ready formatted for Build Alpha for all 30 Dow stocks in less than 30 seconds. You can view the entire script later in this code or in the video below. The first few lines are simple to import statements pulling public code that we can reuse including the popular pandas library. import pandas ...

First, what is out of sample testing? Out of sample testing is purposely withholding data from your data set for later testing. For example, let’s say we have ten years worth of data and select to designate the last 30% of the data as out of sample data. Essentially what we do is take the last 3 years (30%) of the data set and put it in our back pocket for later use. We then proceed to create trading strategies using ONLY the first 7 years of data or the “in-sample” data. BuildAlpha : Let’s assume we find a great looking strategy that performs extremely well on the first 7 years worth of data. What we would then do is take the last 3 years worth of data, or our out of sample data, out of our back pocket and proceed to test our strategy on this “unseen” data. The idea is… if the strategy still performs well on this unseen, out of sample data then it must be robust and we can have increased confidence it will stand the test of time or at least in how it will perf...

Have you ever thought about how you can automate your trading strategies and increase your edge? Yes or No? Here, you will get to know the basics of algorithmic trading, the benefits, and the risks. Get ready to utilize automated trading software like  Build Alpha . A lot of technical analysis involves surveillance pointers for signals and then trading based on the signals. What if you could program a computer to mechanically and automatically recognize these setups and enter trades automatically? Isn’t it good if you free yourself from giving trading instructions to the system continuously? Yes, this is possible. Computers are much better than human at doing the math. If an individual can recognize setups that make you the most capital, so can a computer. In fact, computers are quicker and more accurate than a human being at solving math problems. So, why not to tell the machine what the norms of the game are and let it trade for you. These days, much automated sof...

Can you trust a backtest? Below is a simple strategy that uses Intermarket signals from the Japanese Yen to trade US 30 Year Bond Futures. It only has 2 rules for entry. The strategy produces fairly stable in-sample returns especially for being so simple. The in-sample period is from January 2003 to August 2012. The Intermarket strategy actually performed quite well out of sample on our unseen data as well. The out of sample data is from September 2012 to October 2016 (highlighted in blue). The ability for a strategy to continue to perform on unseen data is paramount and mission-critical for many system traders and strategy architects. However, can you trust this backtest? In BuildAlpha , there are many validation and robustness tests that can add confidence to your system development process. There is a special test called the “Noise Test” which creates 1000 new price series by adding and subtracting varying amounts of noise from the underlying price data. The tes...

Many years ago the hurdle to entry for a trader or trading association looking to begin an investment fund based on a completely automatic or algorithmic system was extremely high. Access to the data was restricted, the information could not be conveyed as rapidly and processing time was slower. Thanks to continual improvements in technology this is no longer the case. Today, technology has changed everything for the better in trading as well. Traders these days utilize automated trading software like  Build Alpha  to obtain more benefits in less time and without programming needed. Using automated trading software, traders can run multi-account trading fund out of the basement of their home! Large investment funds do not need to hire expensive programmers or IT departments. There are a lot of benefits of automated trading. Let’s have a look: Trade while you sleep: This advantage does not unavoidably plea to the FX junkies who remain stuck to their computer ...

It seems like an unfeasible viewpoint or impossible task to learn how to trade stocks successfully as most of the people who try, fail. In order to become a successful trader, you need time, practice and efforts with your particular goal in the mind. Most importantly, you need an edge or competitive advantage against the other traders. With the correct assistance, training, direction and trading software like   BuildAlpha , mastering the markets is within your reach. One can easily become a successful trader with little hard work and strong learning skills and a few powerful edges. However, I must emphasize that the key is that you must be enthusiastic to put in the time and effort into your research and preparation. In this article, you will find some steps that you need to begin the journey toward becoming a trader: • Make a decision to learn Action pursues intent, so take your initial step toward trading by making a decision to study how to trade stocks. Do not she...

People who want to learn how to become successful traders require expending a few minutes online before reading phrases such as plan the trade, trade what you have planned, etc. For newbie traders, this information can appear more like a disruption than any actionable recommendation. Actually, people who are new in the trading field just desire to know how to set up their charts so they can make money. There is trading software in the market like  Build Alpha , which can make life easier, but using it can make you a trading strategy. However, the new traders also need to learn the rules in order to get success in trading. Each and every norm of trading is crucial. Here are a few trading rules that you need to learn. Let’s have a look: 1. Use a Trading Plan: A trading plan (or system) is a set of rules that stipulates a trader’s entry, exit and wealth management criteria. Using a trading plan lets traders do this, although it is a time-consuming endeavor. These days, it i...

Are you searching for reliable trading software which can help you build and test robust trading strategies for financial markets? You do not have to look anywhere else. Build Alpha is your one-stop destination for achieving your trading goals with its expert tools and capabilities. It has two interrelated skills which other trading software cannot offer you. That is why it is the first choice of all traders, beginning traders and seasoned professionals in the business of trading. First, the ability to easily create trading strategies with no programming. Second, the ability to test these strategies with advanced methods not seen anywhere else. So yes, not only will it guide the new traders to start their trading portfolio, but it also guides the professional traders who already know how to trade in distinct market conditions. All traders spend lots of time developing strategies. Build Alpha comes into the picture, especially in the long run, because as markets change with increa...