One very interesting research tool I bought years ago and still use is the TradeMiner PRO. You can buy it for stocks, commodities and FOREX. I mostly use it for stocks. What they do is look at historical EOD prices and calculate “If you have traded XYZ on this day during the past 10 years you would have been profitable XX % of the time if you held the stock for X days.” I have done some back-testing and live trading and it works pretty well. As with ALL TOOLS I still believe in the “art of trading”. However, if you spend the time using one or several tools – add all the info together and make the trading decision.
You need to understand that TradeMiner is NOT a trading system. It is a research tool. And a clever one at that.
Here is how I use it on a list of ETFs to pick a short list of possible high-probability trades I can further research and decide on:
- Month of March – at least 10 year analysis
- Having won >80% of the time
- 1-5 Trading days (Short is better for ETFs)
- Risk/Reward Ratio >1:2 is desired
- Score in the green > 3.00
I often change the parameters to get the best opportunities. By recording the different settings in a spreadsheet I can run through several different scenarios – for example 85% wins and max 20 trading days. I copy the top ones (>3.0 score) and paste into a spreadsheet. Then I sort the spreadsheet to list the top of the different tests.
In this case I created several different scenarios – and by picking the top results you can see that 95% and 12 trading days is the optimal for these ETFs. Now I pick the top one and schedule it for a trade on March 27 – April 14. Notice the RR is 1:4.7. So if you trade a scenario like this over and over you should have 4 wins vs 1 loss. This is if you stick to the schedule and NOT take profits if you see profits. You wait until 14 April and close the trade. Whatever the result is at that time. Sure, in day 5 you might have a profit and it is tempting to close the trade and take the profit. And move on to the next one.
The final step I want to do is pick the top ETF (MINT) and run the same scenario for that symbol only for the year.
Now I have a tradeplan for this symbol. And can back-test for previous dates. There is another great feature in TradeMiner called Neural Network. You pick the top results and run it there. It will tell you the past results and project the future. In this case it shows MINT was profitable 3/4 times this year. I would take those results all day.
As in ALL analysis and strategies – they WILL FAIL once in a while. You cannot rely on any one analysis or strategy. This tool is absolutely my favourite, but I use it in conjunction with several other tools and make a decision based on all those put together.
The subscription fee is $194 a year for all three feeds (STOCKS, COMMODITIES and FOREX). If a trader selects only one of the three feeds, the fee will be $97 a year. Once the fee is paid, historical data for the feeds become available for the subscriber. This software enables you to scan the past 30 years of the market to find the most profitable trends and assets according to their minimum and maximum quotations. This information can assist you in making an informed trading decision.
