Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

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wilkinsw
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Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby wilkinsw » 27 Aug 2014

Hi,

There seems to be lots of Bar Magnifier requests in the project management section, to be added to the Portfolio Backtester.

Can I just reiterate how essential this is. It really limits the degree to which one can use the tool without it. As a simple example....tight stops get incorrectly selected for vs the MC optimiser with BM=on. TS has already added it to their portfolio tool.

Can you give me (us) an update as to what version this is being targetted for?

Thanks.

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Henry MultiСharts
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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby Henry MultiСharts » 28 Aug 2014

Hello wilkinsw,

At the moment adding Bar magnifier to Portfolio Trader is not in our to-do list for any particular version. Please follow the respective feature requests in the PM section to get the latest updates on the subject.

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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby wilkinsw » 28 Aug 2014

Henry,

Firstly, I find that profoundly shocking. It's a major limitation. I just don't get how it's not even on the "roadmap" as the tool will forever be incomplete without it. It is far more important than other features like IOG. GA optimisation WILL be incorrectly vectored without it. TS did eventually add this feature to their portfolio maestro tool.

Secondly,the other point I was trying to make is that the project management section has a number of similar requests, all of which have collected votes. Can you do me the favour of pointing me to the correct one and consider possibly rolling them into one?

Can other users help me out here? Both with explaining what a drawback no BM is and with what feature request I should be following?

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Henry MultiСharts
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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby Henry MultiСharts » 28 Aug 2014

PM entries will be grouped and updated once the feature is targeted to a particular version.
At the moment you can vote for it here:
MC-787 - Bar Magnifier for the Portfolio Backtesting
MC-1227 - Bar Magnifier and IOG feature

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t-rader
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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby t-rader » 30 Aug 2014

Just want to post and show support for this feature request, even more so now that a competitor has added this feature. I don't think I need to reiterate the reasons for this and only want to see Multicharts continue to be the best trading platform out there ;)

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ABC
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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby ABC » 31 Aug 2014

Let me chime in and say that this is absolutely essential in my opinion. Just think about how horrible wrong backtests on a single chart using the build in trailing stop or profit target and stop without the Bar Magnifier can become. I suspect these errors would compound within a Portfolio Backtest thus simply not giving you a near accurate backtesting result.

With the Portfolio Trader and Backtester you have a great tool with lots of potential (and one that stands out compared to most competitors), but in my opinion going down the road without adding the Bar Magnifier might drive many potential customers away from Multicharts - especially those looking for true dynamic portfolio trading and backtesting.

I fully understand that this likely is a huge task to implement and if I recall correctly I read somewhere in this forum that even the architecture of the program might have to be changed. But I am also convinced that doing it is well worth the effort where not doing it will do more harm in the long run.

Regards,
ABC

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JoshM
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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby JoshM » 31 Aug 2014

I fully understand that this likely is a huge task to implement and if I recall correctly I read somewhere in this forum that even the architecture of the program might have to be changed. But I am also convinced that doing it is well worth the effort where not doing it will do more harm in the long run.
Fully agree with ABC's post, especially this part. There are probably also 'side benefits' of taking on this huge task, since I suspect that with a big rewrite of the existing code base a lot of other improvements can be implemented when the MultiCharts software is designed for the needs of 2014 traders and not 1999 traders (in the assumption that changing the architecture has been repeatedly put off due to its big workload).

I suspect that more than enough users are more than willing to wait on a big revamp of MultiCharts. One of MultiCharts' biggest competitors released their version 7 before October 2009, and their estimate is that version 8 is expected around October 2014, if not later. While we cannot tell how much this has hurt them, given that they are still the most popular partly signals to me that taking the time to do a thorough rewrite is not that detrimental to the business.

What I mean to say: MultiCharts has a good and quick release cycle, but I'm in favour of a much slower release cycle if that means that the software will be rewritten so that it is up to our high standards for the next 5 years.

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Re: Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier ???

Postby JoshM » 13 Sep 2014

I fully understand that this likely is a huge task to implement and if I recall correctly I read somewhere in this forum that even the architecture of the program might have to be changed. But I am also convinced that doing it is well worth the effort where not doing it will do more harm in the long run.
I'm not sure if that's the case. In the discussion about limit orders, the following was said (underline added):
Unfortunately sometimes it is simply not possible to change something without re-writing half of the software. I understand you want as realistic backtesting as possible, but at the moment we cannot do what you want 100% as you as you expect it work, though i explained what kind of improvements are possible in current software architecture.
Three weeks later, however, this feature is scheduled for the upcoming 9.1 version (see this post).

Perhaps the other half of the software can be rewritten for 9.2 so that we have the Portfolio Backtester Bar Magnifier? :)


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