Thinking Stuff's ATM

Automated Trading Machine (ATM) makes it simple to remove fear and greed from your trading. Automated trading is no longer just for the rich or nerdy. Our revolutionary software runs on your computer, using your trading rules, but none of your emotions. There's just one requirement - you know how to use a mouse.  Learn more...

Thinking Stuff's ATE

Automated Trading Execution (ATE) is where we run your trading systems for you on our servers. Your system can be exported from ATM, or written in plain English and we'll make it for you. We'll even backtest and suggest improvements if you want us to. This service essentially automates your automated trading.  Learn more...

Thinking Stuff's Groups

Join a group of like-minded individuals, and help each other to trading success. Once you join a group, you will have access to that group's trading systems, ideas, and feedback. And please contribute your own knowledge as much as possible. Or contact us to start your own group.  Learn more...

Free Software For Downloading Big Files

If you're going to download any of the text files containing historical price data from the brokers, there is some free software that is going to make your life a whole lot easier.
 

downTHEMall!

Especially with Gain Capital, there are *a lot* of files to download. If you do one at a time you'll probably go insane. I used to do it that way until I found a better method. Using a combination of the free Firefox web browser (an Internet Explorer replacement), and a free Firefox extension called downTHEMall!, you can download a month's worth of files with a couple of clicks.

Here are the steps:

  1. Download Firefox.
  2. Install Firefox.
  3. Run Firefox.
  4. Using Firefox, browse to the downTHEMall! extension page.
  5. Click on the link that says to "Install Now for Windows".
  6. When that finishes, close down Firefox.
  7. Restart Firefox.

Now you're ready to get the historical price data.

Using downTHEMall! also ensures that if you are disconnected for any reason, the download can pick up from where it left off (and not have to re-download the file from the beginning).
 

Text File Cleaver

Some of the files you download, especially those from Oanda, are huge. The Oanda ones contain around 20 million rows of tick price data, and ATM will probably not be able to load a big file like that in one go because of the database timeout setting on the Options window.

Instead, please use a file-splitting utility such as Text File Cleaver. Using the default options, Text File Cleaver splits the one big file into a number of smaller files, each containing 65,000 rows. ATM can easily process those files individually within the timeout period. For the Oanda file I tested with, 299 smaller files were produced.

The reason for recommending Text File Cleaver (aside from that it's free), is that it keeps each row intact. Other file splitters just split the file after a particular number of characters, which often falls in the middle of a row of price data.

Simply follow this link, scroll down to find the "Text File Cleaver" section, download and install.
 

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