FXCM either stopped offering USDSGD prices, or only offer it to accounts in certain denominations (e.g. USD). 'Coz trying to subscribe to that currency now fails, and that in turn prevents anybody from downloading price history from FXCM.

Anyway, fixed now. Go grab v2.0.8, and go watch the video tutorial on downloading historical price data from FXCM. Also:

• Opening an FXCM account
• Extra Steps For FXCM Users Only (for installation help)
• the FXCM sections on the Troubleshooting page

This is the first release to be done using Visual Studio 2008. So, in case any problems arise, I've left v2.0.7 available for download.

Anyhoo, here is the full list of changes:

Fixed Or Added In v2.0.8

• No longer cancels login to FXCM accounts if a subscription to a particular currency fails upon login.

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A quick summary before I get into the explanation: TS v3.0.0 will be a complete re-write. We threw just about everything out and started again. If you have any suggestions for new features; if there's anything in the current version of TS that's annoys you, that hampers your efforts, that prevented you from installing it or understanding how it works; please tell us. Either through the Contact Us page, or via the comments below.

If you, personally, wanted automated trading software designed just for you, what features would be in it?

We've completely re-designed TS. Nothing has been spared. If you have any suggestions, anything at all, now is the time to come forward.

To the explanation...

About 4 to 4.5 years ago, in my room near Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, I started making some software to help me out with my currency trading. It was just for backtesting at first, but things progressed, knowledge expanded, plans became grander.

Now I have a company with a few staff based around that software, and our goal here at Thinking Stuff Pty Ltd, printed and stuck up on the wall, is to bring automated trading to the masses. Regardless of how good you are with computers, we think you should have all the advantages that automated trading provides at your fingertips.

Just about every manual on how to create a successful business says to find a niche. Ours' is the niche of people who want to get into automated trading but don't have the computer skills. And even if you have computer skills, it doesn't necessarily mean you want to learn computer programming. And even if you know computer programming, I'm guessing you mostly prefer to just click buttons than write code. I know I certainly enjoy downloading something and using it a few second later. So really, our niche are people who want to get into automated trading quickly and easily. (TradeStation, MQL, etc, will always have their niches, and we don't pretend we are direct competitors of theirs' other than a small subset of potential customers).

Over the years though, we've run into speed bumps. People would ask "can it do this?", and we'd have to say "no, in trying to make TS as simple as possible to use, we had to make some design decisions that cut off certain types of trading".

And there was the legacy code. "Legacy code" means old code, that's been around forever, that nobody wants to touch because it looks really scary and would probably break everything.

Actually my buddy came around the other week and asked why some things were like there were, and I had to reply a few times "historical reasons".

From comments and emails we get, and me saying to my buddy "historical reasons" more than a few times, it was clear that things had to change. People both want to be able to do more complicated trading systems, and they want the software to be easier to use.

The legacy code was holding us back. PostgreSQL was holding us back. The version check and subscription system were holding us back. The lack of supported brokers was holding us back. The lack of custom indicators was holding us back. This website and the lack of forums were holding us back.

So I thought to myself "Sharky, if you were going to design this from scratch, how would you do it?" And because I now have 4.5 years experience in writing this kind of software, along with 4.5 years' worth of comments and emails from customers, I made a lot of different decisions to 4.5 years ago. A lot of problems solved. A lot of niggly little things solved. A lot of big annoying things solved. And some prettier code too :-)

The drawback to all this of course, is that the monthly release had to be abandoned for a couple of months. And the next release, being a complete re-write, will need very thorough testing from us *and you* before it's ready for use. But let me guarantee to you, that this is entirely worth the trouble, and the few steps back will be followed by about 100 steps forward.

So as I said in the opening, if you have anything you want changed; anything you think needs to be changed; any reason at all that prevented you from signing up (and by the way - there probably won't be a subscription fee from v3 onwards), now is the time to come forward. Don't assume anything. The more people request a feature, the more likely it is to get done. Thanks.

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Backtesting using FXCM historical price data demonstrates these things:

1. where to go to set up a demo FXCM account
2. how to enter that account's details into TS
3. how to download the historical price data from FXCM
4. how to create a simple trading system
5. how to backtest that trading system over the historical price data
6. viewing the backtesting results

Steps 4 to 6 should make this video useful viewing even if you aren't going to use FXCM.

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Getting back to FXCM, I have updated the FXCM API and incorporated some of their new features into TS. The most exciting feature is the ability to download FXCM historical prices with a few clicks (i.e. no downloading files and then importing them into TS).

I'll have a video tutorial up soon, but I'm sure you'll figure it out :-) On the Command Centre > FXCM > Price Downloads > Historical.

In the user manual you'll find:

• Opening an FXCM account
• Extra Steps For FXCM Users Only (for installation help)
• the FXCM sections on the Troubleshooting page

Here is the full list of changes:

Fixed Or Added In v2.0.7

• New version of the FXCM API. Historical price downloads.
• For non-subscribed users, dummy price data should be used so they can get a feel of what it would be like if they did subscribe. But an error prevented them from seeing the dummy results. Now fixed.
• Upgraded to a new version of npgsql (the thing which lets TS connect to PostgreSQL).

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Most windows in TS allow only one 'instance' of them to be open at any time. Back in v2.0.0 I made it so you could have multiple Chart windows open at once, but that was it. Now that has been expanded to include the Trading Systems, Alerts, and Backtest Results windows. This makes it easier to compare - edit two or three, and line them up side-by-side.

Here is the full list of changes:

Fixed Or Added In v2.0.6

• Allow multiple instances for Backtest Results window, Trading Systems windows, and Alerts windows.
• Auto-login causes an error on upgrade, if you click the "Login" button instead of waiting for the auto-login to happen. What happens then is, the "do you want to upgrade" message appears twice. Clicking "Yes" on both results in the first time through working fine, but an error the second time.
• Help file updated to match v2.0.5 (changes to Backtest Results window made in this release are not reflected in the help file yet).

[Read the rest of this article...]

TS used to have the limitation of only working in trading accounts denominated in USD. There were some workarounds to get it working for other currencies, but now you don't have to bother with workarounds because TS does it properly by itself.

Fixed a few other things as well, and one in particular means you have some work to do yourself after upgrading. While TS was working only with Gain Capital and Oanda, it was easy to know how many units could be purchased - Oanda allows any number of units, while Gain Capital makes you buy them in multiples of 10K.

However, now that we're moving towards FXCM as well, FXCM have 3 different kinds of accounts, and you can buy different numbers of units in each one - multiples of 1K in their micro accounts; multiples of 10K in their mini accounts; and multiples of 100K in the 'real' accounts. So it's not possible anymore to just go by the company name. And so, each account has a new field where you tell TS how many units it can buy in that account - multiples of 1, 1K, 10K, or 100K. After upgrading, please check each of your accounts and make sure the setting is correct.

Similarly, backtesting has the same new feature. So please also check each backtesting configuration entry and make sure the setting is correct.

Here is the full list of changes:

Fixed Or Added In v2.0.5

• Remove limitation of TS only working in trading accounts denominated in USD.
• New setting on backtesting configurations and accounts - allow purchases in multiples of 1, 1K, 10K, 100K.
• Some of the indicators cannot be added to the chart... coz when I try to add the indicator, I get a message box which says... 'could not find config type' ... see attached screen capture attachment. It seems that indicators with TS after the name are loadable but ones...without TS.... are not...
• Double-clicking on the Chart window now makes it fill the available area on the screen. (There's also the "Actions..." > "Make maximum size" menu item, which does the same thing).
• I discovered that I only need to click 'OK' once... and then wait... or go and make a coffee... to 'add' the m/a ... (of period 2880 over 50K bars) but when performing this operation there is no egg-timer telling me that the software is thinking... If I get impatient and click more than once I get an exception error and have to close the program.
• Data Manager, File Loader, and Price History windows need to disable Close button when doing their respective functions.
• When I start TS V_2, on the trading system 'other' tab, the last gasp filter does not remember the setting, I have to re select my choice every time.
• FXCM account numbers are too big for the account number field.
• Number fields now have little up-down spinners (click the up button to increase the value, the down button to decrease it).
• I don't want TS to _create_ any messages, because with 1 min Systems it creates a lot. Like Activity Logging I want to turn it off.
• Oanda now allows trading in these currencies: AUD/CAD, EUR/NZD, GBP/CAD, NZD/CAD, NZD/JPY, USD/CZK, USD/HUF, USD/SEK.
• Is there a way to set the stop loss at the Minimum close of last x intervals for Long trades, vice versa for Short trades, Maximum close of last x intervals?
• Row Count menu item on Data Manager is now called "Table information", and shows row count, earliest date of price data, and latest date of price data in that table.
• Backtesting, when no USD in the currency pair being tested, and the trading system's money management says to use % of balance or VFP, then TS always 'buys' 1 contract. It was originally done this way because all calculations were converted back to USD, and if there is no USD in the currency pair, then % of balance cannot be calculated in USD. However, with TS not exclusive to USD accounts anymore, this restriction has also been removed.
• "Unexpected error" when click "Prices" link in toolbar (or probably any web link).
• Update web addresses to reflect new website structure.
• When an account was being used by an active trading system, and try to edit that account, a message would appear saying that the account cannot be edited, but it would appear to edit it anyway.
• When close Command Centre abruptly without switching off auto-trading/alerting, then open Command Centre again and download prices, auto-trading/alerting starts again even though the window shows them as being switched off.
• User Wizard doesn't ask for a server type (i.e. demo/live) when FXCM is selected for the company.
• Directional Movement System is not being calculated correctly.

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Well, Happy New Year!

I've spent the last few weeks making changes to my website. A lot of changes. If you're reading this through a feed, you should come and have a look. Though I'm not really convinced that I'll be keeping this new colour scheme...

The biggest addition would have to be the online version of the TS help manual. Here's the link:
http://www.thinkingstuff.com/atm/online-help-manual.aspx

While I was making the changes to my website, I realised that my blog was extremely boring :-) Actually, there should not be a smiley face there. I'm serious. So I went through and purged all the dead-weight posts.

After that I went and moved anything useful to its own page in an appropriate part of the website. My sitemap gives the full picture. Anyway, except for the posts where I outline what changed in each new version of my software, there's not many posts that remain in the blog.

All that's left is to not fall into the same pattern of tedium... :-)

This blog used to be educational. People used to write to me and thank me. That was back when I was writing the Systems Trading Theory series and the Problems With Backtesting series.

I want to get back to that type of thing. I'm also going to loosen up a bit about what I post. Maoxian and Eyal mix in personal stuff and reviews with their trading posts, and I enjoy both of those blogs immensely.

About TS - I saw a post more than a year ago saying that the main problem with TS was that it didn't support enough brokers. Since then I've added precisely zero extra brokers.

This is me telling you that I'm getting back on track. Right now. Step 1 - "purge the blog" is done :-)

Forums, I guess, will be the next big upgrade to this site, just as soon as I decide which forum software to go with.

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Support is as normal - within 24 hours of receiving your request.

Oanda snuck another transaction type in there - 'CloseOrder'.

Fixed Or Added In v2.0.4

• New Oanda transaction type: 'CloseOrder'
• "Change to Short" (or Long, depending on what's selected) button next to Rule Type.
• Need "saving backtest results" status, otherwise it looks like backtesting stops at calculating entries/exits.
• Should now see less "cannot find trade", "cannot find order" messages. These would happen when the order would be entered / trade would be exited, just before TS tries to update it. They'll still show up sometimes, but less frequently.
• Info added to TS help file regarding the "protected memory" error.

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On the Backtesting Results Window, there are now options you can choose from when you go to chart all the indicators and trade entries/exits, etc. I wouldn't normally put out a release just for that, but I also fixed a couple of things for some customers.

Fixed Or Added In v2.0.3

• Backtest Results window now has options to choose from when charting indicators.
• "X Completed Bars After Entry Bar" rule was waiting 1 bar too many. Can now also use 0 (zero) to indicate the rule should be true at the end of the entry bar.
• Change "Overbought setting" to "Value To Be Above", and "Oversold setting" to "Value To Be Below". Makes it a little easier to understand.
• More info added to TS help file.

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