I’m just a regular guy like you, but I have been trading my own money full-time since 2005.

Along the way, I have tried just about every form of trading there is. I have traded stocks, futures, Forex, options, and I have tried many, many different trading systems. I have signed up to newsletters, services, signals and data from many sources and brokers.

I have used most of the major trading platforms including TradeStation, Traders Studio, Trading Blox, Telechart, Amibroker, etc, and I have learned to code my own indicators and trading systems in all of them. I learned about the perils of backtesting and the correct processes to avoid such pitfalls.

After spending years coding literally hundreds of indicators and systems, and backtesting them, I wanted to do more with my data.

I learned to code in Python and spent 18 months coding a huge ‘system of systems’, which tested four different systems, each designed to work in a different market environment. The mother system tested 9 different settings for each of the 4 component systems, again based on being effective in different types of market.

I ran this every night on a custom filtered watchlist of 1500 stock symbols, based on price, volume and liquidity. The resulting mega-system thus ran 54,000 backtests (4 x 9 x 1500), and compiled and summarised data from all of them—every night! This took many hours to complete on a well-specified computer—I had to start the run as soon as data was available for the close, in order to get my trades on for the next morning’s open!

This gave me two important pieces of knowledge—the type of trading system that was working best right now, and the stocks that were performing best across a number of different trading systems. Pretty cool. But I ended up not using it. I found I could get similar data, similar information—and similar trades—from simpler processes, using less brute force.

I think most, if not all, traders go through some form of this journey. Mine might be a little more obsessive than most.

I also learned, pretty comprehensively, that indicators and trading systems are unlikely to work over the long term on their own. They need context that comes from somewhere else.

I ended up coming full circle back to trading stocks, and full circle back to trading in the simplest way possible.

The concept of momentum, and its family member relative strength, has come to figure prominently in my trading because it flat out works. It’s simple, easy to understand, and easy to apply—if you have the right tools.

The tools were the stumbling block for me. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, and I couldn’t find everything necessary. And what I could find was expensive and scattered across several sources. So I created what I needed and put it all in the same place. And made it available here for less than the cost of a daily cup of coffee!