Search
× Search
Sunday, December 22, 2024

Archived Discussions

Recent member discussions

The Algorithmic Traders' Association prides itself on providing a forum for the publication and dissemination of its members' white papers, research, reflections, works in progress, and other contributions. Please Note that archive searches and some of our members' publications are reserved for members only, so please log in or sign up to gain the most from our members' contributions.

OpenQuant vs MultiCharts

photo

 Nikolai P., Best Encompass Tools & Plugins: EncompDEV.com

 Friday, May 29, 2015

I program in C# and have a license for OpenQuant (non subscription version that was $1K). OpenQuant is now changed into monthly subscription, while MultiCharts is available as a one-time purchase for only $1.5K. Has anyone tried both with C# and maybe can comment on what they did and did not like with MultiCharts?


Print

3 comments on article "OpenQuant vs MultiCharts"

photo

 lawrence corna, Director at LCCM Lawrence Corna Capital Markets

 Saturday, May 30, 2015



I am also looking for feedback on this topic


photo

 Alex Krishtop, trader, researcher, consultant in forex and futures

 Tuesday, June 2, 2015



OpenQuant pros:

1. Better connectivity with Interactive Brokers. My experience was a strategy which ran for 4 months without maintenance.

1. Better access to low level elements.

1. Easier creation of multi-market strategies (those that involve 2 and more different instruments in different time zones and time frames).

OpenQuant cons:

1. Working with more or less complex portfolios is a nightmare.

1. You need to manually create many exceptions handlers in case you'd like to trade live.

Multicharts pros:

1. A more straightforward way to code strategies because of somewhat more well-thought object model.

1. Excellent (almost) portfolio backtested, and starting version 9 — portfolio trader. Almost — because they intentionally removed the ability to combine instruments from different time zones and require now to work in a single time zone, GMT or local.

1. A FAR MORE reliable backtesting engine.

1. Full support for multiple cores (multiple processors). Install in in Amazon 64-core environment and you're amazed by the speed of genetic optimization.

Multicharts cons:

1. Implementation of many brokers connectors is not very reliable. Periodical maintenance required.

1. A true memory eater.

1. Periodical restart is required in live trading (approx. once every 1-2 months).

All in all, I've been with MC for many years and can't see any reason to migrate.


photo

 Nikolai P., Best Encompass Tools & Plugins: EncompDEV.com

 Tuesday, June 2, 2015



Hi Alex, thanks for your reply.

I am ok with nightly restarts. My experience with OpenQuant was somewhat minimal, but when I used it - connection with IB was very good. But data feeds from IQ would on occasion crash IQ adapter with memory overflows. However that crash was only observed with > 500 symbols for processing.

I am also OK with memory eating. It will run on a server where I can easily dedicate 10-30Gb to this. Plus the new strategy that I want to test will only need 10-20 symbols, so it would likely be a lot easier on memory.

Did you ever try TradeStation? Do they allow programming in C# now?

Did you try intentionally putting System.GC.Collect() in your code at the end of the trading? Once, this trick helped me prolong usage of one 32-bit application. Before GC.Collect it would crash ~ 3-4 times per day on normal usage patterns reaching to ~ 1Gb RAM. With that, it would on average not crash, or crash once during the day, and at night these applications were all forcefully restarted anyway.

Please login or register to post comments.

TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS INVOLVES SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF LOSS AND IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS
Terms Of UsePrivacy StatementCopyright 2018 Algorithmic Traders Association