An important part of using Amibroker is understanding how the database works.
All market data is stored locally in an Amibroker database, which is simply a folder with various files and subfolders in it.
You can set up multiple databases and switch between them.
And I encourage traders to use two databases:
One for backtesting with lots of data and another for real-time trading with the minimum data required.
This allows you to separate your work and get the most out of Amibroker depending on the situation.
When real-time trading, time and speed are critical.
But when you’re backtesting, time is not of the essence, so speed doesn’t matter as much.
So it’s smart to set up your databases to reflect this.
My backtesting database has 18 years of 1 minute bars for every symbol across the US markets.
My real-time database contains less than one year.
The backtesting database isn’t nearly as fast as the real-time database, but that’s fine – I don’t need it to be as fast.
That said, Amibroker is much, much faster than backtesting in Python.
I’ve worked with traders who see a 5X increase in speed in their backtest switching from Python to Amibroker!
Next time I’ll discuss backtesting speed and why it’s more important than you think…
-Dave
P.S. Are you stuck in your trading? You know you have potential, but you’re not sure what to do next? Get unstuck with my one-on-one coaching call.
