Electronic Investor

Power Tool for Traders

But Omega's latest is only for the well-heeled expert

REVIEWED by THERESA W. CAREY

Edited by Randall W. Forsyth

Omega Research, publisher of SuperCharts, a software package aimed at investors who are familiar with statistical analysis of trading data, has packaged three of its higher-end programs into the new ProSuite2000i. The firm will ship you TradeStation, RadarScreen and OptionStation in a single box, but you'll spend the next couple of years paying for it: $299.95 per month for 16 months (a total of about $4,800). That puts this suite over the top of our self-imposed limit of $1,000 for software packages, but it should be of interest to the very active traders among you. Each of the three major components of the suite is available separately ($199.95 per month for 12 months, or almost $2,400), but you get all three for the price of two.

Packaged with the suite is the GlobalServer, which is the new incarnation of the data downloading add-on from past versions of Omega's programs, and allows you to use either end-of-day or real-time data. GlobalServer is a major enhancement from past downloaders, but as with earlier versions of Omega products, it's still a program that's set off to the side rather than being fully integrated with the other pieces. This program is also used to clean up the data (Omega recommends daily data cleanup) to keep the system running smoothly.

Also incorporated in the package is Omega's EasyLanguage PowerEditor, which allows you to create your own indexes, formulas and option analysis techniques. Though the adjective "Easy" is something of a misnomer, the editor is easier to use than it was in the past, but it's far from a no-brainer. For instance, you'll have to learn to live with variable names such as MABULLISHCROSSOVR -- FASTLEN.

And forget about this software if your personal computer isn't up to date. The new suite is written for 32-bit operating systems, such as Windows 95, 98 or NT, so those of you still clinging to Windows 3.1 are out of luck. It's a resource gobbler, requiring at least 200 megabytes of disc space to get going, and a recommended one gigabyte if you want to keep a lot of data history on your hard disc. A fast processor and a high-speed modem or other connection to the Internet also are necessities. Unless you have bought a new computer in the last year or so, this isn't the program for you. (And if you haven't, why not? Especially given that new PCs cost a pittance, especially compared to the price of ProSuite 2000i.)

But if you have, and you've still got a few gigabytes of disc space left, and you like crunching numbers and developing trading systems, the suite opens up an incredibly robust toolbox for the committed, frequent trader. TradeStation takes the technical analysis tools in SuperCharts to the next level, and is designed to help you put together your own trading systems, and to backtest them over 30 years of history. (Historical data for over 10,000 stocks are included on the Historybank.Com CD, which is included with the suite.) There are certain systems you'll find difficult to test, such as market shifts based on the color of Alan Greenspan's choice of ties; but if it can be quantified, it can be modeled in TradeStation.

The usual technical analysis tools are included -- applying and interpreting technical indicators to individual stocks or the entire market. Beyond the technical indicators, which are very simple to apply, you can obtain "Expert Commentary" by clicking on an icon festooned with a graduate's cap and tassel, and the help screen that pops up is generally well-written and easy to understand. A helpful feature for the mobile professional is TradeStation's e-mail and pager alert system, which will holler at you when a particular stock meets your alert criteria, such as crossing a moving average.

TradeStation can be customized to make data points that meet your criteria extremely obvious, using the ShowMe and PaintBar studies. These studies help highlight conditions that you consider meaningful, and they come in handy when you're trying to figure out which indicators to include in your own trading system. New to this version of TradeStation are ActivityBars, which work on intraday data and can be fascinating. For instance, you can use an ActivityBar to analyze whether trades were made at the bid or the ask price, or whether there was a lot of institutional activity in an issue. Day traders will find this feature extremely useful.

Once you've built a trading system, TradeStation lets you test it either on end-of-day data or on a tick-by-tick basis. If you're a day trader, dealing with end-of-day systems won't help you much, but testing your system against each tick can be very useful. You can even factor the commissions you pay into the model. The System Report provides a summary of hypothetical trades using the system you've developed, and tells you whether you'd have made money or not. You can then optimize the system using TradeStation's optimization feature to calculate the values of the variables that work best.

Omega has set up direct links to E*Trade and Wall Street Access from TradeStation, so if you're online collecting data and one of the stocks you're following beeps you with an alert, you can click straight through to one of these brokers and place a trade.

RadarScreen is probably the most powerful stock screening program around. It allows you to scan markets and individual issues for top-performing stocks. You can use it simply as a quote window, which would be a real waste of its power, or you can customize its spreadsheet -- like interface to scan current and historical data over a variety of indicators, then rank and sort the results. If you're subscribing to real-time data, you can set the screen up so that the top-performing stocks based on your preset criteria are always displayed on your desktop, and they'll update dynamically as new data flow in. As with TradeStation, you can set alerts that will notify you via e-mail or by pager when a stock trips the trigger.

OptionStation is designed to both train the investor in the intricacies of option trading, and help develop a trading system to find profitable positions at minimal risk. The heart of the program is the Position Search, which displays up to 50 choices for a trade based on assumptions set by the trader. Omega doubled the number of search strategies available in this version of OptionStation, so once you've identified the asset you want to trade, the amount of capital you're willing to risk, and your assumptions about where the market is going, the program returns a theoretical profit-and-loss statement. Omega includes a probability calculator in OptionStation, which can give you some indication whether the assumptions you've made about the market are reasonable. For options traders, this is an incredibly powerful tool. The results are displayed in a spreadsheet-like format and are not as graphically intensive as the TradeStation part of the suite.

Omega's ProSuite2000i is powerful, quirky and expensive. If you invest in it, be sure to invest in some training, and in the time to get to know the program well.

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