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Program overview

TRADING RECIPES is a software program for financial traders, which has been developed over the past 12 years. It is designed to let traders, even those with no programming experience, develop, test and trade multi-market trading systems. Now your simulations can include multiple open positions in two, three, or any number of  markets (futures, stocks, mutual funds etc) you trade. You now have the power to visualize your system's combined day to day trading activity for all the markets you select. Think about that for just a minute. Now you are no longer limited to one-market at a time simulations. You can test your trading ideas on any basket of stocks, futures, mutual funds etc. Then get the daily signals you need for actual trading.

Use "What-If " analysis to define a money management strategy that works for the amount of capital you want to invest. Teach yourself how to manage risk in a way that allows you to reach your goals quickly and safely. Detailed reports give you a thorough cash flow analysis of your system's day to day risks and rewards based on the combination of markets you choose. Plus it will generate a report each day that notifies you of your system's up-coming trades, stop adjustments, risks, etc. Develop, test, and trade as many systems as you like.

The goal is to help you develop a successful, usable trading system by allowing you to compare a wide variety of trading, money management, and portfolio strategies before risking real dollars in the market.

Most importantly, it is the only software on the market that allows you to test two, three, or any number of systems simultaneously. Now you can test combinations of systems to increase reward and reduce risk. TRADING RECIPES is the only software program that lets you test strategies like the best traders do.

It is not specifically geared toward the professional trader, although quite a few well known traders and professional money managers use it. It is also a tool for those who want to become professionals and for those who want to learn how to use trading to become more self sufficient.

Message from the author, Bob Spear

TRADING RECIPES is the result of the years I spent seeking answers to mostly the wrong questions. It is the pleasant product of what others have called "failing one's way to success." Users find that they are able to make great things happen when they can visualize, model, or simulate a complete trading plan. In order to accomplish this, my job was to design the software to be as non-restrictive in this process as I could possibly make it.

Of the many questions I have asked, precious few proved to be good ones. If you are like me though, once you do find a good question, that's just the beginning of a series of questions: Is it better to trade one market with one system or one market with a lot of systems? Or a lot of markets with one system? Or a lot of markets with a lot of systems? Isn't Risk Control really just Profit Control? Is it even possible to achieve exponential equity growth? How did Larry Williams do that? Will I have to trade in 30 markets at once? If that's even a good idea, would I go nuts trying to manage all that at once? How much capital do I need to start trading this plan? What sort of day-to-day ride can I expect?

And more questions: If I can smooth out my equity curve, then can I turn up the heat a little and not pay for it with larger drawdowns? Will I get into trouble having half my equity at risk today? Is it a bad idea to have a lot of my money at risk in the grains? Or should I spread out more evenly into different sectors? What's the likelihood for margin calls? What happens to my equity growth if down the road I have to limit my position sizes in some markets because of small open interest? Should I introduce stock trading into my futures trading plan or the other way around? If either is a good idea, at what point should I initiate the change? What about corporate bonds or mutual funds? Would specializing in the S&P make sense for me?

TRADING RECIPES is a language driven program that helps you find answers to your questions. You do this by running trading simulations designed by you or others and then examining the results of your efforts. You have control in designing your entry/exit rules and importantly, your money management plan.

TRADING RECIPES package comes with example entry/exit systems as well as bet sizing strategies (one of these has performed particularly well since its release in 1994) to use for trading or to use as a point of departure for expanding your own ideas. The printed manual includes a step-by-step tutorial.

Anyone who is interested in bet sizing or in how TRADING RECIPES can help finding answers to the above kinds of questions can start with downloading the demo directly from this web site.

 

-Bob Spear

I would like to thank the following people for the help and support I received from them while developing TRADING RECIPES:

My father William W. Spear, CPA for his patience in explaining the vagaries of commodity trading accounting until I finally got all of it.

My friend Stephen L. Brewster for his tireless efforts in testing the program for bugs and suggesting many of it's features.

Jim Huguley for being the best Basic programmer on the planet and giving me unfettered access to his bottomless bag of tricks.

Thanks also to the many TRADING RECIPES customers who have taken the time to offer suggestions for improvements over the years.

TRADING RECIPES is a multiple language effort. These are the main tools used:

MS Basic PDS 7.1, MS C 5.0, MS Assembler 5.0. B-Tree Index routines use Fred Lepow's Index Manager. Many 3rd party library routines are from Ethan Winer's QuickPak Professional.