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Trading System Lab FAQ

Technical Questions

Why is TSL so fast?
TSL uses a High Speed Genetic Programming (GP) Engine to arrive at an excellent Trading System solution in a few minutes for most Daily Systems. The GP is new technology and is one of the most advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms available today. The GP has been used successfully in other fields to solve difficult problems and is now available to allow Automatic Trading System Generation.
How do I know that TSL will produce Trading Systems that will work into the future?
TSL’s GP uses Parsimony Pressure, Randomization, Out of Sample Testing, no preconceived Trading Strategy as a starting point, Statistical tests, Run Path Logs, InSample and Out of Sample Scatter Plots and an unbiased Terminal Set to give the greatest possible chance that a continuing robust Trading System will result. No ethical developer will give a guarantee that any asset or trading strategy will be profitable.
Can I use my own data, patterns or indicators?
Yes. We provide you with the specific format required to create your own data files or use your own databases.
I have a Trading System with optimizable parameters. Will TSL optimize it?
TSL will not optimize your exact parameters in your Trading System. Optimizing parameters is a double-edged issue. TSL emerges new Trading Systems, not just optimizes an existing system. If you want to simply optimize your existing Trading System we suggest you use older technology such as a Genetic Algorithm. However, we can put your patterns and indicators and even your trading signals into the Terminal Set of TSL and use the GP to evolve new equations and solutions. This is available to existing clients.
Do I need to know how to program to use TSL?
No, not at all. In fact great care has been taken to automatically perform most difficult tasks in the TSL Platform, like data preprocessing. Programming knowledge will help you out however in additional advanced projects with TSL.

You will need to be able to copy and paste the TSL designed code into packages such as TradeStation and MultiCharts.

Do you have a trial or demo version?
There are several flash demos that show you the process used to generate Trading Systems automatically, but a full working demo version is not available. Note that we do not provide free trial periods for any of our legacy systems like BigBlue or RMESA.
Do I need TradeStation™ to be able to use TSL?
No. You may use TradeStation or one of our other data preprocessors to automatically preprocess the data used in TSL. You may use TradeStation or several other trading platforms to trade the systems generated by TSL. Platform interface is accomplished through platform native language or a DLL interface. Since TSL produces Java, C, Assembly and several other trading languages, you may take this code and use it in your own order execution software or platform. Of course, the C to Easy Language Translator (CEL) easily translates the GP trading system code directly into TradeStation’s Easy Language, so running evolved Trading Systems in TradeStation is very simple. For your custom platform there will be some additional programming required.
How long will training take for a Trading System to be created?
Training times are longer with intraday data compared to daily data due to the size of the training file. A typical daily data system with 20 years (5000 bars) of data will take a few minutes to complete on a fast desktop computer. Intraday systems will take longer with training times roughly proportional to the number of bars used.
Will my processor peak out at 100% when I am training.
No. Our tests show that your processor should run at about 5% when training a Trading System on one instance. With TSL you may start up many instances of TSL with each instance running at full speed. We call this the Multi-Instance feature of TSL. We have demonstrated as many as 40 individual instances of TSL can run simultaneously on a single PC. See videos for more information.

Daytrading Systems

I want to create a trading system using a few months of eMini intraday data. Is this a good idea?
No. If you want to curve fit TSL to a few months of data, go right ahead. Although the results in sample might be great, the out of sample results will be poor due to curve fitting. You should use 3-10 years of intraday data as a minimum. I developed RMESA on 14 years of data in 1996. Now I can use 42 years of data in my testing (1982-2024). More data is generally better in Trading System design. Don’t waste your time with just a few months or years of data, daily or intraday.
What size bars would you recommend to use in TSL for intraday systems?
You should use 15 minute or larger bars, unless you wish to run the training over night, then you may use smaller bars, but again, use as much data as possible when you create your Step 1 data files.

General Questions

What are the hardware and software requirements for TSL?
64 bit Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 are recommended. A fast CPU is recommended. See: PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks – High End.  32GB ram minimum and at least 500MB available space on your hard drive.  1920 x 1080 or higher display is recommended. TradeStation 9.0 or higher if trading platform implementation desired.  Market data for the markets you wish to evolve a Trading System on Data formats accepted: CSI, MetaStock, AIQ, TradeStation, Free Internet data, ASCII, TXT, CSV, CompuTrac, DowJones, FutureSource, TeleChart2000v3, TechTools, XML, Binary and Internet Streaming data.

We have noticed that TSL Pro and QSL run fastest on the high end AMD CPU’s whereas TSL Lite and Alpha Factors run fastest on the high end Intel CPU’s

TSL is higher priced than other development platforms. Why?
TSL uses a very advanced Linear, Automatic Induction of Machine Code with Genetic Programming Engine that was very costly to produce. The TSL platform has been producing trading systems for several years, yet there has not been, nor is there currently any other Genetic Programming platform that automatically produces trading system code and that has the features of TSL. These capabilities are simply not available in any other platform. All of these unique elements required substantial programming efforts and were costly to create. Additionally, the purchaser of the TSL platform essentially becomes a trading system developer. The in-house cost to develop capabilities of this level, or to manually create the quantity and quality of systems available with TSL, would be substantially more expensive than the purchase price of TSL. So, what would you like to do: spend years developing trading systems using older, less efficient methods, or use an existing, modern package that accomplishes this for you in a fraction of the time? All in all, either developers spend a great deal of time and money attempting to develop systems manually or spends considerably less money and purchases an existing platform capable of producing trading systems now! The platform of choice is Trading System Lab.

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Risk Disclosure: Futures and forex trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones’ financial security or life style. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. 

Hypothetical Performance Disclosure: Hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which are described below. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown; in fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk, and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk of actual trading. for example, the ability to withstand losses or to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can also adversely affect actual trading results. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results and all which can adversely affect trading results.