Learning from the past and testing strategies.

[JacksonAK92]

Since you can learn so much about trading through experience, I'm wondering if there are any programs or websites which allow you to essentially go back in time by selecting a date, and creating a portfolio based upon the statistics for securities available at that time, and then to see the results of that portfolio instantly without having to risk any money or having to wait long periods of time to solidify a strategy by telling the program or website to show what the results for that portfolio would be after X amount of time. Does such a program or website exist that would allow me to do something like this?

[Albert0373]

You can do statistical analysis on historical data by the tick.

[tlsurfsupper]

Since you can learn so much about trading through experience, I'm wondering if there are any programs or websites which allow you to essentially go back in time by selecting a date, and creating a portfolio based upon the statistics for securities available at that time, and then to see the results of that portfolio instantly without having to risk any money or having to wait long periods of time to solidify a strategy by telling the program or website to show what the results for that portfolio would be after X amount of time. Does such a program or website exist that would allow me to do something like this?

pm me

[Bolimomo]

... I'm wondering if there are any programs or websites which allow you to essentially go back in time by selecting a date, and creating a portfolio based upon the statistics for securities available at that time, and then to see the results of that portfolio instantly without having to risk any money or having to wait long periods of time to solidify a strategy by telling the program or website to show what the results for that portfolio would be after X amount of time.


Sorry... no disrespect... but this does not make sense at all.

What can you achieve by doing this?

So you can tell yourself you should have bought AAPL when it was traded at $10 a shares, and you could have made half a million dollars with $10000?

And you are glad that you didn't invest in FNM, that you would have lost your half a million?

Why would a strategy that fits the curve so well be good for you going forward?

[JacksonAK92]

Sorry... no disrespect... but this does not make sense at all.

What can you achieve by doing this?

So you can tell yourself you should have bought AAPL when it was traded at $10 a shares, and you could have made half a million dollars with $10000?

And you are glad that you didn't invest in FNM, that you would have lost your half a million?

Why would a strategy that fits the curve so well be good for you going forward?

I'm not saying that I would buy all of the companies that performed best in the past. I don't really know which stocks those were because i've only been involved in the market for about half of a year. I'm saying that I would analyze companies with data from the past using the same methods that I use now, and select however many companies I want for my portfolio, then see how they did over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc. If I continued to do poorly with several tests using the same method then I think it would be safe to say that I shouldn't use that method in the future. Does that make sense?

[JacksonAK92]

You can do statistical analysis on historical data by the tick.

I know that I can find the stock prices from the past, but is there a website that gives more statistics than just that from the past like P/E, P/B debt/equity, margins growth over the past 5 years, and maybe even insider ownership. I know I could calculate most of those things, but it would be a real pain to have to do that for many companies and have to dig around for all of the earnings data and expenses. I would probably need annual and quarterly reports to do it. Also is there any way for me to find annual reports from the past?

[HooctAwnFonix]

On Scottrade they give you free access to a Reuter's Research Report, which does track some of the company's numbers over time (P/E ratio specifically is there).

I'm pretty sure it doesn't reach further than 5 years though...