Developing a backtesting system

[turtlet]

Hi Guys

I wanted to develop a backtesting software that could analyse historical price data, perform some functions on them and tell me if the system worked.

Since i had no prior coding experience, i bought Murach's VB 2008, downloaded vb express edition and started to learn. (5 months into it now)

I had a few doubts which i hope you guys would be able to answer

1) Is VB the right language to design backtesting softwares?
2) If not then how different/difficult are the alternate languages you guys suggest?

Thanks.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The language is fine, as it will do whatever is needed. It sounds like your project will involve lots of mathematical modeling, which could be performed a bit faster in unmanaged C/C++, but the increase in speed is probably not worth learning a new language for, as the speedup will not be so great that it should make a practical difference.

[turtlet]

Thanks Hiker.
That was helpful. My projects will involve a bit of math. Nothing too advanced. The highest I would go is basic statistics like student's t test/ sharpe/sortino ratios etc. I think i can start off VBA for excel as well and take it up from there.

I definitely welcome other member's views on this. Guidance from people who have developed backtesting softwares will be invaluable.

Regards

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's not the level of math that is an issue, it's the amount. In fact, you would see a larger gain by moving to C if you used nothing more than integer addition than you would if the math involves floating point numbers. But you have to use LOTS of either one for the difference to matter.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I should also note that with a name like Turtlet, I would expect that a "BackTesting" routine would be a form of Shell function.

[turtlet]

Yes thats right.
There will be a fair quantity of calculations etc that will be done. Comparing previous highs etc. I have already started some things on excel using VBA.

What do you think about MATLAB?