Sacha,
You're the programmer, and the project is yours to shape its destiny. But my take is this.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it until it is." Yeah, there are some minor changes that maybe should be done, like, letting the user determine capital deployed at a more realistic level than $1 million and letting the user decide whether to keep positions sizes equal (my preference with real money).
But the program already offers nearly as much as MetaStock ever did, at one-tenth the price. So that raises the question of whom your intended audience really is. Are you trying to target beginning investors/traders who aren't going to want to spend $50-$100 bucks PER MONTH for a backtesting service/program? Or are you trying to undercut the high-end services/programs? IF you want to "do well while doing good", I'd say to skip adding features and try to make the program easy to use for people who are math klutzes and/or who have zero programming experience, but who might have a budding interest in trying to make a few bucks in the equity casinos (--err, stock market) or how they might better manage their 401k.
Here's what I'm thinking. The typical 401k is based on mutual funds, which StockAnalze doesn't chart. Also, the typical 401k severely restricts the number of fund switches that can be done each quarter. That makes most of SA's pre-loaded trading systems useless to them. That problem is easy enough to fix if the user has had experience building trading systems. Few investors have. Furthermore, they don't really enjoy the investing/trading game and just to be told what to buy.
But what they don't realize is that it doesn't matter
WHAT they buy. It matters
WHEN they sell. It's managing their risks and cutting their losses that matters most. You're familiar when Buffet's Two rules, right?
#1, Don't lose money. #2, Remember Rule #1. Right now, Schwab is running a promotion that them not already in the market should consider.
https://www.schwab.com/investing-starter-kitThe offer is this. Open an account, fund it with $100 bucks, and Schwab will give you ten slices of stocks from the SP500 valued at $100 total. In short, if person opens an account, he/she can double their money. But what those stocks will be worth next week or next month is a whole 'nother matter. It might be more. But it probably will be less, because we're moving into to bear market. But here's the kicker. As soon as those ten stocks are in the person's account, they can be sold and the money deployed on better opportunities WHICH STOCKANALZE CAN BE DIRECTED TO FIND.
In fact, if you want to launch a thread based on just such an investing/trading project, I'd be happy to participate, as well as try to get some trading buddies involved. Right now, what's the situation is this country? There is zero financial education in the schools. Inflation is running close to 20%. Most people have a day job and family responsibilities. They're lucky if they have a 401k, much less a DB pension. If they want to retire some day, they need to learn how to deal with markets. But they've got no role models to look to, nor much time to learn on their own. But they can find a $100 bucks and maybe 20 minutes a day. They aren't going to be able to turn a $200 dollar account into the money they'll need to retire with. But a couple of years of engaging that account will enable them to acquire the skills they need to manage bigger money. Meanwhile, if they're the least bit careful, the whole project can be done on Schwab's nickel due to the opening match. In fact, if they open that account and trade carefully, they could use their profits to pay for buying StockAnalyze. And that would be a hoot, and three-way win for everyone.
Charlie
Stockalyze
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