Our customers say: "You don't need to spend a fortune on the software - AmiBroker gives you all the features of all pricey technical analysis packages at very affordable one-time fee. Now everyone can enjoy sophisticated analysis tools."

(Sounds too good to be true? Check out testimonials page)

Feature set

System Design, Test and Validation

• Back-testing
  • True Portfolio-level testing
  • Dynamic portfolio-level position sizing
  • Blazing fast speed (Nasdaq 100 symbol back-test of simple MACD system, covering 10 years end-of-day data takes below one second)*
  • No limit on number of symbols under test (capable of handling enitre US stock universe)
  • Supports all built-in and custom intervals (daily and intraday)
  • Multiple time-frames in one system
  • Multiple symbol data access (allows creation of spread strategies, global market timing signals, etc)
  • Scoring & ranking, dynamic trade allocation via position score
  • Rotational trading
  • Scaling in/out (pyramiding)
  • Pair trading
  • Customizable Equity/Drawdown Chart
  • Custom Backtester interface
  • Dynamic Rebalancing
  • Custom metrics
  • Multiple currency support
  • All instrument classes
  • Futures mode (margin/point value support)
  • Mutual fund support (early redemption fee, early exit restrictions)
  • Custom commissions
  • Full trade price control (can emulate slippage) and trade delays
  • Variable built-in stops: max. loss, profit target, trailing (incl. Chandelier), N-bar (timed) all with customizable re-entry delay
  • Support for constraints like round lot size, tick size, minimum trade size, maximum trade value as percent of bar volume
  • Detailed trade listing
  • Detailed reports for all, long-only, short-only trades with 42 built-in metrics including Sharpe ratio, Ulcer Index, CAR/MDD and many others
  • Profit distribution chart, Maximum Favourable Excursion chart, Maximum Adverse Excursion chart
  • Automatic storage, maintenance and viewing of all historical tests conducted via the Report Explorer
• Optimization
  • Portfolio-level Optimization engine fully supports all backtester features listed above
  • User-defined objective function (optimization target)
  • Upto 100 optimization parameters at once
  • Blazing fast speed (10 year EOD, 100 symbols, 100 exhaustive opt. steps takes 25 seconds)*
  • Exhaustive (full grid) optimization
  • Non-exhaustive (smart) optimization using different evolutionary methods: (Particle Swarm Optimization), CMA-ES (Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutionary Strategy) with full source codes
  • Optimizer open API allowing to developing custom smart optimizers
  • Three-dimensional, OpenGL animated optimization charts for robustness analysis
• Validation
  • Walk-Forward testing with user-definable start, end, step, anchored / non-anchored mode
  • User definable target (objective) function
  • Sliced in-sample / out-of-sample equity charts
  • Symbol picking randomization via position score
  • Price variation robustness testing via randomization of trade prices

Charting

• Object-oriented drawing tools (trend lines, rays, parallel lines, regression channels, fibonacci retracement, expansion, Fibonacci time extensions, Fibonacci timezone, arc, gann square, gann square, cycles, circles, rectangles, text on the chart,arrows, and more)
• Drag-and-drop indicator creation (just drag moving average over say RSI to create smoothed RSI)
• Live! parameters (change the indicator parameter using slider and see it updated live, immediatelly as you move the slider, great for visually finding how indicators work)
• All classic indicators included (ROC, RSI, MACD, OBV, CCI, MFI, NVI, Stochastics, Ultimate oscillator, DMI, ADX, Parabolic SAR, TRIN, Advance/Decline line, Accumulation/Distribution, TRIX, Chaikin oscillator and many more)
• Referencing multiple symbol data in one chart (relative performance charts, spreads, composites, artificial data)
• Chart Playback (Bar Replay tool allows to playback charts using historical data, great tool for learning and paper-trading)
• Symbol linking
• Interval linking
• Instant switching of intervals (on-the fly time compression without need to download compressed data)
• Excel-like, multiple chart sheets for easy switching between various indicator setups
• All possible intervals supported
  • Yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily charts
  • Intraday charts
  • N-minute charts
  • 5-second and 15-second charts - Pro version
  • N-tick charts - Pro version
  • N-range bars
  • N-volume bars
• Graphics overlays, user-definable layers
• User-definable Z-order
• Multiple windows, panes, scales, intervals possible at the same time
• Multi-monitor support
• Floating windows
• Fast zoom/scroll
• Extensible blank space
• Chart interpretations - automatic descriptions of the meaning of given indicator

Real-time features

• Multiple data-source support (you are not locked to one data vendor, you can connect to eSignal, IQFeed, Interactive Brokers, QCharts, CQG, among others)
• Multi-page Real-Time quote window (with customizable column layout)
• Easy alerts (with customizable text, popup-window, e-mail, sound)
• Unlimited floating Time&Sales windows
• GetRTData function (the access to real-time data from formula level)
• Open Data API (allowing building plugins to connect to any 3rd party data source)
• DDE plugin (allows connection to any data source that features DDE server)
• Data saved locally (real time and backfill data are saved locally so you can keep old data even if you unsubscribe from data source)
• Scans, explorations, backtest can be run on live real-time data
• Automatic "active symbol list" maintenance (AmiBroker automatically subscribes/unsubscribes symbols from 3rd party source using FIFO (first-in-first-out) approach upto the limit of your RT subscription, saving you from headache of maintaining active symbol lists)
• All charts, including all indicators can be refreshed in real-time or at user selected intervals (such as every N-seconds)
• Automatic trading via programming interface (currently Interactive Brokers only)

Programming features

• All features of the program are available from code level
• Automatic formula creation via drag-and-drop (when you use charting interface AmiBroker writes formula for you)
• Automatic formula creation from plain english description (AFL Formula Wizard - see video)
• 'C'-like, array-based formula language (AmiBroker Formula Language - AFL), making indicator and system coding short and easy
  (basic trading system contains of just two lines of code, plus our coding for Stocks&Commodities Traders' Tips is always the shortest)
• Array operation speed matching that of assembly (ie. native machine) code
• User-defined functions, procedures, #includes
• User defined global/local variables, static variables
• Looping constructs while, for, do-while
• Conditional execution (if-else, switch-case-break)
• Unique AddToComposite function for easy creation of composite symbols
• 317 built-in functions featuring math functions, indicators, basic price pattern, date/time, categorisation, string operations, trading system toolbox, time frame, file operations, etc
• Open Indicator API (allows to code your indicators in any language capable of producing Windows DLL)
• OLE/COM object support (can call any method , read/write any property of external COM objects)
• JScript/VBScript support (can embed parts written in JScript or VBScript within the formula)
• Code profiler built-in (displays timing of all functions used within formula)
• Code future leak check (automatically checks if the formula references future)
• Code prettify (automatically formats the code)
• extensive OLE automation interface (write scripts to automate any task)

Miscellaneous features

• Data
  • Free historical data from Yahoo Finance, MS Money, Google Finance, etc (automatic download)
  • Free fundamental data from Yahoo Finance (automatic download)
  • Multiple 3rd party data vendor support (Quotes Plus, TC2000, CSI, eSignal, IQFeed, FastTrack, Interactive Brokers etc).
  • Reads Metastock databases directly
  • Open Data API for connectivity with any data source
  • DDE plugin, ODBC plugin for DDE and external database connectivity
• Symbol and list maintenance
  • Categorisation system (assigning symbols to markets, groups, sectors/industries, favorites)
  • Unlimited user-definable watch list
  • Filtering by any category
  • AFL access to category structure
• State of the art programming
  • AmiBroker is written in C++ (compiled to machine code), the same language in which operating systems are written. It runs natively on the CPU without need of any kind of virtual machine or byte-code interpreter, unlike Java or .NET programs. The fact that CPU runs native machine code allows achieving maximum execution speed. The AFL language can process as much as 166 million data bars per second on 2GHz CPU, see this for details.
  • The AmiBroker code has been hand optimized and profiled to gain maximum speed and minimize size. Small code runs many times faster because it is able to fit into CPU on-chip caches. Full setup program with example database and help files is just about 6 (six) megabytes, half of that is documentation and data. The executables alone (.exe and .dll libraries) are just 3.5 MB. In today's world of bloatware we are proud to deliver probably the most compact technical analysis application.

* Measurements done on faily low-end 2GHz AMD Athlon64, 1GB RAM, Windows XP 32bit, AmiBroker 5.20