Book Review: Tradestation Made Easy by Sunny J. Harris

If you have Tradestation or you are thinking of getting it you are not alone. Many traders and investors use its powerful features to aid in searching, analyzing, and even automated trading of stocks. If you are using it, are you getting the most out of it? If you are like most, you thought of an idea and wished you knew more about Easy Language and or the methods of moving the idea from your head (or the back of an envelope) onto the trading platform.

I believe Tradestation is a must have for anyone that takes the markets seriously and doesn't want to spend thousands of dollars a month to get all that Tradestation offers. I have used Tradestation for over five years and have spent hundreds of hours reading, coding, and learning Easy Language and the Tradestation software platform.

In my reading, I recently came across a wonderful book called 'TRADESTATION MADE EASY!' by Sunny J. Harris and published by Wiley. I read good things about the author and the book so I received the book with high expectations. With over 700 pages, this book is packed with great information. I started very quickly dog-earing pages for future reference, and I was doing it so often that I ended up using sticky notes to help my quickly get to pages for future use. It should be noted that this is not a beginner's book in how to setup Tradestation on your computer and logging into your account. This reference is much more advanced with examples in the methods of getting things done once you are past the 'newbie' stage and desire getting some real work done. Harris is very clear in her writing, and it is obvious she has used the product enough to know what the average user will be thinking and experiencing.

Topics covered include the use of Easy Language and an explanation of programming methods for non-programmers, development of trading signals with examples, reporting of expected results, and warnings in what NOT to do (i.e. curve-fitting, which is the selection of data that is likely to give the desired results but not likely to be the future expected results).

The discussion on optimization alone makes this reference guide well worth getting a copy. Harris instructs the reading in using some of the lessor known features of Tradestation so that the reader can automatically test and record an idea using different variables. This powerful technique can save massive amounts of time compared to doing it manually, and perhaps multitudes of the cost of the book in better results.

As someone who prefers to gain my information from a book rather then searching ad nauseum online, I really love the appendixes that are included. Included are Formulas, Reserved Words, User Groups (for the times you do need to go online to find what you want), Built-in Functions, Indicators and more. Plus, I like having easy to understand descriptions of what they are and what they do. Much better in my opinion then even the software platform's help.

If you are using Tradestation and want to use more powerful trading, scanning, analyzing, and back-testing components 'TRADESTATION MADE EASY!' is a great way to implement improvements immediately. It is easy to see that Harris eats what she cooks when it comes to Tradestation advice. I attribute the fast pace of my absorbing the content as a result of Harris actually trading and using the product. It is hard to substitute real world experience and you do not have to when learning the methods taught.

If you use Tradestation ( and you should be), get a copy of this book. You will not regret it, as I know I have not.