In this section I want to talk to you about probably one of the most important aspects of your trading setup, the data that you feed into your trading software. Now, there’s data providers and there’s data providers. And today I want to explain to you why Norgate Data is absolutely the best, how you can install it and what you can expect when you use it. So in this quick video I just want to give you an overview of why you should use Norgate Data if you’re trading either U.S. stocks or Australian stocks or Canadian stocks.

Okay. First of all, there’s lots of different data providers with various different levels of quality control, and little attention to detail, and different downloading mechanisms. I can safely say that Norgate has absolutely the highest quality end-of-day data available in the market. Norgate has put a huge amount of effort into their quality control, into their processes to make sure the data is right every single day, and that it’s kept up to date. So, when use Norgate Data you can be absolutely confident that you’re getting the right information to drive your trading decisions.

Second reason why I’m suggesting you should use Norgate Data is that the installation and maintenance of Norgate Data with Amibroker is incredibly easy. Norgate comes with a downloader that can be automated and scheduled, so it just keeps your data up to date all day long. Whenever your computer is on it makes sure the data is up to date. It also has a plugin that links it seamlessly with Amibroker, and that does all of the maintenance within Amibroker. So if, for example, a stock changes its name, or a stock changes its ticket code, or a new stock gets listed, or an old stock get delisted, all of that is automatically reflected in your Amibroker database by the Amibroker plugin. So it makes it really super easy for you to keep your data and information up to date. Again, so nothing gets lost. You don’t fall into the trap of having old data or inconsistencies in your data that affect your trading decisions.

Second thing is installation is super, super easy. Okay. So when you subscribe to Norgate Data there’s a simple set of steps to follow on the member’s area, which I’ll show you in the next video on the member’s area that…

Sorry, when you subscribe to Norgate the next thing is that the installation is super, super easy. So once you’ve subscribed to Norgate they’ve got instructions on the website, which I’ll show you in the next video. Follow them step by step and in just a couple of minutes you’ll be up and running, ready to go. So it’s very straightforward. They’ve thought of everything to make it easy for their data users. The thing that I really like once you’re set up is this data base maintenance is automatically done for you. So any changes in the list of stocks, listings, delistings, changes in ticket codes and changes in stock names, it’s all automatically reflected straight into your Amibroker database. So you don’t have to worry about doing any manual updates at all, which makes it way better than other data providers on the market.

Then, the next reason why you should use Norgate is they have a very good customer support program. So when you ask questions, when you’ve got problems, their support is very support is very responsive so you’ll be able to easily get the support that you need, if in the unlikely event you have any problems.

And then the last thing that really makes Norgate interesting, and this is critical, is it gives you access, depending on which level you subscribe to. It gives you access to delisted stocks and historically accurate index constituents. Now what does that mean? That might sound like gobbledygook to you if you’re a new trader and you haven’t done much of this before. Delisted stocks is useful because over time companies come and go. Most data providers give you only the currently listed stocks and all of their history. But what if there was a stock that was listed 10 years ago and it went through a massive bull run, and then it came down to zero and it collapsed and went out of business? For most data providers that stock won’t be in your current data set so you’re missing a little bit of information when you design and testing your systems.

Now, it’s not a show stopper. I’ve done lots of testing with and without delisted stocks and I can confidently say that with my systems with the delisted stocks, you would be well out of them before they get delisted. Okay, very, very occasionally there’s maybe one in a 1,000 or 2,000 or 5,000 trades, that might not happen. So it’s not a big deal, but what it does give you when you have delisted stock data is access to a lot more information. So when you have all of the delisted stocks and you run your backtest, you do your optimization and system development, you get a lot more trades in your database because there’s more stocks in your database, more history, and that gives you better quality information to make the decisions about your trading decision.

And then if we talk about the historically accurate index constituents. Have a lot of traders who either are restricted by their job or by the account that they’re trading in, or just because by their own preference to only trading stocks in a certain index. Let’s say you only wanted to trade stocks in the S&P 500 index. If that was you, and you don’t use Norgate Data, you can’t actually backtest that strategy correctly, because to backtest a strategy on just the stocks in an index you need to know every single day in the backtest all through time, was that stock in the index or was it not? Because you’re only allowed to take trades of stocks in the index. And the only way to get that data is through Norgate, because Norgate has this historically accurate index constituents. And that means that you can backtest these strategies of only trading stocks in the S&P 500, or only trading stocks in NASDAQ 100, or only trading stocks in the ASX 200, and so on.

So these are the reasons why Norgate Data is the best pick of all of the data providers. They have a trial, it’s a six month trial. And they also have several different levels of subscription, which I’ll go through in one of the following videos below.

So that’s all for this introduction why you should use Norgate Data. Hopefully now you understand that it’s the highest quality, easiest to use, very well integrated with Amibroker, saves you a lot of time and effort, and gives you access to deslisted stocks and historically accurate index constituents, which will put you ahead of most traders, give you access to better information, and make you a better trader. That’s all for this video. I’ll see you in the next month. Bye for now.

In this video, I want to talk to you about the different packages in Norgate Data so that you know what package is right for you. So when you click the link on this page in the members area, and you go to the Norgate website, the first thing you’re going to do is choose the currency that you are going to pay in, US dollars, Australia, Canadian, Euro, or pounds. I’m in Australia, so let me just choose Australian dollars for the purpose of this. The second thing you got to choose is subscription length. Now let’s face it, as a trader you’re not trading for the next six months, you’re trading long term. So I think it makes sense to go for the 12 month subscription rather than six months. But if cashflow is a problem for you, then you might choose to pay every six months. You’re going to pay a little bit more if you pay six monthly verse 12 monthly, and let me just demonstrate how much.

If you click on six months and you look at the lowest level of package in the US data, it’s $148.50 US, which turns out to be $297 for the year. That gives you the 10 years of history. And if you go 12 months, it’s going to be $270. So you’re saving $27 by paying 12 months in advance, but you’ve obviously got to pay for it all upfront. So, that’s entirely up to you. Doesn’t really make a difference. I would recommend the 12 monthly option just so you can save a few bucks.

Okay. Now to the packages themselves, you’ll see here you’ve got to select the packages. There’s US stocks, Australian, Canadian, futures, and Forex. I’m going to focus on US, Australian and Canadian. The issues are all the same. Okay? So let’s click into the US ones. You’ll see here there’s silver, gold, platinum, and diamond. You get increasing amounts of data and features as you move up the packages. So in silver, you get 10 years of price history and you get the currently listed stocks, including the indices. That’s what you get. You don’t get de-listed stocks, you don’t get data more than 10 years ago, and you don’t get the historically accurate index constituents. This is a basic subscription to get you started, assuming you’re not developing your own systems. You can run an existing system with this perfectly fine provided that system doesn’t require you to trade only the current constituents of the index. So this is the most basic level. I’m not going to recommend silver.

Actually with silver also, you only get 10 years of price history. Now, if you think we’re in 2022, 10 years of price history is back to 2012. Apart from the coronavirus crash, the last real bear market we had was in 2008. So you really need more than 10 years of history because you want to back test your rules through bull markets, bear markets, bull markets, bear markets. As many cycles as you can to give you the confidence that the system is going to survive. 10 years in my view is not enough.

If you go for the gold subscription, which is a little more expensive, you now get 20 years of history, which will take you back to 2002, much better. You get current fundamentals of the stocks, which to be honest is not really that interesting. That gives you the current earnings per share and some of fundamental ratios and so on, but you can’t back test on that, it’s only for today, the most recent value. So there’s no data history of the fundamental. So I don’t really recommend you use this really. And you get some extras, which is some extra indices and indicators in the data package as well. So I’m going to say at a bear minimum, you should go for gold because that gives you enough data history to back test through multiple bull bear cycles. But there’s some good reasons to go up to at least the platinum level.

At the platinum level, you get data history back to 1990. So this is giving you quite a few bull and bear market cycles. This is equivalent to the other data sources I’ve used in the past, where you get that price history all the way back to 1990. I think that’s really important to give you the maximum confidence in your trading. But you also get de-listed equities. What this means is any stock that has existed from 1990 to today, regardless of whether it’s still traded or it went bankrupt or it got bought by someone else, you get the price data for that stock. That means you’ve got a lot richer data history to do your back testing on, and you don’t miss any insights from your back testing from stocks that no longer exist. Including de-listed equities in your back test gives you a more accurate back test of what it was like historically and it also gives you more trades in your back test, so you can be more confident in your optimizations as well. So I think that’s a good thing.

And then finally, you also get the historically accurate index constituents. What this means is that data will tell you or tell AmiBroker every single day in the back test was this stock a member of the S&P 500 index, or was this stock a member of the NASDAQ-100, or the Russell 3000 or the ASX 200. The data knows which indices that stock was in and which ones it wasn’t. The advantage of that with this platinum package, you can back test system accurately that only trade stocks within a certain index. So if you’ve got a constraint or a preference to only trade S&P 500 stocks, if you don’t have the platinum subscription, you cannot back test that sort of system accurately. You must have historical index constituents to back test a system that only trades stocks in the S&P 500. Otherwise, you get survivorship bias and it’s a dramatic skew on your performance. And if you back test a system like that without historical index constituents, your back test results are always wildly optimistic. So if you want to back test mechanical rules for trading only stocks in a certain index, this is a must.

What about the diamond level? The diamond level is a bit more expensive again. The data goes all the way back to 1950. So that’s interesting because you get a lot more bull bear cycles and they’ll give you much richer insights to the performance of your system. Now, a lot has changed in the market since then. Even since 1990 a lot has changed. But more data is definitely a good thing because one of the biggest crashes in history was October 1987. This data does not include 1987 stock market crash, whereas this one does. So if you want even more confidence that your system rules will keep you alive and you want to understand your draw down more deeply than the diamond level subscription is worth considering. And then the other things are the same, current fundamentals, the same extras, de-listed equities, but this time back to 1950 not just back to 1990, and the historical index constituents.

So my strong suggestion is that you use the platinum level because this the best combination. You get all the de-listed equities, you get the historical index constituents and you get data back to 1990. If you’re really keen on understanding draw down and the impact of bear markets and market crashes, then go for diamond. Gold is the minimum I would recommend. And only if you’re definitely not going to trade systems that use the stocks in that are part of an index. So you can only trade systems that trade the entire market if you have the gold subscription.

So you can see in US silver, gold, platinum, diamond, strong recommendation for platinum. Diamond if you want that extra insight and gold if you’re not going to trade systems that filter stocks only by a certain index.

If you look at the Australian stock data, there’s no diamond level. The data only goes back to 92, but all of the same nation still hold. I would say at least gold and preferably platinum, because you can get de-listed stocks and historical index constituents. And then for Canadian stocks, same as Australia, at least gold and if you want to trade index systems that only trade index constituents, then look at the platinum level as well. So there you have it, four levels in US, three levels in Australia and Canada, and pretty easy to decide which one is for you. That’s all for this video. See you in the next one. Bye for now.

In this video, I’m going to walk you through the subscription process so that you know exactly what steps you got to take to subscribe to Norgate Data. Just upfront, I want to tell you, it’s dead easy so don’t stress about it. Okay. When you click the link on this page to subscribe to Norgate Data, you’re going to come to a page that looks like this on the screen right now. Now that you’re ready to subscribe, you want to go to the order form on the left-hand side here, and then you’ll see new accounts or existing accounts. Typically, you’re a new account user, so you want to click register and subscribe.

This now has all of the information you need to enter to subscribe, and all you got to do is basically fill in the boxes. Most of us are using AmiBroker, so tick on AmiBroker, enter your email address, repeat your email address, click consent to yes. And you want to receive emails from Norgate about Norgate Data developments, yes or no, that’s entirely up to you. I just click yes. Once you click, yes, choose a payment currency, whichever works best for you, US dollars, Australian, Canadian, euro, or pounds. Let’s just say I’m in Australia, so I’m going to click Australian dollars. And then subscription length, I would recommend the 12-month option because you’re going to save a bit of money, although you do have to pay for the whole thing upfront. If you choose six months, then you renew every six months, but you’ll end up paying a little bit more overall.

Now you come down to the packages and here we’ve got US, Australian, Canadian, futures, and forex. So I’ve already talked in a previous video about the packages, so let’s say you’re ready to subscribe to the platinum for the US and the platinum for Australia. Click that, it’ll put the total on the right-hand side over here in your chosen currency. Then you just need to enter your details and your billing address and so on, and agree to all of the terms and conditions and tick this box to agree that you agree to them. And then it will take you to the payment form where you enter your credit card details. So dead easy. That’s all you need to do to subscribe. In the next video, I’ll show you how to set up Norgate. Again, very, very easy and quick to do. So see you next video. Bye for now.