Today we are doing a Trend Spider review. Trend Spider is predominantly technical analysis software.
It has seen considerable growth in popularity in recent years.
Contents
- Identification of the Evening Star Doji
- The Doji Candle
- Identification of an Evening Star Doji
- Target Price
- Hedging Position
- The Grass is Greener
There are a plethora of different products available to the retail investor.
One such product, Trend Spider asked if we could do a review of their platform.
This article will take an unbiased look at their software.
We will then dive into the platform’s features and discuss whether it is worth trying out for yourself.
Trend Spider Software Overview
Developed in 2016, Trend Spider’s focus is almost exclusively on technical analysis.
It offers an abundance of different charting features and indicators. As their Founders claim:
“Today, the platform has evolved into the most comprehensive technical analysis software on the market—and we continue to innovate.”
While this claim is bold, they do provide a disclaimer on the platform’s limitations.
“Don’t be confused, though: we’re not an alert service, nor are we a “silver bullet” proprietary trading system. TrendSpider doesn’t work without your know-how. What we offer is a customizable platform that helps you plan your trade and trade your plan like a pro.”
I found this an important disclaimer.
An essential part of identifying a scam is false claims of awe-inspiring gains or the best “signals.”
Here they say they give you the tools they think you may like; it is up to you to find a way to trade them.
This is always a good sign.
Trend Spider Features
Trade Spider Offers five major features.
Chart analysis, scanner, asset insights, backtesting, and alerts.
Let’s break them down.
The Chart Analysis Section
The chart analysis section lets you do virtually anything you would like with a chart and probably a lot of things you haven’t heard or thought of as well.
First off, we have the indicators.
As you can see, we have a total of 124 different technical indicators!
You can choose whatever technical indicator you could ever think of and a whole lot more.
Additionally, you can customize all these indicators visually, however you like.
If you have a lesser-known technical indicator you want to use that you have trouble finding on other sites, most likely, it is here!
In the chart analysis section, we also have other functions such as the trendline and Heatmap.
The trendline is an algorithm that finds thousands of different trend lines in a single chart and then customizes them down to the ones that the algorithm deems most important.
The Heatmap shows areas or zones that the algorithm has defined as support and resistance based on the prior price action.
Overall, there are many features though initially, I was still dealing with a bit of a visual mess.
I was able to clear it up, but it takes some getting used to, as do all platforms with a lot of functions.
The good news is if you have made a dog’s breakfast of it, there are informational videos to help you out.
You can also book a one-on-one session with someone on their platform via Calendly.
While I didn’t test their knowledge, there were appointments available even for the next day.
These one-on-ones are included in the price of the membership.
Scanner
The scanner is arguably the most vital part of the Trend Spider Software.
The scanner section allows you to create a set of parameters then scan the entire market, or any subgroup for that matter, to find instances of your parameters being hit.
Imagine looking for ascending triangles manually over 1000 charts. Now imagine doing the same but also looking for momentum, volume, and a specific type of candle.
All at once. It’s virtually impossible.
The scanner feature lets the computer do the work that manually we should not be doing. We can then use alerts to set parameters to find different opportunities.
After that, we could trade off the signals.
Again, this assuming we have made alerts that have a positive expected value. That is a big assumption.
Back Tester
Backtesting is an essential step in ensuring a strategy’s viability.
The back tester on Trend Spider is comprehensive for backtesting technical strategies.
It has up to 27 years of data which is quite impressive.
In this section, you can set up a technical scan and see how it performs over time.
This is important in strategy development.
Once a backtest is completed, you can see the strategy’s performance and all the buy and sell points.
You can also see drawdowns and run-ups in P&L.
It can come in handy as you may be able to identify specific conditions where the strategy did not work in the past.
Then you can re-run the scan with a different set of parameters to test different results.
An important thing to be aware of with any backtesting software is overfitting, i.e., looking for the exact conditions that have done well in the past but have little impact on the future.
With the depth of scannable features available, this is easy to do, so it is vital to be cautious.
Nevertheless, the same would apply to any backtesting.
A lot of backtesting like this can be done by yourself if you are familiar with coding.
Despite this, for those who are not familiar with how to backtest independently, the platform works well for its backtesting ability of technical indicators.
Asset Insights
The asset insights section is the bridge between technicals and other types of analysis.
While technicals still take center stage, we can add analyst ratings and seasonality to our research.
Some of the other features include news scraped from Benzinga and insider trading.
With this being the newest section of Trend Spider, it is not as developed as the other tools.
Yet, it does seem promising to look at as they continue to make changes.
It could be helpful to add a final step to someone using technical signals.
A downside is getting access to these features such as seasonality, insider trading, and analyst ratings.
You will need to upgrade to a higher version than their premium product.
Pricing
Trend Spider offers three pricing levels Premium, Elite, and Master, as shown below.
So, what is the difference between these options?
Well, it turns out they are pretty similar.
The significant difference I noticed is that the Premium version does not have access to indices or futures.
Additionally, it lacks some of the asset insights, such as seasonality and analyst ratings.
If you specifically want to trade these products, then the premium version may not suffice.
For the average trader, you still have 90% of the functionality at the Premium level for half the price, so it would be the desired place to start.
The cost for the premium version seems fair but may be out of reach for investors with smaller accounts or people needing a little more hands-on help to improve their trading.
Additionally, they offer a 7-day free trial to try the platform for yourself.
Who is Trend Spider For?
Trend Spider is not for everyone.
Anyone who does not value technical analysis is no doubt going to find little value for the software.
Even the average retail trader who does a bit of simple technical analysis may not find its features worth the cost.
After all, anyone can draw basic trend lines or insert a simple moving average on a chart for free.
Trend Spider may make sense for investors deep into using technical analysis and who already depend on multiple technicals.
The ability to choose hundreds of different indicators and combinations while setting up alerts could be valuable to these traders.
Whether or not a combination of indicators that you set up is profitable or not is entirely dependent upon how it is traded and the indicator itself.
Backtested strategies will have issues of overfitting. It’s easy to find what has worked in the past.
It is a little harder to predict if that will work in the future.
Thus, any performance charts should be taken with a grain of salt.
The sheer number of options to choose from can create some impressive backtests that have no future value.
Concluding Remarks
Trend Spider offers many different technical features, scanners, and charts, all customizable to the user.
Trend Spider can be given a pass for the average investor who is mildly interested in the market and technicals.
Despite this, for someone who already uses multiple technicals or wants to in the future, taking advantage of their 7-day free trial makes sense to see if the platform provides you with enough value.
Have you used the platform? I would love to hear any of your comments on the software below!
Trade safe!
Disclaimer: The information above is for educational purposes only and should not be treated as investment advice. The strategy presented would not be suitable for investors who are not familiar with exchange traded options. Any readers interested in this strategy should do their own research and seek advice from a licensed financial adviser.
* Advertising disclosure: All opinions expressed are our own. We may receive compensation from some of our partner brands in this article. However, we only promote brands we trust and have personally used.
