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Introduction

DLPAL DQ identifies parameter-less strategies in daily or higher timeframe historical price data that fulfill user-defined performance statistics and risk/reward parameters as of the last bar in the input data files. DQ stands for “Discretionary Quant”. This program can be used by discretionary traders to scan many securities for price action anomalies and who also like to make the final decisions instead of following a system.

These strategies are also known as price patterns. DLPAL DQ generates code for the strategies for the Quantopian platform, Tradestation (EasyLanguage), Multicharts (EasyLanguage), NinjaTrader 7, 8 and Amibroker AFL. The program also offers two validation methods to allow testing the significance of the results: portfolio backtests and robustness tests.

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DLPAL DQ can be used as an end-of-day scanner to determine whether there are strategies that fulfill the user-defined criteria as of the close of the most recent bar in historical data files. If desire, the signal tracking module of the program can be used to monitor signal generation of any identified strategies going forward in time and as new data are available.

Development and upgrade history

DLPAL DQ was based on Price Action Lab, a program developed by Michael Harris in 2010.

DLPAL DQ v1.0 Released October 18, 2017

DLPAL DQ v2.0 released January 8, 2018

– Added Returns calculations
– Several other improvements
– Updated manual

DLPAL DQ v2.5 released March 8, 2018

– Warnings that Test Strategies and Portfolio Backtest results are not saved
– Test files update: Checks for files with invalid delimiters and lists only files with zero values

DLPAL DQ v3.0 released March 18, 2018

– New workspace and results look
– Eliminated progress bars and added single progress bar on workspace
– Add option for bulk Robustness Tests
– Several minor updates

DLPAL DQ v4.0 released January 15, 2019

– Data files can be checked for variations in last dates
– Temporary files are cleaned after scan is completed.
– Scan engine was improved
– Results from various scans can be combined  in one file.
– Two equal partitions of Extended cluster are now available for faster searches 

DLPAL DQ v5.0 released March 8, 2019

– Changed results layout
– Test Patterns, Portfolio Backtest, Robustness Test and Returns are added to end of results
– Selections from Test Patterns, Portfolio Backtest, Robustness Test and Returns can be saved
– Improved sorting of results
– Profit factor values greater than 100 are set to 100 to allow sorting
– Starting with this version the help file is available only online and in pdf form
– Minor bug fixes and algorithm improvements

DLPAL DQ v5.0 update released May 17, 2019

– Multiple instances are now standard feature.

DLPAL DQ v5.0 update released April 29, 2019

– Added NinjaTrader 8 code generation

DLPAL DQ v5.0 update released May 17, 2019

– Multiple instances are now standard feature.

DLPAL DQ v5.0 update released September 8, 2020

– Minor fixes
– Improved scan algo

DLPAL DQ v6.0 released May 18, 2022

– Updated returns calculation screen.
– Minor fixes.