Everyone talks about developing and back testing your own strategies, but no one tells you how and where to go about it. Independent software is often mentioned. I know you cannot recommend any, but can you possibly point at some for me to research for myself.
I trust you are referring to back testing / paper trading your trading system to see if it works and determine how much you can expect to make from trades.
In any case I know what you mean – if you trade individual stocks I’ve found that Sharescope (from sharescope.com) helps.
For actual back testing or paper-trading there is trading software such MetaStock, TradeSim, Trade Station, WealthLab, Amibroker…etc
I’ve also found Zignals.com interesting. It is essentially a platform that allows client to create, test and exchange trading strategies and then sell a winning strategy on to others.
Remember that probability of success in trades increases dramatically when you have tested all parts of your trading strategy to ensure that it works for you.