Automating with Sterling Trader Pro

S

Scalper007

Hi I am using sterling trader pro with echo trade. After almost a decade of screen time, I have come up with many scalping strategies based on chart patterns. I want to code these strategies and employ it with sterling trader pro. I know it takes active x coding to implement automated trading strategies with this software. I have some basic ideas in programming with active x, but I have never coded a trading strategy using it. Can someone please show me a simple strategy using active x and how to implement it into the software? If I can see a sample, I can work with that to build my strategy.

Thanks
 
Quote from Scalper007:

Thanks a lot. I dowloaded the project example. There is a bunch of files in there. Which one contains the code?
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Sterling is a very difficult platform to automate on IMO. There are a lot of gotchas in there. There's very little in the way of support from Sterling, which is stunning considering what they charge.

But I have to ask before you even get started, how are you going to recreate a chart for your decision making? Sterling's datafeed does not have a backfill. Interpreting a market datastream will be your biggest challenge if you've never done it before.

Are you relying on L2 info? Your task got even harder.

Finally, you don't program in ActiveX, you will either need VB or C#. Those code examples are written in VB6 and do not translate into later versions of VB.net. (there's been 3 major releases of VB.net since VB6).

Welcome to the screwed up world that is sterling.

All these hurdles are doable, but pretty daunting to a beginner.

IB is a FAR easier platform to automate for a beginner, if that's a possible option for you.
 
Thanks a lot Shreddog. I agree, This thing is daunting... I dont even think this is worth a shot. But maybe with excel? You have any idea I can do this with excel? I don't need level 2 data at all for my automation. I am just going to use 1 minute charts. If someone can help me do this in excel, I'd be very appreciative. I'd even pay for the help.

I do not want to lock up 30k to open an IB or tradestation account. I have a small deposit at echo with which I get huge buying power for intra-day trading.
 
Quote from Scalper007:

Thanks a lot Shreddog. I agree, This thing is daunting... I dont even think this is worth a shot. But maybe with excel? You have any idea I can do this with excel? I don't need level 2 data at all for my automation. I am just going to use 1 minute charts. If someone can help me do this in excel, I'd be very appreciative. I'd even pay for the help.

I do not want to lock up 30k to open an IB or tradestation account. I have a small deposit at echo with which I get huge buying power for intra-day trading.
More...

I might be wrong, but I don't think you can send orders to Sterling with Excel.

If you want to make this a "longer term" project and use it to leverage your way into learning to code and automate, you could start by automating simple aspects of your ideas. Like maybe you'd still be watching charts but once you see the setup you could tell your new "assistant" to put the trade on and manage some or all aspects of it. That is how I taught myself to code and learn about automation. A few nights with a beginner VB.net book and some experimenting with Sterling code and you could be coding simple order entry and management tasks. Then you just start growing from there.

Otherwise, you're going to have to hire it out or give up, IMHO.

There's a nice support thread here on ET where you can probably get all your "stupid" questions answered pretty easily once you start digging in. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=125715
 
First of all, programming the recognition of chart patterns is very difficult if you've never done anything of that sort. Doing technical analysis is much easier in comparison.

No, I don't think you can do anything of that sort in excel. At least not efficiently.

There is a way to backfill OHLC data down to the 1 minute level. But it's very slow and sloppy. It requires automating the mouse to click on the a chart menu, choose "Charting" then "All Data". Then you have to use some Windows API to read the syslistview32. Then change symbols and repeat. Takes about 1-3 seconds per symbol and can go back a couple of days or more. But if you're looking to backfill 1000 symbols it can take ages. I have some rough code I wrote a year ago somewhere if anyone is interested (if I can find it).
 
Quote from bespoke:

First of all, programming the recognition of chart patterns is very difficult if you've never done anything of that sort. Doing technical analysis is much easier in comparison.

No, I don't think you can do anything of that sort in excel. At least not efficiently.

There is a way to backfill OHLC data down to the 1 minute level. But it's very slow and sloppy. It requires automating the mouse to click on the a chart menu, choose "Charting" then "All Data". Then you have to use some Windows API to read the syslistview32. Then change symbols and repeat. Takes about 1-3 seconds per symbol and can go back a couple of days or more. But if you're looking to backfill 1000 symbols it can take ages. I have some rough code I wrote a year ago somewhere if anyone is interested (if I can find it).
More...

I agree, Sterling is the wrong way to go for recreating charts.

If you absolutely have to recreate a chart I'd use another data vendor like DTN or Esignal that supports a real backfill.
 
Ok thanks a lot guys.:)

Yes the Sterling pro (EchoPro) software supports RTD and DDE connections to Excel and Active X API language.

I was also told that I should hire an outside programmer to do this. Where can I find such a programmer?

I will also look in that link for my "stupid" question.:cool:
 
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