Quote from ScoobyStoo:
... Get yourself an unfiltered datafeed (which includes the exchange's timestamps) and feed your algos the raw data (i.e. individual transaction prints and order book updates).
Anything less and you are cheating yourself...
Thanks.
I trade US stocks, and currently use my broker's data feed (MBT) and eSignal's.
- According to eSignal support, the time-stamps in their data are not those from the exchange; instead, they are eSignal's own time-stamps.
- I have asked MBT whether their data is time-stamped (which I doubt), and if so whose time-stamp it is (theirs, or the exchange's).
Subject to MBT's answer, I suspect I can enhance my existing situation (that is by obtaining time-stamped input data, even if it is not the exchange's time-stamp) simply by using eSignal as my primary real-time data feed (which I haven't been doing until now, depending instead on eSignal just for historical data).
As thstart rightly points out, the weakness of this intended approach will be that my actual trades will be executed off a different set of bids and offers (those available through MBT) from the data that my signals are generated from.
But this will have to do for now ...
It's my plan to review (and potentially upgrade) all my trading infrastructure (trading software, broker platform, data feeds, internet connectivity) once I've reached target performance milestones (and I'm happy with progress so far ... i.e. I am making money!).
In the meantime, I will have to accept that my set-up is sub-optimal, and start to plan what to change once circumstances permit. I must cheat myself for a little longer ...
Thanks everyone for their input to this thread. I have found all your comments and suggestions very helpful.