Easiest Platform for Auto Execution

R

rt5909

long time discretionary trader, not a tech / computer wiz at all, and I know nothing about programming. Currently I use CQG and Thinkorswim and have alerts sent to my phone when my indicators / price levels are hit and a trade needs to be entered / exited for overnight moves and when I'm away from the computer. The past few months I've started missing these (I'm getting too old for this I guess haha), so I've been thinking about automating at least the exits. CQG support has been helpful but its still a bit over my head. Thinkorswim is easy enough, but won't auto execute the orders. Someone suggested Tradestation but I have zero knowledge of them...kinda thought they were a big name in the 90s and faded away haha. Any help is appreciated.
 
xandman said:
I think your are looking for GTC or "good til canceled" orders. Almost all platforms have those.
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Haha no not at all. We have an indicator feeding off of an excel platform that adjusts stops / entries and also trade size, as this is for hedging purposes. I just need something that will allow me to code this same process into an auto order instead of having to manually place the order. If it helps, we are trading in and out of crack spreads in fuel...and sometimes us in the exchange implied 1:1 and sometimes using the 3-2-1 or 5-3-2, so it's not a simple "you need a gtc order"
 
rt5909 said:
Haha no not at all. We have an indicator feeding off of an excel platform that adjusts stops / entries and also trade size, as this is for hedging purposes. I just need something that will allow me to code this same process into an auto order instead of having to manually place the order. If it helps, we are trading in and out of crack spreads in fuel...and sometimes us in the exchange implied 1:1 and sometimes using the 3-2-1 or 5-3-2, so it's not a simple "you need a gtc order"
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I think Sierra Charts has a built-in advanced Excel/DDE support.



Also this documentation:
http://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?page=doc/doc_Spreadsheets.html
 
In terms of getting market / order / fill data into your spreadsheet, TT offers an easy to use RTD Server. A simple tutorial can be found here. In terms of routing orders from Excel, you can link directly to the Autotrader window in X_TRADER.

Or you can code your entire strategy using Algo Design Lab (ADL). Using drag-and-drop actions to assemble building blocks, traders and programmers alike can rapidly design, test and deploy automated trading strategies without writing a single line of code.

Regards,
Andrew Renalds
Product Manager, Algorithmic Trading Tools and APIs
 
I'm in a similar situation to the original poster, although my ET handle is misleading. I made this name up back in 2006 when I had just really started trading futures and options. Went on to a small HF for bout 3 years, mostly traded options swing-trading and event arb, was using a prop platform that was totally customized from scratch. Left the HF business in 2011, have been doing some frontier market investing in West Africa for the past 4 years. Was fun, but am now looking to get back to trading for myself, no fund tructure. Am doing prelim research on trading platforms and am totally lost. I have an IB account and could just stick with it, but I am also looking to automate some of my ideas which will require something more substantial. I used TS back in 2007, but it seems there are too many bugs for someone who is looking to trade size in liquid futures and options. OpenQuant and SierraCharts sound great, but so does NT and TT Pro.

Given that I am:
- very familiar with futures/options trading, greeks, margin, strats, etc
- slightly out of practice and will be increasing my lot size cautiously
- unfamiliar with automated trading but messed around with TS for a year and have some visual basic/basic/pascal experience (i can pick up simple API fairly quickly)
- daytrading US CME/NYMEX markets from WEST AFRICA on a highspeed broadband/fiber connection

What's my best bet? My introduction to trading was blowing up my $40k account on TS in 2007 because of a lack of stops, a power outage and really fucked up customer service. So what I'm looking for is reliability, something global and seamless that offsets y geographical disadvantage (i am in West Africa!), and can handle fully automated strategy development.

Based on the little reading I have done, it seems like ToS or IB in house platform is best until I am more comfortable and have confirmation on my methodologies and then from there I should go straight to a prop shop that can provide me with leverage and a custom platform along with its own group of developers. Sort of like going from simple to advanced and skipping intermediate in the middle because there are just too many choices among the semi-pro platforms. I know you guys get the same Q's all the time and say search the forums, but the truth is that it's NOT CLEAR what the explicit adv and disadv are for each platform based on the type of trader you are. Plus alot of the old threads are years out of date. Trading tech is very diff these days.

Would love some practical advice.
 
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BrandNewTrader said:
I'm in a similar situation to the original poster, although my ET handle is misleading. I made this name up back in 2006 when I had just really started trading futures and options. Went on to a small HF for bout 3 years, mostly traded options swing-trading and event arb, was using a prop platform that was totally customized from scratch. Left the HF business in 2011, have been doing some frontier market investing in West Africa for the past 4 years. Was fun, but am now looking to get back to trading for myself, no fund tructure. Am doing prelim research on trading platforms and am totally lost. I have an IB account and could just stick with it, but I am also looking to automate some of my ideas which will require something more substantial. I used TS back in 2007, but it seems there are too many bugs for someone who is looking to trade size in liquid futures and options. OpenQuant and SierraCharts sound great, but so does NT and TT Pro.

Given that I am:
- very familiar with futures/options trading, greeks, margin, strats, etc
- slightly out of practice and will be increasing my lot size cautiously
- unfamiliar with automated trading but messed around with TS for a year and have some visual basic/basic/pascal experience (i can pick up simple API fairly quickly)
- daytrading US CME/NYMEX markets from WEST AFRICA on a highspeed broadband/fiber connection

What's my best bet? My introduction to trading was blowing up my $40k account on TS in 2007 because of a lack of stops, a power outage and really fucked up customer service. So what I'm looking for is reliability, something global and seamless that offsets y geographical disadvantage (i am in West Africa!), and can handle fully automated strategy development.

Based on the little reading I have done, it seems like ToS or IB in house platform is best until I am more comfortable and have confirmation on my methodologies and then from there I should go straight to a prop shop that can provide me with leverage and a custom platform along with its own group of developers. Sort of like going from simple to advanced and skipping intermediate in the middle because there are just too many choices among the semi-pro platforms. I know you guys get the same Q's all the time and say search the forums, but the truth is that it's NOT CLEAR what the explicit adv and disadv are for each platform based on the type of trader you are. Plus alot of the old threads are years out of date. Trading tech is very diff these days.

Would love some practical advice.
More...
Hosted orc or optioncity
 
Given that you intend to trade programmatically, if your trading is latency sensitive, you can reduce your location disadvantage by renting/using a server located in the Chicago/Aurora area.
 
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