Looking for a trade management platform similar to Excel

R

rolando87

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a more robust platform to manage my trades. Currently I use my own custom excel sheets that send orders via the ActiveX Interactive brokers excel sheet. It's not very robust and it needs constant monitoring.

I'm looking for an affordable platform that can hook up to Interactive brokers and offer most of if not all of the following:

-Trade from a chart (to visually see my stops and targets, IB already has this, but I hate switcihng constantly between IB and excel)
- A section that looks similar to excel in that there are cells where I can program my own code and make my own portfolio management section
-Auto execute orders when certain prices are hit (orders kept in the program and then sent to the broker rather then sending a limit or stop orders order to a broker then waiting till it gets hit)
-Robust data feed that rarely freezes (don't mind if it hooked up to IB's datafeed) But it's gotta be real time feed. US quotes only.


I only trade US equities and would also be open to the idea of using some paid plugin into excel however it's gotta be robust and not susceptible to freezing as I do not intend to monitor the program constantly.


I've seen Multicharts, sierracharts, and amibroker, and some others. If anyone have any experiences to share this would be very helpful.

Any help would be appreciated. I don't mind spending money as long as it's kept below $50 a month, but I'm flexible on price, if there's a good solution that costs more.
 
have you really learned the in's and outs of Excel? i've just gotton this book

Microsoft Excel for Stock and Option Traders: Build Your Own Analytical Tools for Higher Returns

and was going to dig through it and see what i could get out of it.. my IB data isn't always available and sometimes its super slow.. it really only works good when the market is actually open!
 
my impressions is if your looking to avoid getting into the technical aspect of constructing indicators, graphing things in a non typical way.. your gonna have to learn to use something more powerful.. excel combined with access is pretty powerful..
 
this little read here from the book i was talking about explains alot

With the appropriate infrastructure of databases and related
software in place, it is possible to construct a library of calendar-
based price-change charts. Results can be tabulated by
day, week, month, quarter, or any other time frame that makes
sense. Securities can be grouped according to a variety of criteria—
industry group, price range, historical volatility, trading
volume, market capitalization, short interest, and so forth. The
most sophisticated designs will also include customized query
tools that can be used to answer a variety of historical questions.
It is also necessary to recalculate calendar-based information
on a regular basis because, as we just saw, the profiles
change. We will return to this discussion in various forms as we
explore different approaches to data mining and feature identification
in large datasets.
Just a few years ago this type of analysis would have
required advanced database skills and programming tools.
Much of that has changed with the dramatic increases in the
speed and capacity of today’s spreadsheet programs. Excel 2010
worksheets can exceed 1,000,000 rows and 16,384 columns.
Just 3 years before this book was written, prior to the launch of
Excel 2007, the limits were 65,536 rows and 256 columns.
 
Thanks for your reply caveman. Yes it's true about combining Access with excel. It does make it a more powerful program.

However, the issue isn't really needing the computing power or problems created by having a million rows of data. My issue is that I hate using the ActiveX sheet provided by IB in order to send my orders. I find it's slow to update, I don't trust it for smooth update of last prices, and the way it updates is just not very reliable at times.

That's why I'm searching for a better platform, even if it means paying rather then using my free excel.

Maybe I should look into some paid addin that can send real time quotes however that wouldn't solve the issue of updating all my positions and trades.

I'm surprised I didn't get responses from any vendors... HELLOOO I said I'd pay :)
 
Quote from rolando87:

Thanks for your reply caveman. Yes it's true about combining Access with excel. It does make it a more powerful program.

However, the issue isn't really needing the computing power or problems created by having a million rows of data. My issue is that I hate using the ActiveX sheet provided by IB in order to send my orders. I find it's slow to update, I don't trust it for smooth update of last prices, and the way it updates is just not very reliable at times.

That's why I'm searching for a better platform, even if it means paying rather then using my free excel.

Maybe I should look into some paid addin that can send real time quotes however that wouldn't solve the issue of updating all my positions and trades.

I'm surprised I didn't get responses from any vendors... HELLOOO I said I'd pay :)
More...

haha... you know to be honest.. the guy Peter Hoadley emails me back EVERY time i email him.. he might help you if you email him.. i never thought to use excel to actual trading.. when yo usay smoothly update last prices? are you providing liquidity or something? what are you doing
 
I run my own automated trading off IB API and Excel. Search my nick for other posts related to automated trading and Excel.

Intially I have my trades and signal coming, it hits twsdde.xls and a trade is sent. Now, I monitor my own Total PnL (emailed to me per hour), strategy logs, portfolio % for each stock, each strategy (given eg. $100,000) with the use of another Excel sheet. So it flips around, real time.

I think u might be looking for things like:

- max day profit or day loss before stopping for each stock
- "" "" for each strategy
- max risk amt at any given time
- max no of stocks or positions opened

with this you can look into opening Futures/options contract with Long stk + Long derivatives (double bet)

or Long Stk / Short derivatives for hedging.

Then you move into sectors and percentage based trading, very similar to IB's rebalance function.

Settings are written on text files so they are read into Excel along the way.

Good Luck :)
 
Check out Sierra Charts, my experience with them and IB has been flawless.

I use package #3 $26.00 per month. Great support board, super fast responses.
 
i've messsed around with Ninjatrader.. but honestly nothing seems to be as flexible as excel for cumulating data and spinning it around however you want.. thats interesting to hear someones auto trading with excel and IB i guess if you know Visual basic really well ... do you have cases for when you lose connection or in the event of a pc crash?
 
I do hv a backup PC that is "sync" with my critical trading files, but i havent had a chance to use it.

Occasionally my PC does shut down (I trade Asia to US) remotely but theres really nothing you could do, except to lower the CPU temperature speed, set trial stops with your open orders, or use hedging strategies etc.

And lastly to have my mobile phone and wifi adapter ready and kick in when the network or router is down.

btw its still on test acct, these problems needs to be iron out before running a few hundred grand in it.
 
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