Looking to get excel, 2013 vs 2016?

[J_Smith]

Is 2016 much faster than previous versions? I still have 2008, running on Windows 7, and am considering an upgrade to 2016.

If you are going to use excel for trading in real time, then I suggest you upgrade to win10 64 bit and install excel 2016 - there is a BIG difference with live data updates!

Done a bit a while ago but stopped - am looking at an old VB6 programme now that was brilliant for order entry with e-minis, but will have to spend a good bit of time as my VB6 knowledge is very limited.

If you want to easily setup your own trading layout that you can not find anywhere else, then excel is the way to go, as you need no programming language experience.

J_S

 

[syswizard]

If you are going to use excel for trading in real time, then I suggest you upgrade to win10 64 bit and install excel 2016 - there is a BIG difference with live data updates!

If you want to easily setup your own trading layout that you can not find anywhere else, then excel is the way to go, as you need no programming language experience.

J_S

What is your data feed for the above worksheets ? Yahoo realtime quotes ?

 

[J_Smith]

What is your data feed for the above worksheets ? Yahoo realtime quotes ?

That sheet is yahoo delayed for setup, as the conditional formatting is a bit tricky when you are not reading static numbers - the numbers and colors change automatically once you change the stock symbol, but depending on the stock price the colors are not consistent.

The problem is with the conditional formatting, just didn't sort it out yet. One easy way is to have seperate worksheets, but that might slow up excel, so best to use just 1 and change the stock symbol.

For live trading it can be linked to TWS or the IB Gateway - I have linked to both successfly, and even done a custom Time & Sales which works fine - also done a few more chart layouts for daytrading, but will need to dig them out to show you.

J_S

 

[J_Smith]

If there is anyone with VB6 experience, please let me know, as I will start a new thread to look at getting old VB6 code to link with the current TWS via the API.

I have tried to login to an old version of TWS, but with the new security features on my mobile phone - sDSA - it will obviously not work.

I might opt out of security to test the old version login, but I have no clue if it will work.

Any suggestions appreciated, as I have an old VBA programme that is brilliant for order entry with TWS - all I need to do is get the old TWS and old API working, otherwise it means changing the VBA code or converting it to another code that will link with current TWS, which is way beyond my capabilities.

Thx.

J_S

 

[syswizard]

I think you have a re-write on your hands....unless you want to decifer IB's DDE implementation......and good luck with that. I once reviewed that code and almost threw-up....it was so bad.
Another alternative is going the ActiveX route and implementing the tws.ocx component.

 

[J_Smith]

I think you have a re-write on your hands....unless you want to decifer IB's DDE implementation......and good luck with that. I once reviewed that code and almost threw-up....it was so bad.
Another alternative is going the ActiveX route and implementing the tws.ocx component.

Thx, can you give a brief outline of what would be required to get some VB6 code that originally linked to old version of TWS ( bout 2006/7) working with tws.ocx.

I am not a programmer, but dont mind getting someone to do it for me if it is not that big a job?

J_S

 

[syswizard]

Forget the old version of TWS....the API has improved somewhat since that time period....it's been almost 10 years. They've fixed a ton of bugs since then....
Unfortunately, it's a big job doing the conversion.

 

[J_Smith]

Thought as much, oh well, back to simple old excel I suppose, at least that is easy enough and you can do it yourself, which is good to keep the brain active - much more to trading anyway than some fancy code that just retrieves data and plonks it there in front of you!

Pity though, as I always liked Futurestrader software - the person who developed it done so for trading the eminis himself, and it shows in the layout - not like the Gobshites who develop the TWS layouts

J_S

 

[conduit]

Manageable changes. I run tons of add ins in excel 2013 and now 2016 and they work perfectly fine. In fact i write my own add ins as well via excel-DNA and they perfectly work with Excel 2016

You should be aware that MSFT silently made a change in Excel 2013 that cause many add-ins to stop working properly. For that reason, I stick with Excel 2010.
Who knows what change 2016 will bring !
Add-ins are a big part of Excel as they can extend functionality or actually provide mini-apps for you.

 

[conduit]

What exactly does not work in excel 2016 that worked before? Care to elaborate?

In my experience there are many things that work perfectly in Excel 2010, but that fail in alarming ways in Excel 2013. So much so that I removed 2013 and reverted back to 2010.

When 2016 came out, I figured that these problems HAD to have been fixed. Instead, I can't honestly even tell you of any meaningful difference between Excel 2013 and Excel 2016. They're so similar that they both exhibit the same crippling software errors for me, across 4 different operating systems (Win7,Win8,Win8.1,Win10) and 6 different computers of various types. (off topic - every last one of the components of Office is buggier & worse in 2013 and 2016 than in 2010)

Excel is the gold standard for roll-your-own financial analysis, portfolio management (remember, I said "roll-your-own", and even for some level of trading automation.

But there has never yet, at least not to-date, been a better version than 2010, in my opinion. I bought a replacement new copy of 2010 at Amazon, an original, honest-to-goodness CD of Office Home & Business, in the Microsoft packaging, for about $150.