Pro Trading Tools

[Real Money]

I had some pretty ambitious goals in mind when I started building a trading setup.

1) Three monitors with charting and analytics.
2) Real-time charting in EXCEL using API data
3) Execution that is easy and included HOT KEYS, BASKETS, and GET FLAT orders.
4) As cheap as possible.

Current setup is IB TWS (250ms data with free API), and ThinkorSwim (free data and programmable charting).

Comparison Charts.

Programmable Studies (10 year note/S&P Futures).

REAL-TIME DATA/CHARTS (MS EXCEL)

I also use BOOKTRADER, BASKET TRADER, and VWAP chart with st. dev study.

In my opinion TWS is underrated. Also, TDA Thinkorswim and especially (Thinkscript) are highly underrated.

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This thread is just to show some guys looking for tools what's possible with IBKR/TDA.

The whole setup costs me like 30 bucks a month.
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Obviously, this is a super budget solution (I know that).

Any of you ELITE TRADERS know about any similar tools for use with the TDA or IBKR data feeds?

POST YOUR PRO TRADING TOOLS!

I'm only interested in rate and index futures and spreads.

Bonus Question: (my current problem is that VBA is single threaded and so the macros running the charts are not expandable without hardcore VBA refactoring; VBA is not easy for me)

 

[guru]

This looks like quite a good setup for manual (or semi-manual) trading. I didn't even know you can use Excel for real-time charting.

I only use a single wide/2K monitor with IB/TWS and Visual Studio (C#), and occasionally ToS to look at historical options data. Prefer simplicity, while looking at too many monitors at the same time would distract me.
Though I don't trade like most traders do, just spend time polishing/fixing/analyzing data, coding, running backtests, and studying options chains in search of tears & ripples in option pricing/volatility.

But I do have a sizable computing setup in my master closet, with six double-Xeon servers, and a dozen of PCs. Recently needed to use a frying pan filled with ice to cool down my SQL server when my main A/C broke - it gets hot around here when everything's running at 100% CPU...:

 

[Real Money]

I don't trade like most traders do...

Cool setup. That's interesting. You're saying that you data process options chains and then investigate trading opportunities from that? So, you're trading vol on names your systems flag? That's cool.

I'm starting to learn more about the advanced option trades, but I don't know how to combine my systems with volatility trading techniques yet. My systems are really just for immediate direction during the cash session (manual trading).

 

[guru]

You're saying that you data process options chains and then investigate trading opportunities from that?

So actually they’re somewhat distinct - I’m mostly post-processing, fixing and analyzing data on 15k stocks (splits, dividends, earnings, pre-/post-market hours price anomalies and mini flash-crashes, dark pool trades, large trades, etc) and backtesting and semi-auto trading some of those, mainly leveraged ETFs, VIX and penny stocks.
With options it will take even more time and huge volumes of intraday data (that I don’t have yet), so I occasionally do semi-automated options arbitrage where I may find some mispricing and don’t need historical data or backtests (on single underlyings), while mostly manually searching, analyzing and testing variety of setups to get a feel of what may have potential for future automation, once I get to work with intraday options data.
I do make money trading options but I’m concerned when I cannot backtest my setups, which can get very complex in terms of testing but have huge potential.
Though my understanding of volatility is very basic and just a natural outcome of looking at options pricing and figuring out how the price moves and which option combos could be offset by others - possibly a bit similar to you looking at spreads.

 

[Wheezooo]

This looks like quite a good setup for manual (or semi-manual) trading. I didn't even know you can use Excel for real-time charting.

I only use a single wide/2K monitor with IB/TWS and Visual Studio (C#), and occasionally ToS to look at historical options data. Prefer simplicity, while looking at too many monitors at the same time would distract me.
Though I don't trade like most traders do, just spend time polishing/fixing/analyzing data, coding, running backtests, and studying options chains in search of tears & ripples in option pricing/volatility.

But I do have a sizable computing setup in my master closet, with six double-Xeon servers, and a dozen of PCs. Recently needed to use a frying pan filled with ice to cool down my SQL server when my main A/C broke - it gets hot around here when everything's running at 100% CPU...:

View attachment 211149

I don't believe that's for trading. I think you have a hydroponic grow room on the other side of that wall, and a nice sea of green.

 

[gaussian]

Could you share some insight into how you pulled off that excel sheet? It’s really impressive.

I have my own reimplementation of the IB APO in python and it might be a useful exercise to pull off something like that excel sheet but for options.

 

[Real Money]

Could you share some insight into how you pulled off that excel sheet?

Actually I am trying to get some help with the code for that. Here is the stackoverflow thread.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58369968/excel-vba-macro-edit

Maybe you can help me expand the thing. I need to take the macro and make it do more than one data series. If you can help me do that I would really appreciate it. It's not my code, it was provided by a pro dev (on a public forum).

I'm a mathematician not a programmer!

 

[guru]

I don't believe that's for trading. I think you have a hydroponic grow room on the other side of that wall, and a nice sea of green.

Nah, the sea of green is only covering a small private cemetery behind that wall. That's where I bury all the traders that threatened or tried to take my money. It just makes trading much easier and less stressful. And it's a great edge that rivals insider trading, which is illegal.

 

[andre.salmeron]

...and here I was, thinking I was tech-forward because I was thinking about learning how to make some simple, mechanic MT5 robots.

Now, seriously, very cool stuff!

 

[gaussian]

Maybe you can help me expand the thing. I need to take the macro and make it do more than one data series. If you can help me do that I would really appreciate it. It's not my code, it was provided by a pro dev (on a public forum).

I'd be happy to take a look if you PM me but I will admit my VBA skills aren't that great at the moment. I'm sure everything else I programmed can translate though.