TradeStation Pro

J

J-Trade

Does anyone know where the main TS or TS Pro user group is ? I'm trialling TS Pro, which interestingly is now lower cost than Ensign + eSignal, but I can't find in Help how to overlay an index over a price chart. I presume this must indeed be possible in the mighty TS !
Any help greatly appreciated.
 
I called Tradestation yesterday and was told the only way to get access to new software is to open a brokerage account with them ($30k minimum). They allow a subscription service for $99.00/month for previous Omega customers, but apparently they discontinued the more expensive non-previous customer subscription.

Is this previous customer subscription what you're on J-Trade? If not, is there another way to obtain a trial version of the new platform other than opening a brokerage account with them?

Pyrosius
 
yep, that's what I meant with 'TS going brokerage'.
so it is really difficult to get a good backtesting and simulation tool.
I should look at Wealth-Lab desktop, but because it uses quote.com I am not in a hurry. But still, heard good things from people I respect a lot (including a software developper who created a great backtesting report-not tool, just the reporting from ascii files. he said their software is better than what he did. And that's something).

Now you see why there are not that many choices and why I chose the one I am using.

tntneo
 
As a subscriber to Ed Moore's Rhythm of the Markets / Option Magic course, I was able to take up a special offer, ie. same as any TS user. This gives you TS Pro @ $99/month for which you receive real time stocks, indices, ES + NQ (ES + NQ +$10/month after 6 months) plus 15 min delayed futures, which makes it a bargain. If it all works, of course. So far, so good, although I can see the Help situation doesn't come close to Ensign, which I have also trialled (great software/support - I will make a decision in one month).

The advantage of TS is all the stuff already written for it, if indeed such stuff is really needed to become a consistently successful trader, plus more sophisticated backtesting capability.

Coming back to the special offer sitauation - generally speaking, if a special offer is available to someone, there is usually a way to find it for someone else. I don;t know what teh solution is here, but my guess is that it's out there...BTW, this morning eSignal was down for a while, but TS worked fine.
 
OK, OK, eSignal was down for futures 50 mn and that's bad.
But it is very rare. (at least I could reach their help desk and find out what was wrong and an ETA on repair).
More seriously I know Tradestation Online was not good in the beginning. But this is normal (BTW I used windowonwallstreet from them when it was open to the public and found it better than many despite others opinion).
Now that the paint is dry, can someone tell me if the service is good.
I plan to offer automation services from eSignal/Ensign, and would like eventually to support Tradestation because it is very well known (although what is well known and used is TS2000).

tntneo
 
Hi all,

J-Trade,

I don't know if you found out the answer to your question yet, so I'll post it here. After you open a chart on a symbol, right click anywhere on the chart except for on the actual price data. Select "Insert Symbol", then select the symbol you want and press "Plot". That brings up a dialog box that allows you to choose which subgraph you want to plot the new data. If you choose subgraph one, it will plot the new symbol over the first symbol.

For those wondering about the price of TS...I don't know if it is still available to non-Omega customers, but I got mine for the $99 rate as an old SuperCharts user. All I did was tell them I had used SuperCharts and they offered it to me. They did not ask for any kind of verification from me, so unless they have a database that they looked my name up in, I have no idea how they knew I was for real.

Neo,

I have been using TS Pro for a week now and I love it...mainly because I have access to the great system analysis. They have more than just a tester, it also does a lot of statistical reporting and graphs of equity and drawdown information as well as individual trade analysis like maximum adverse excursion among other things that are tedious to do by hand. The data feed has been very reliable so far. My only complaint is the amount of historical data available. The intraday data for the futures goes back to Feb 2001 and all other indices to Nov 2000. There is daily data for much farther back including expired futures contracts. I have not used it with stocks, so I can't speak to how much data is there. Unfortunately they do not allow for external data files, so you can't import historical data. If I could ask for one thing it would be that. So far though, I am happy with the program itself.

It is a shame that they quit offering and supporting 2000i...it is still the more flexible of the two.

Kirk
 
Hi Kirk
Thanks for the reply. It is good to see you are the one using it.
Is it still possible to call an external DLL ?
Are signals evaluated tick by tick or at bar's end ?
Orders for BUY STOP or SELL STOP do they work on the same bar or only next bar ?
I don't think you can keep global variables though...
maybe just keep variables value from one call to another call ?

I wanted several times to look at TSPro. But since I am happy with the software I use, I was reluctant. But for others reading this, it is a good alternative since kirk says data is OK.
TS is easier to program than Ensign and a little more Windows users friendly. You need the special price though, 'cause $300 is too much for this program. $99 is very good price (cheaper than eSignal/Ensign).
I am a TS owner so I could get that price. others must find a way.

tntneo
 
Hi Neo,

Is it still possible to call an external dll ?

Yes. TS has a "DLL Extension Kit" that can incorporate any DLL written in C or C++

Are signals evaluated tick by tick or at bar's end ?

In realtime, the signals are evaluated tick by tick, so if you just want to automate your system, you will get the signal "as it happens". For backtesting, there is a setting called "backtesting resolution". It can be set as low as one minute. So, if you are testing a system on 10 minute bars, the signals can be updated within the bar to 1 minute accuracy. At that point, TS has several assumptions of how the bar traded based on the relationship of the open, high, low and close, just as it did in older versions of the program.

Orders for BUY STOP or SELL STOP do they work on the same bar or only next bar ?

The systems I'm working with only use next bar orders, mainly because I find them more robust (I like to know I can fall asleep waiting for a signal and still be profitable with a later entry, lol :)) However, I think in realtime they will update tick by tick or if backtesting, it will use the backtesting resolution I described above. However, you may want to shoot an email to them first to be sure since I haven't tried it.

I don't think you can keep global variables though...
maybe just keep variables value from one call to another call ?

If by global variables (I am not a programmer) you mean that the variable can be called by multiple functions or systems, then I don't think so. I always have to define each variable for each new system. But my expertise here is very small. I can create/call functions that simplify tedious formulas (like common technical indicators for example). I am fortunate to have a great friend and trading partner that is an excellent programmer and has answered 3 trillion questions from me in the last week since I got TS Pro. While I have done basic EasyLanguage in the past, I would have a much longer learning curve without his help. I will ask him and reply to this thread if I find out anything different.

I was using metastock before this and have had to make slight adjustments, although easylanguage is much more complete than the MS formula language. As Neo mentioned, the easiest way to learn it is to open up a sample indicator or system and look at the code. I do a lot of copy and pasting, lol.

I am a TS owner so I could get that price. others might use the trick mentioned above maybe.

For the record, I really do own supercharts and don't recommend anyone to lie. :) Its just that they never asked for proof...

J-Trade asked earlier about a user group for TS. There may be one out there, but I don't know of it. However, there is a mail list that has a lot of useful stuff (along with a lot of worthless stuff typical of mail lists, lol). There is an archive of these messages updated each day at:

http://purebytes.com/archives/omega/

Also, the support at TS has been extremely responsive. I get answers to emails in less than a day.

Hope this helps.


Kirk
 
I've been using Tradestation2000i for the last three weeks and I have to say that it is the best software I've ever used, hands down.

You can backtest based on tick data even if your chart is 30min bars. But, you have to use orders for the next bar to trade realtime data(so says the manual, but that might be wrong). I use 1min charts so I don't care about this. But if you wanted to trade a system realtime based on 15 minute bars you could easily chart 1min bars and adjust your entry/exit signals accordingly. You can even go down to tick bars to be precise. In realtime all money management signals such as stops don't wait for next bar unless you tell it to.
 
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