Tried to change from Tradestation to MultiCharts but gave up

Quote from Andrew Kirillov:

Could you please explain how the above can be considered an equivalent of portfolio trading? In real trading you always have limitations on capital that is available for trading. This means that at any given moment you need to know how many positions you have open and what your realized/unrealized profit/loss is. If you do not have that kind of information at any given moment of time, you cannot take or ignore a new trading opportunity. Furthermore, when it comes to trading 1000 stocks, the situation is aggravated by the fact that the number of trading opportunities is too great, thus trading needs to be automated. Consequently it is necessary to automatically calculate the amount of money that can be invested in yet another position.

However, all this cannot be done in RadarScreen because it does not have global profit and number of open positions. Hence, I would like to know how you could use RadarScreen for portfolio trading.

“I believe that MC requires a chart based strategy to be used for each symbol in order to trade multiple symbols.”

Yes, the above is true for the current version of MultiCharts. However, MC 6.0 will allow autotrading portfolios taking into consideration portfolio constraints. No charts will need to be created for that. All you would need to do is add the required symbols into your portfolio.

Thank you once again for your response and comments.
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Hi Andrew,

The RadarScreen feature allows one to use .PlaceOrder macros, these are direct calls to the TS order network once a trade condition is met. What I do is have a RadarScreen with about 900 stocks streaming data where code monitors price info on every tick. Once a condition is met the order is sent directly to the network for execution.

While executing this code on each symbol I constantly place calls for "GetAvailableEquity" and "GetNumberPositions" from where I calculate available equity. My limits are no more than X open positions at a time at a fixed dollar amount per position wherein the system stops sending new orders once a predetermined equity level is hit. I track all open positions in the TradeManager window visually as well. I have not set automated portfolio loss limits and so forth but I know it can be done per other users who are doing exactly what I am doing.

If you can design a way to mimic or do better than the above approach using MC then I am all ears. So far, my methods for doing the above are well tested and reliable for trading about 950 products intraday. Except for the occasional TS data disruption and the logic required to track orders and correctly handle misc. errors, this has been a good solution for me. Its really a real time scan and order generator when you get down to it.

Mike
 
HI Mike and Robert
as the style of trading you both do is rather similar to mine and as i'm currently looking for new trading software, i found your discussion on MC vs TS very interesting.

As you point out, TS currently provides a straight-forward platform for trading this way. However, i'd prefer to have a standalone piece of software and don't want to pay monthly subs.

Given the above, i've looked at T2Ki, it is possible to get cheap copies, but you leave yourslef open to pirates putting spyware on your pc, stealing personal data, etc, so this routes seems a little risky. To buy an original copy you are looking at $2400 for a 10 year old piece of software and no support.

So getting to the point, have either of you had experience of TS2000i and if so how did you find it and how does it compare to TS 8.3?

Fractals R Us, you've used TS2K, have you got any advice on my software dilemma? Have you tried TS 8.? and if so how does TS2K compare?

I'd really appreciate you views.
Thanks
Synonym
 
MultiCharts will be releasing the Version 5 soon.
They will call this the Gold release.

They have version 6 in the pipeline,
with many of the features people have been asking for in the past years.

I wonder the cost impact to the existing users.
MultiCharts has promised free upgrade until the Gold release.
i.e. people will have to pay an upgrade fee to get the Version 6 and its features.
 
I tried to make MC 5 beta work for my trading, but my demo ran out and I could not get it to work "reliably" with IB TWS. One of the big problems for me was that TWS wants to shutdown every 24 hours. When I relaunch it, sometimes the charts do no update, subsequently breaking the strategies. If I had open positions I would need to close them early to sync up with the strategy (need to be flat). Yes I tried AA mode, but I would rather use SA mode.

TS, while the platform itself is sub-par in my opinion, has a much more stable infrastructure for actually trading. Data synchronization is a non-issue, nor do overnight strategies break. There is a comforting feeling knowing that when I wake up the next morning that the strategies are in the exact same place I left them before I go to sleep. I wish I could say the same about the MC/TWS setup. But more often than not, there was some discrepancy. I NEED piece of mind. I like my sleep :)

That said, MC is a superior piece of software for development/portfolio backtesting. Everything just feels tight and snappy relative to TS. I love it. I really do want to see them succeed with a more reliable trading platform and I will keep an eye on them this year.
 
Seems MC has a functioning equivelent of Radarscreen.

Would be interested to know in particular if it has improvements such as an auto off for an alert once hit when running in update every tick mode (as per TS8). I have yet to see this anyone overcome this serious handicap with TS2K via code (if anyone has please tell me).

Also an aotoload of 1000's of symbols into the database from a list is needed - one of the 3rd party vendors of TS2k adaptors has apparently incorporated this.

There are other weaknesses of TS2k that a helpful MC software author could address and oincrease its attractiveness to thos soldiring on with TS2k.

My aim is to scan 25,000++ symbols in RT - something hard to deal with when no way of shutting off the alerts once triggered. Even 5000 symbols can get a bit much with repeated alerts.
 
Mike, thank you for the comments. You are right. It doesn't allow you to use history to make a real portfolio backtesting, but it will work in real-time. Our portfolio trading system will do the same before Q2 of 2009.
I appreciate your ideas.


Quote from Mike805:

Hi Andrew,

The RadarScreen feature allows one to use .PlaceOrder macros, these are direct calls to the TS order network once a trade condition is met. What I do is have a RadarScreen with about 900 stocks streaming data where code monitors price info on every tick. Once a condition is met the order is sent directly to the network for execution.

While executing this code on each symbol I constantly place calls for "GetAvailableEquity" and "GetNumberPositions" from where I calculate available equity. My limits are no more than X open positions at a time at a fixed dollar amount per position wherein the system stops sending new orders once a predetermined equity level is hit. I track all open positions in the TradeManager window visually as well. I have not set automated portfolio loss limits and so forth but I know it can be done per other users who are doing exactly what I am doing.

If you can design a way to mimic or do better than the above approach using MC then I am all ears. So far, my methods for doing the above are well tested and reliable for trading about 950 products intraday. Except for the occasional TS data disruption and the logic required to track orders and correctly handle misc. errors, this has been a good solution for me. Its really a real time scan and order generator when you get down to it.

Mike
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Our forum guys discussed the shutdown TWS problem and here is what they recommend to do:
http://forum.tssupport.com/viewtopi...stdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=synchronizer

Quote from Tight Face:

I tried to make MC 5 beta work for my trading, but my demo ran out and I could not get it to work "reliably" with IB TWS. One of the big problems for me was that TWS wants to shutdown every 24 hours. When I relaunch it, sometimes the charts do no update, subsequently breaking the strategies. If I had open positions I would need to close them early to sync up with the strategy (need to be flat). Yes I tried AA mode, but I would rather use SA mode.

TS, while the platform itself is sub-par in my opinion, has a much more stable infrastructure for actually trading. Data synchronization is a non-issue, nor do overnight strategies break. There is a comforting feeling knowing that when I wake up the next morning that the strategies are in the exact same place I left them before I go to sleep. I wish I could say the same about the MC/TWS setup. But more often than not, there was some discrepancy. I NEED piece of mind. I like my sleep :)

That said, MC is a superior piece of software for development/portfolio backtesting. Everything just feels tight and snappy relative to TS. I love it. I really do want to see them succeed with a more reliable trading platform and I will keep an eye on them this year.
More...
 
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