Automating your mechanical trading strategy with a broker

[JTrader]

S you have your mechanical trading strategy - say for emini s&p500, Dow or Nasdaq contracts -that you've developed backtested and optimised using ts2000i easy language or esignal formula script (EFS). You now want to fully automate the system with your broker - which may be tradestation or IB for example. What is the actual process that enables the strategy to be automated with the broker?

As part of your ongoing performance management plan, you may want to periodically optimise or tweak your mechanical system in order to ensure that it is likely to be performing at its optimum level - which would mean that any slight parameter changes would also need to be registered with the broker. How is this done?


Many thanks

jtrader.

 

[tradermaji]

you can use tradestation directly to automate your trades after you have backtested it. Also, other systems like Wealthlab will help you autotrade with IB and other API enabled brokers. Also, strategyrunner maybe a viable option. There are several brokers who offer Strategyrunner.

Good luck.

 

[zow]

'Tradebolt' is also an option.
www.tradebolt.com

 

[JTrader]

Thanks

I guess keeping everything under the tradestation umbrella would be the most straightforward option.

But what about if this is not possible? (as a trader must meet tradestation securities strict criteria for opening an account - liquid net worth etc.)

What is the actual process that enables the strategy to be automated with the broker?

As part of your ongoing performance management plan, you may want to periodically optimise or tweak your mechanical system in order to ensure that it is likely to be performing at its optimum level - which would mean that any slight parameter changes would also need to be registered with the broker. How is this done?


Many thanks

jtrader.

 

[LoneSilver]

Have you ever heard of Hypertrader ( http://www.hypertrader.it/ ) ??? Check their Hyperorder free tool, it could be useful for you and you don't have to pay nothing for using it.

 

[JTrader]

Thanks LoneSilver

hyperorder does ssound like an option.

At http://www.hypertrader.it/hyperorder.shtml the details state that -

• TradeStation 2000i and 8.0 Client working with Tracking Center, HyperOrder will not require any Easy Language modification, just take the order generated and process it.

Using a broker and/or tool that does not require any modification of the programming/formula language that you work with sounds like a sensibe idea.

What does the term "Tracking Center" refer to in the above quote?

Many thanks

jtrader.

 

[JTrader]

Would it be the case that when you write a mechanical strategy, link it to your broker (through an API?) any changes that you make to that strategy are automatically detected by the API and incorporated into the automation process?

Or, would any changes that are made to the mechanical trading strategy, also need to be seperately manually made to the link (API?) that goes to the broker?

Many thanks

jtrader.

 

[timcannell]

Would it be the case that when you write a mechanical strategy, link it to your broker (through an API?) any changes that you make to that strategy are automatically detected by the API and incorporated into the automation process?

Or, would any changes that are made to the mechanical trading strategy, also need to be seperately manually made to the link (API?) that goes to the broker?

Many thanks

jtrader.

Let me answer this in my capacity as a professional programmer - a brokers API is essentially an 'exposed' set of commands that allows one to place orders, read price information etc from within another custom piece of software.
If one automates a strategy by using a broker's API then any changes to the strategy are by definition changes to the program that leverages the brokers API. When a custom automated trading system is built then it absorbs the API which becomes part of the code - they are at this point one and the same program.
Without being an expert on automating TradeStation 2000i the way this would work is that you would write a piece of software ( such as TradeBolt I believe ) that sits between TS2000 and your broker and 'parses' an EL strategy before making the appropriate API calls to your broker.
I hope this helps somewhat - If not let me know and I will revise/add to my explanation

I am looking into automated trading currently - so far TS8 seems to be the way to go if your interest is in US stocks ( you have a strategy builder, a charting package, a broker, and automated execution capability all in one ) - invitably other solutions will be more fragmented, which in my experience is always likely to be more problematic and possibly expensive.

 

[asia8888]

Good morning

I run a trading strategy in TradeStation and I need to interconnect to Currenex in a FIX API manner.

Do you have that API and if so can you tell me the price?

Regards

Charles

 

[andrewbee]

What nobody seems to have mentioned is, what hardware/Internet connection are you using to run an automated trading system? I have 6 Mbit DSL from AT&T, but it is about as reliable as a chocolate fireguard. Definitely not a trading-grade (or anything-grade) connection. Which gets us into the realm of either dedicated business-grade connections, or managed/hosted servers. (I would like to run my own custom-built software with IB's API, not TradeStation or similar). Anybody have any thoughts on the hardware side?

 

[asia8888]

founded one API that works between Trade Station and Currenex

I finally found some software that works and automated trades generated from TS8 sent to Currenex. It is HyperTrader. Works find.

Hardware I use is a simple PC but with an Intel Maths Processor a bit faster then regular processors. But, it is not a requirement. I simply like to run back test faster and imagine it may help the computing generally speaking.

What nobody seems to have mentioned is, what hardware/Internet connection are you using to run an automated trading system? I have 6 Mbit DSL from AT&T, but it is about as reliable as a chocolate fireguard. Definitely not a trading-grade (or anything-grade) connection. Which gets us into the realm of either dedicated business-grade connections, or managed/hosted servers. (I would like to run my own custom-built software with IB's API, not TradeStation or similar). Anybody have any thoughts on the hardware side?