FX & TradeStation

[turtle trader]

Hi

I'm looking for some advice re. using TradeStation for developing fx strategies, perhaps you could help? (I am using TS 2000i and eSignal)

A strategy i'm trying to use relies on limit orders to exit most trades. This is causing me a consistent problem since the lack of a central exchange means that there is no definitive 'current price' at any given time: The problem is that my datafeeds prices are more volatile (the lows are lower, and the highs are higher) than my brokers' prices, so TradeStation can tell me that my orders have been filled, but my brokers price may not have reached the same level. (I don't just mean due to the spread either - the discrepancy can be significantly greater than that). This means that I have to decide whether to take the brokers current price, or sit & hope that the limit is hit. It obviously also means that my backtests are giving me inaccurate data.

As far as I can see I have 3 options:

1: Don't use limit orders for fx strategies
2: Change datafeed or broker (although I suspect that whatever combination I use the problem will still exist)
3: Swap to TS8. The theory here is that they use one broker & therefore hopefully use that brokers prices for their data source. I don't know if this is actually the case or not which is one of my main reasons for posting - can anyone confirm if it is?

The strategy is designed for periods when the market is ranging & attempts to wait for entry signals on one side of the range, with limit orders to exit towards the other side. It backtests very well, but due the problem above I don't really know accurate results except that some days it works without a hitch and other days I constantly get actual prices falling short of where eSignals prices have hit my limits.

Has anyone else experienced this problem - any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

thanks in advance
Simon

 

[s-a]

Hello,

Yes I can confirm your point #3. Their data comes from GFT AFAIK and matches the order entry platform tick for tick.. Their broker is RJO.

HG

 

[turtle trader]

Thanks v much HG, looks like that is my best way forward

Simon

 

[peterpr]

I've hit the same problem with Wealthlab + ESignal. I understand the ESignal feed is a composite of a dozen or so large FX brokers/banks from GTIS and, as you say, there are consistently large discrepancies between it and my current broker FXCM (as much as 30-50 pips or so briefly a dozen times per day or so on the $EUR for example). I asked Esignal if I could somehow get the FXCM feed into ESignal but negative. The discrepancies are so large that it's even got me wondering about the possibility of arbitrage trading between various providers !!! - But I guess that might be just a bit too damn clever - bet somebody will be onto it though

 

[s-a]

A risk to YOUR trading business

Hello,

I think any current TRAD customers of prospective ones need to be aware of how TRAD treats their FX customers. I've been a customer there for a little over a year and have no end to the amount of grief with them as my FX broker and as my charting provider.

Where to start....

When I first started with TRAD I was told that I would be able to trade FX automatically via my strategies. Of course after I opened the account, I found out that this wasn't true because FX order integration is not part of TRAD. All orders need to be placed via this really crappy third party RJO platform (early GFT technology) that crashes on a regular basis with CORBA communication errors.

Ok, fine then. I can't auto trade my strateiges, at least I can backtest them! Well, sort of. At the time there was only 3 months worth of intraday data, so backtesting isn't going to do much good. Oh and if you want to use tick data, you can only backtest back 30 days!! They do not allow you to get anymore tick data then that - you have to build up your cache manually.

Then there is the term they use called a 'reconnect'. This happens fairly often (for a while it was happening every night). The effects of a reconnect are an unusable tradestation as it does not receive any data - so your charting just stops working. According to TRAD, a reconnect is a normal nightly procedure that normally goes unnoticed. For quite a long period though, it was certainly noticed. You see, TRAD doesn't think it is a big deal because the reconnects all happened during the early morning of the USA. What time is that around the world though? It just so happens it was bang on the London open - terrible time for any FX trader to have no charts. Typically this would happen at 0900 GMT and last for 10-20 mins, sometimes up to 30 mins.

The final straw for me just happened the other day though. I wanted to go short CAD/CHF. When trying to enter the order via the crappy third party order entry platform, I got a divide by zero exception!! I used to be a programmer, so I know exactly what has happened here. Programmer error. A fatal exception like this happens when the programmer does not check that a divide by zero event can ever occur. I had already entered into the trade via ITX so getting in was no problem, however, now that I was in I wanted to place a stop and could not! I had to end up calling the trading desk (long distance from New Zealand), wait on hold for some time, have the guy put in an order for me. What a pain in the ass. Then to top it off, I couldn't modify the order without getting the same divide by zero exception.

I posted on the TradeStation World Forum about this problem and received no support from their supposed support staff for over 24 hours. I didn't get any confirmation that they where even looking into the problem. Poor form.

What makes me most furious isn't so much the technical things that do not work, but rather the terrible customer service one receives. They either do not value their FX clients or simply do not care. I think it is that they do not value their FX clients because you don't see the futures clients get treated like this. In fact, quite the contrary. Makes sense from their point of view I guess because futures probably make them most of their money.

If this is how they treat their FX clients, then I guess this is how they will lose them. I'm leaving TRAD and in doing so, will make every effort to let others hear my true story of terrible customer service with them. They are a risk to any FX trading business and not an asset like they should be.

HG

 

[gus]

I thought that I would relate my experience with TradeStation & RJOFX. I had been a TS user since TS6, then 7 and now TS8 in the futures market. No problems of any nature were encountered.

When I wanted to get into forex, and saw that the feed was from RJOFX, i opened my account directly with them rather than with TS (I keep a small balance with them) and after a year I have had no problems with RJOFX - they use the GFT platform. It's easy to use. The folks at RJO have been very nice and helpful to me.