Newbie question on Trade Automation

[Razbot]

Hi All,

Just joined this forum today.
I'm looking for advise on a good setup for automating my trades.

Bit of background.
I'm new to trading, but had an interest in it for years, with a bit of spread betting in the past. I'm actually an IT architect by profession so not worried about the actual technical setup side of it.

I've been swing trading equities for the last few month and getting a good handle on the various indicators, (I only trade UK FTSE and companies that are SDRT exempt).

However I would like to back test and also automate trades against my strategies. I would like to remove some of the emotion when making my decision and also make the actual bid quicker as I sometime miss the signals in time.

Any advise on platforms with a level 1 data LSE feed with a comprehensive automatic trading ability against scripted strategies? and brokerage that work well (i.e good integrated gateway APIs) ? Preferably a UK company to make it easier for funding and withdrawals?

At the moment I use eSignals for charts and indicators and I've got an alert push message via my mobile on buy and sell signals, I then manually make my trades with hargreaves lansdown.

Many thanks for any advise.
Ross

 

[MORRIS2001]

I'm afraid the UK retail broking market is several years lagging on FIX or JSON API connections. Especially in the OTC markets like spread betting or CFDs. Having said that, I am not aware of a single, credible API solution from a UK broker for DMA equities.

 

[Charlton]

I use Tradestation because of the programming and backtesting facility using its own Object oriented programming language. However that is only for US instruments.

For UK instruments (and others) you might want to look at interactive brokers. They have a reasonable platform, although I don't think their backtesting/programming features are as rich as Tradestation.

However what they do have is a good brokerage account (including UK equities) and also a good API

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=14509&ns=T#apps-tools-widgets

So you can create your own programming interface or use other proprietary ones e.g an inexpensive one is Amibroker https://www.amibroker.com/

I believe that the amibroker interface is only for the capture of data from IB, but some other readers might be able to verify that.

Another option is Multicharts linked to IB: http://www.multicharts.com/brokers/
This uses a version of Easylanguage (the same programming language used in Tradestation, except that the development of EL in Tradestation and Multicharts parted company some years back).

 

[lexsmith]

Thank you I'm looking it

 

[lexsmith]

I will check it

 

[doubletop11]

NinjaTrader is what I use right now. I like the C oriented programming language platforms. TradeStation has tried to copy NinjaTrader and the object oriented structure, however it has failed in so many ways in the back end because the platform has been life support for a past few years. NinjaTrader is in C#, and Sierra Charts is in C++. I personally am looking to convert over to Sierra Charts for many reason but one of the best reason is that Sierra Charts is Broker Independent. So that may help you too. Because it's written in C++ is also very fast in it database processing and overall platform speed. It's really where I think I'll spend the next several years.

 

[f2calv]

IGs OTC CFD/Spreadbet API, works pretty well imo [although during times of high volatility they might temporarily turn it off for the placing of new positions due to their hedging requirements];

http://labs.ig.com/

&

http://docs.labs.cityindex.com/

 

[doubletop11]

IGs OTC CFD/Spreadbet API, works pretty well imo [although during times of high volatility they might temporarily turn it off for the placing of new positions due to their hedging requirements];

http://labs.ig.com/

&

http://docs.labs.cityindex.com/

what type of API or backend language do they have?