Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Have few inquiries about trade station auto trading.
My first inquiry is about how efficient is auto trading in trade Station? Do strategies miss orders. Meaning will some be seen on the strategy back testing but in reality some orders will not be placed either in paper or money accounts. And how often does that happen.
How good is the back testing? I saw some videos and it seems very easy to observe where strategies place orders. But does it really represent real trading, meaning can you actually put stop losses and profit taking orders in the same strategy and see it behave in back testing as real time trading? Does a strategy perform in real trading as well as back testing still shows it performing?
How close is "Easy Language" to "Think Script", language on TOS if you are familiar with it. I have been struggling with testing strategies on TOS, and accumulated a good share of frustration on it. I figured I can get some real information about Tarde Station before I decide to move my trading there.
And finally, How good is the order management? Can orders using strategies be saved for later use with the same future contract or may be other underlyings? Can we actually access a good organized log of working orders and executed trades as well. Do they have good book keeping on statements of previous orders for example.
There are more details that I have questions about where I couldn't really get full answers to from the 10 or so videos from trade station on you tube. I hope this is not so much to ask. Please feel free to point me to other threads if this is easier than writing comments about all these points.
One last note. I was debating using Python API to connect to TWS on Interactive Brokers. Any insight on how much of a task this could be compared to switching over to trade station and using EL?
I'll try to answer the first couple of questions...
I have been autotrading with Tradestation for many years. It is not perfect. Orders sometimes get missed, data issues occur, corrections are made, etc. You have to keep on top of it. Overall, I'd rate it as very good, but not perfect. One example: if you use setexitonclose with standard time sessions, the strategy will send an order, the backtest will show it as filled, but in real life the order will be rejected.
It depends. If you use the orders properly, have a correctly devised strategy, include accurate amounts for slippage and commission and use the right bar type, it can be VERY accurate.
BUT, it is relatively easy create great looking backtests that are "gamed" - meaning you are fooling the strategy backtest engine.
There are many variables/options/switches/decisions that go into backtesting that will lead you to good, or bad, results.
One example: If you try to use the reserved word SetDollarTrailing without 1 tick Look Inside Bar Backtesting enabled, you will get ridiculously good results.
Yes, subject to the answer above.
Yes, it can. But many strategies do not, due to a myriad of reasons. One example: if you over optimize, results in real life will never look as good as backtest.
Sorry that I cannot be more specific, but hopefully that helps. There are so many facets to the software and development process that it is hard to give a straight yes or no answer. I do believe though that ANY software you use will behave in a similar fashion.
as @kevinkdog has pointed out, you can create backtests that match realtime performance in Tradestation. Like with every other platform you can also easily fool it (or better yourself) and create backtests with results that will never hold up in real time. I would suggest to watch a few of the webinars @kevinkdog did on this topic and to read his book as this will give you great ideas and help avoiding the pitfalls.
When it comes to coding, some of the things you mentioned in your post are not doable with EasyLanuage, but can be accomplished with Object Oriented EasyLanguage (OOEL). In general every platform has it's own reserved words to drive it and you will have a bit of a learning curve. How long it will take you will depend on your prior programming experience and you might want to start out with legacy EasyLanguage, before you move to OOEL.
Using a programming language and connecting to a broker's API will likely give you more flexibility, but the task will most likely be a lot more complex compared to switching to a trading platform that does a lot of work for you in the background already.
Is there any good profitable strategy for Auto Trading of Futures (ES, NQ etc.) on Trade Station? Has any one tried Sal Starzun ECLIPSE or any other system for Auto Trading of ES?
Vacationer
