I’ve been having success importing it to Excel and using space as the delimiter. It’s a tiny bit of work. A little formatting and adding a few columns and it’s perfect.
All of it can be done as a macro and this becomes a few clicks and it’s done.
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I would like to suggest putting the strategy selection within the trader. ...and allowing the selection to be permanant per computer.
note that the current method to choose a strategy apon trader initialization is NOT a permanent selection and requires loging into the broker selector on every computer. this is time consuming, not efficient.
(explanation)
if im running several computers, currently I must choose the strategy within the wizard before firing up the trader. I must repeat this process every time on every computer.
However if I point a computers trader configuration to for example:
strategy 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 permanantly I would be able to autostart each trader without having to choose the strategy.
The developer would also have to include a selection for long/short.
since (currently) the trader configuration files remain on the CT servers this "static" configuration (above) would have to be part of a local file. it would also be great if the local file was editable outside the trader to allow quick changes.
Thanks
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Only problem with that is that you can only run 1 Long and 1 Short strategy at a time with each subscription. If you want to run 5 automated traders then you would need 5 subscriptions with 5 separate email addresses.
If 2 automated traders were to run with the same email address, their trades/positions and account balances would be all mixed up.
Ed
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Hi,
In "Cooltrade Trader Preferences", "Maximum Symbols To Purchase" is it possible to add "0" (Zero). Sometimes during trading hours I would like CT to stop going long or going short.
Thanks,
Real
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So, what you are requesting is the ability to tell the robotic trader to not open new positions, but continue to close positions?
If you are adding to positions, then setting maximum trades to zero will not accomplish that.
Wouldn’t it just be better to put change the "Halt Trading" button on the main screen to a drop-down checkbox list:
Halt All Long and Short Trading
Halt All Long Trading
Halt All Short Trading
Halt Opening New Long Positions
Halt Opening New Short Positions
Halt Adding To Existing Long Positions
Halt Adding To Existing Short Positions
Halt Closing Long Positions
Halt Closing Short Positions
Save These Settings Upon Exit
Ed
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Please consider making a button to "Clear all blocklist Symbols" or a "sellect all" option
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When CT is scanning through your watchlist looking for a stock that meets your parameters I assume that it buys in alphabetical order if you have multiple candidates? I was just curious if by doing this you miss out on a better buy but since it was further down the list and you maybe filled your trades limit it doesn’t get the chance to be bought. In this case it is probably better to put some more restrictive buy parameters, but I was curious if CT could run through the list all the way through and then pick the stock that first has the greatest positive divergence out of your parameters? It’s just funny when I get alerts and they are all stocks that start with A, B, and C…..
(suggestion by ConradPuls)
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I think it would be cool to have multiple profit goals coupled with multiple profit pullbacks. I like the profit protection but it is too tight. I’d like to be able to have the opportunity to ride a stock up further. I meet profit protection value and one little blip down and it sells, only to watch the stock climb further.
Consider 3 profit goals, and 3 associated pull backs. For example:
Profit Goal 1: 2% Pullback 1: 1%
Profit Goal 2: 4% Pullback 2: 1.5%
Profit Goal 3: 6% Pullback 3: 2%
I think by stepping in some fashion as above one could really ride a profit up better, but still protect himself and come out profitable.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks.
Conrad
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consider making a button to "Clear all blocklist Symbols" or a "sellect all" option prior to login in the same way you created the new "Refresh to close trades and reset account value". This option could be placed on the broker selector screen. This would save an enormous amount of time. as it stands I spend abount 10 minuts clearing equity symbols from my blocklist when switching from forex to equities
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is it possible to import a watchlist from my etrade account
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No. Automatic importing of a watchlist from ETRADE has not been added to the CoolTrade system.
However, if you export the watchlist from ETRADE to a file, then you can set up your strategy to build the CoolTrade watchlist from that file.
Ed
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I have been using Cool-Trade for about a month and would like to know if there is a possibility that the ETrade API can log itself in and get the web code?
I use a screen scraper script with some success, but there are times when it fails and if I am not present or away I have had to call someone to start it up for me.
Thoughts?
Lester John
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ETRADE is currently the only broker that requires a manual login. Unfortunately, for CoolTrade to perform the screen-scrape would be a violation of the CoolTrade / ETRADE service agreement.
We will put in a request to ETRADE to extend the expiration of the code. It currently expires every 24 hours.
Regards,
Ed
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I have a suggestion for how intraday calculations are done. For brokers where historical bars are available it would make sense to use historical bars for all calculations rather than by building the bars "on the fly" as it appears the software does.This causes the bars used by Cool-trade to vary from what is reported by the brokerage. I assume the bars are available since they are obtained at startup to calculate different intraday indicators.
I see some advantages to this:
- One would be able to exactly match their strategy to the brokerage’s charting - a picture is worth a thousand words.
- Cool-trade’s decision making would match what others see visually in the brokerage’s charts thus matching what other people "see" and trade on.
- Calculations of bars would not be impacted by issues with connectivity unless there was an extended period (more than a minute) of the connection being unavailable.
Thanks.
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It would be great to have the ability to add to current positions using percentages instead of fixed $ cost per share in the predefined table. If trading stocks with relatively diverse prices within the same strategy the current predefined table causes higher priced stocks to add positions based off small percentage moves but requires big percentage moves on lesser priced stocks. Adding this feature would give more flexibility in strategies that rely on the ability to add to positions.
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I don’t use that feature anymore.
I just add a rule on the ADD TO POSITONS SCREEN as follows to add on 15% drops:
ABS(My Same Symbol Lowest Trade Price Move) is Greater Than Value of My Same Symbol Highest Trade Price % ( 15 )
Enlightened
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1 am running 3 subscriptions of cooltrade. currently, I am using ’HAL’ long and short and ’DOW 30’ long and short and am looking for a 3rd strategy. Any ideas out there which might be best? I’m thinking of using the ’conservative’ long and short strategy or the ’$2 strategy’. Not sure which is best.
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There is another good one called "Dow 30 $1 Moves" that can be copied from Office8... This strategy is my favorite. It holds positions indifinitely and takes profits off the table nearly every day that the Dow index is positive.
It is only Long and as the name states, has very few rules, and just takes profits if the stock price increases by $1 and buys more on $1 drops. You feel a little burn when the market drops, but on days when the Dow is up 100+, you take huge profits.
Good luck!
Jerry
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THANK YOU- I’LL GIVE IT A TRY
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Presently the CoolTrade program displays just Buy or Sell for symbols that are traded. I would like to have these changed to Buy to Open and Sell to Close for long positions and Sell to Open and Buy to Close for short positions. It would make the displayed and printed reports easier to read and to determine if a new position was just opened or if the position was being closed. Thank you for considering my suggestion.
Chris
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Given a stock, I would like to evaluate the value of a rule expression. That will help a lot in rule building in the strategy wizard.
As of now, we are building rules for entry / exit, etc without knowing what the values of certain indicators will be, The only way to find out the value will be to add the rule to the appropriate entry/exit criteria, save the strategy, restart the application. Let all stocks load up if Market is open. Once the stocks show up, click on the Rules menu item. Its definitely possible some times when the market is open. But takes in excess of 15 minutes to just look up a value.
We need some way of looking up the value of an expression right from the strategy wizard where we build the rules. I would specify the expression and also the stock symbol I am interested in. For example: Intraday RSI (1,14, 0) for stock MSFT
Thanks!
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The charts available in Cool trade are very basic as of today. As a result, I am switching between Cool-trade and other charting software like freestockcharts.com or think or swim console to lookup a symbol. Instead if would be great if a complete charting package were included inside of cool trade.
Perhaps you could license it from freestockcharts.com?
This is low priority. No big deal.
Thanks!
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To make it easier to determine which rules are allowing a trade and which rules that are preventing a trade, could you please consider adding True or False behind each rules in the Rules Menu?
Thanks you,
Gage
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Add a Pic to last post
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How do you add an attachment? I’ve clicked on the browse icon and selected the file, but each time the file doesn’t appear with the posting.
Gage
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I just tried it too and apparently images don’t work.
We’ll send your message to the developers of the Community board, since CoolTrade did not create it.
In all of these years, no one has ever pointed out that attachments don’t work.
Thanks,
Ed
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It seems like you have a pretty open userbase and active forum moderators. Also, alot of repeat issues brought up through the forums. It might be a good opportunity to use a Wiki.
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I need way more than 10 max trades per symbol. Is there a way to get around that? Why the limitation?
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I add to my positions on 5% drops. So, if a position drops 50%, I will have 10 lots.
Then I have a 2nd account/subscription were I open the position at 5% below my lowest trade (from the first account) and then continue to add on 5% drops.
With the 2 accounts, I can add on 5% drops and worse case scenerio I will end up with 20 lots max. Not likely that INTEL is going to drop 100% though.
In all fo the years that I have been using this system I think only 2 times I had to use the 2nd account to extend the lots.
Enlightened
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Just frustrated because I have had to change my strategy at least 5 times, not because the strategy doesn’t work, but because of some arbitrary limitation that Cool-Trade has. A few examples:
First, I need to be able to set a minimum decrease followed by a technical purchase signal IN TANDEM with a minimum increase followed by a technical sell signal. You can buy based on technical indicators but you can’t sell lots using them.
This created the problem of buying at bottoms, but selling only halfway up increases rather than riding a trend.
So I decide that I can get around this by just buying at smaller and smaller increments (as my captial builds), so that you always ride the complete wave instead of selling out halfway up. Think of it like tracing the price with a pencil and trying to stay as close to the swings as possible. In my case, I want to be able to cover a $15 large cycle swing, in $0.25 increments. But Cool-Trade will only let me cover a $15 swing in $1.50 increments. You might think that you can just do $1 trades and lop off the bottom $5. But, with leveraged ETF’s you can’t afford to not continue buying into drops and taking profits off of short term swings. If the price drops below your 10th trade, and stays low, then you will start losing money from compounding. You need to keep churning a profit to cover this loss.
I also would to build a short strategy out of shorted ETFs rather than borrowing on margin directly, but I can’t do that because the system only allows one "long" strategy. And my short strategy would use more conservative indicators so it won’t work in the same strategy.
It would also be nice to be able to trade less than 100 share lots. I know that some brokers place limitations etc, but that is between me and my broker.
I wouldn’t be frustrated, if it wasn’t for the fact that these limitations are seemingly arbitrary. Am I wrong about this? Everytime I ask about a fuction or make a recommendation the answer seems to be "buy another system" Is that what these limitations are for? To push me to buy another system?
Maybe what is happening, from a high level point of view, is that ETF’s are a game changer to retail investors. They can have high volatilty and have diversified risks. From what I can tell, Cool-Trade has been in business longer than any other Robotic Trader. However, I suggest Cool-Trade adapt to the new rules of the game or lose out to the many competitors that are continually popping up.
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I’m just a ct user for 4 years so I know quite a bit about how to get a lot out of the software and in reading your comments it sounds like you want to do multiple long strategies at the same time. Like you want to drive to san francisco and new york at the same time. IMO that would require 2 cars.
I’ve seen the software enhancements over the years and they have been very good at giving us the requested features that are doable (and more). I doubt they are holding back on key features with the intent to get you to buy more systems.
I think the biggest problem today is market related. For instance if the market is not going down the short strategies will not work no matter what you try. My short strategies are still occasionally opening new shorts and holding them as we await the inevitable downturn in the market. There is nothing that can be done in any strategy to FORCE the market to go down. And yesterday’s trade range was so tight it was near imposible to take profits on the long or short side.
Because you want to run long and short etf with the long strategy only, you are asking the same strategy to do opposite things depending on the symbol it is looking at. If you could short then you would be able to run 2 separate strategies (1 long and 1 short) at the same time. So the limitation (that you cannot short in an IRA) is a limitation set by the law enforcers. I wonder why they made that dumb rule. I hate to think they only did it so millions of people will get hammered in their IRA accounts when the market goes down.
H2
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The long and the short I can semi-understand, because the changes would require some significant coding. Although, newer robotic traders that are popping up are starting to allow for multiple strategies run at the same time.
But if there is a fix to the maximum number of lots per symbol limiation, that would be great. It’s not something I would want now, because of capital limitations, but definitely something I will want by the end of next year.
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This is a request to add a feature in the Automated Trader to enable manually overriding TIMED_PRICE for a given symbol with a user specified price. Since the timed price is simply snapshotting a value at a particular time and storing that price in the TIMED_PRICE variable, it would be useful to manually set a new price for the TIMED_PRICE variable for a given symbol if desired. i.e. If it turns out that the timed price being snapshotted for one of my symbols is not a good one, I want to change it on the fly. I want to have this flexibility within the auto trader because it means a world of difference with potential profit/loss.
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I have noticed on the occasional day, when one of the watch list is more then 40, Open Positions can take a long time to load and will not react to the market until most of the watch list has finished initializing. Or in some cases do not load/list all of the open positions until most of the watch list is initialized.
I have some intraday triggers that can take a while to build do to time related components. I would like to see a priority adjustment until after the watch list has been initialized. Right now it seems Open positions has the same priority as the watch list, and this works just fine after the watch list has finished initializing.
The problem I see is, Open Positions are something that I have, and can become lost opportunities, where I can end up taking a loss, or forced to hold the position for longer than needed unnecessarily tying up funds. It’s a position that is already owned, thus I am only waiting for exit rules/Profit rules, and in almost all cases just Profit rules, which is mostly just Market Price > Purchase Price by ‘y’ amount. This doesn’t really have a time lag component like waiting for intraday calculations to build.
If the open positions are waiting 30-45min before they can start reacting to the market, this is a problem. On the other hand symbols in the watch list are just simply miss opportunities, and can’t necessarily cause me to take a loss.
A solution would be to allow account information to temporally have a higher priority; maybe even just for the first 5min after starting the trader would probably be sufficient to resolve the issue.
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The only thing holding a symbol in the Exceptions folder is the streaming quotes from the broker. Once the software sees streaming quotes then the position is moved to the watch list and active list.
While streaming quotes are not present, all rules for opening, adding to, and closing positions is set to return FALSE.
It is possible that the check for no streaming quotes process could be separated from the rules checking and then moved up in priority to prevent the checking of all rules.
That is a good idea. I’ll put it on the to-do list.
Thank you.
CT
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The report should also report the total number of trades at the bottom. It would be very useful in allowing someone to quickly calculate commissions and thus calculate the true p/l of the strategy
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Hello I have just joined the Cooltrader group. I would like to know how to have the system trade three accounts I have separately.
I have one account for myself
one for my daughter as her future college fund
and one for building a nest egg which i wont touch for a long time.
Can cool trader do multi accounts like trade copy does on Mt4 platform? If not this would be a impressive and great feature. If its already there, please tell me how to utilize it.
thanks
James.
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Hi James,
Each CoolTrade account needs to point to a separate brokerage account.
You can run them all on the same computer, but for best results, run them on separate computers.
If you do run multiple automated traders on the same computer, then you need to install them into separate directories.
Example:
c:\Traders\A
c:\Traders\B
c:\Traders\C
CoolTrade support can help you set that up if you like. Just send email to support@cooltraderpro
CT
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As a new CoolTrade user I’m evaluating multiple strategies and over time have changed both the long and short strategies. When I run the report I’ve no way of knowing what trades where with which strategy unless I record the dates separately.
Including the strategy name would be very helpful.
Thanks
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As this was requested 16 months ago, I figured it would not be done, and made a workaround using watermarks. A watermark (grey text in the page’s background) can identify the strategy and computer where it’s running. It shows up on every page thereafter, until you shut it off.
Note that there are two possible strategy names for the report: the Long and the Short strategy.
Enabling a Watermark on the printed Report:In Windows, click the [Start button], then Devices and Printers.
Right-click on your printer’s icon, and select Printing Preferences.
Click the Advanced tab.
There should be an option named [_] Use Watermark. Click it.
Click the Settings button to the right of it.
Click Add to create a new watermark.
Creating a Watermark:Type your strategy name in the Title and Text boxes.
Add in the computer name after, if you can. This will make it easy to figure out which computer generated the report.
You will see the text appear diagonally in the small page representation to the left.
You might have to abbreviate the Text or lower the font size to fit it all on the printed page.
Click OK, click OK, click Apply. Watermark examples for two different computers during simulations or live trading:
- Conserv Long-Short Sims/ONE
- Aggressive Sims/TWO
- $1-2 Long/Conserv Short Live/ONE
- DOW 30 Long-Short Live/TWO.
Remember that the watermark will show up on everything you print after that, unless, just before you print, you click Preferences button, and disable the watermark.
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<img src=’’images/smilies/Grey/cc-smilie12.gif’’ border=’’0’’> <img src=’’images/smilies/Grey/cc-smilie12.gif’’ border=’’0’’>
Running the "Agressive Long " strategy and and "jimostiek, fund" short strategy which showed on the preview the best results over the last 200 days.
Account value $95k
start of simulated trading account 12/17/12
long trades 25
short trades 13
total trades 28
highest loss $231
highest profit $176
total profit/loss per 1/31/13 on closed trades $872
open trade value per 1/31/13 -$2054
What is intersting to me is that despite uptrends in the last 4 weeks has only 1 long trade but 12 short trades open.
Hope for more people posting their results on the different strategie they are using
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I am not a big fan of that strategy. I’ve seen it make a lot, but also lose a lot.
I like the dow strategies because I have seen it consistently close profitable trades. Whereas the aggressive closes too many losing positions before they have a chance to go positive.
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what strategies are you usin and where can I find it for dowbload.? I have no Dow strategies in my Strategy Wizzard?
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My request is to lower the minimum number of shares in the "minimum shares per trade" menus so that individuals with less $ in their accounts can have access to the higher priced stocks.
For example, take an individual with a $50,000 account who wants to include purchases of HNZ. This person would be unable to do so because HNZ is currently trading at around $800. With the 100 share minimum, the total purchase price of one buy would be $80,000. Some other stocks that would be inaccessible in this example would include ISRG, BMY, MA and GOOG.
There are of course many $2 shares that can be accessed with an account such as the one in the above example, but the hope here is that an individual who wants to make a $2400 buy can choose freely between buying 1200 shares of a $2 stock or 3 shares of a $800 stock.
Would it be possible to decrease the lower the limit in the "minimum shares per trade" menus?
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What is so special about HNZ? Is it extremely volatile, more so than many stocks under $60 or $70?
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HZN was used as an example of a well known stock that some might want to use in a watchlist.
The point of the request/post was not to assign value or make a recommendation for a given stock, but rather to request that the lower limit in the minimum shares function be changed to allow for people with less capital to use higher priced stocks without having to use all their capital to do so.
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding.
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Thanks danielahjellen,
I have been thinking about / wanting this for some time, and wonder why this 100 share min. was even put in here.
This would be a considerable help / improvement.
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I have not had any trades for several days while using the Intraday MACD Histogram to trigger a buy. Here are the only rules I have...
(all conditions must be true)
OPEN POSITION RULES
Intraday MACD Histogram ( 12,26,9,2,2 ) < 0 Dollars
Intraday MACD Histogram ( 12,26,9,2,0 ) > 0 Dollars
EXIT POSITION RULES
Intraday MACD Histogram ( 12,26,9,3,0 ) <= to 0 Dollars
In the column "Rule Preventing Next Trade" it says the first rule is preventing the trade - Intraday MACD Histogram ( 12,26,9,2,2 ) < 0 Dollars
The rules effectively say to buy when the 2 minute Intraday MACD value crosses above than the Intraday MACD Signal Line and then sell when it drops below the signal line.
The charts show that there are MANY times that the 2 minute Intraday MACD Value crossed the signal line, yet no trades are taking place.
I cannot identify anything on any of the other tabs that would account for the lack of buys and I cannot make the rules any simpler.
I could use some help here.
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Can someone give me some suggestions on where to go for information on buying Cool Trade software through my IRA account at IB?
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What that means is that you want to pay for the CoolTrade software with your IRA money but not be taxed on the withdrawal.
Please send email to CustomerSupport@Cool-Trade.com and they will direct you to a professional who specializes in the process.
CT
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The dates on my charts on the X axis are cut in half by the bottom of the window and I cannot read them.
I have tried
- changing window size
- changing font size
- shrinking the window to 75% and expanding to 200%
Nothing has worked. Help
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Since CT doesn’t use the charts, I think those are an add-on not quite there yet.
I would use FreeStockCharts.com
I don’t know anyone using the big charts in CT.
Enlightened
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Would like to see the report I print out at the end of the day indicate the last 5 points it moved, either it increased or pulled back that caused the trader to sell the position so an adjustment could be made to the pullback number in the strategy wizard. I currently use a pullback of 5 but would like to know if I could adjust accordingly to how my positions are selling.
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Would like the option to select whether to run a short or along instead of having to only run 1 long and 1 short. Would like to run 2 long or 2 short on one trader if possible.
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I agree!!!!!!
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Yes, for the cost of the software I’d like to be able to run 2 long and/or 2 short strategies simultaneously from one copy of the software.
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The cooltrader downloaded manual is a rough outline of the program and features. Is there no online or printed manual with index and with descriptions of error messages, ie. "stop time / close up tis amount time error, and similar error messages and use / features of each function. Not the tech indicators as those can be researched on line, but the basic function in the program are not searchable and are not described in detail in the manual. Or did I miss something? Might free up tech from answering a million easy questions in this forum.
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Here is a knowledge base that how a lot of info. It is a work in progress. But you can take a look.
I’m posting the link twice in case one vanishes.
https://sites.google.com/site/ctpknowledge/
sites.google.com/site/ctpknowledge/ (add https:// to the front of this one.
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The cooltrader downloaded manual is a rough outline of the program and features. Is there no online or printed manual with index and with descriptions of error messages, ie. "stop time / close up tis amount time error, and similar error messages and use / features of each function. Not the tech indicators as those can be researched on line, but the basic function in the program are not searchable and are not described in detail in the manual. Or did I miss something? Might free up tech from answering a million easy questions in this forum.
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Would like the rule tab located on the trader that displays rules for for a specific stock show the rules that were true for the position at the time it opened the stock and not the most current stats. This would enable users to check the conditions when the trader opened a specific position.
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Yes, That would be very useful!
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Also the "RULES" report run from the menu bar should indicate whether a rule is currently true or false.
After a while of analysis, it gets a little hard to see that 26.1264 is less than 23.1624. A simple T/F would be very convenient (and save on eyestrain)..
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This feature is currently in CoolTrade, you just have to dig a little to find it.
In your CoolTrade directory, there is a "Logs" file. Inside of that file, there is something called a "TradeStatsLog". This log will show every rule that was passed to make the trade in detail.
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Phil, Would you give us detailed instructions on how to, for your above post? Also maybe they should make it part of the RULES window for easy access? Thanks Mike
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Not sure if this has been requested yet but I would like my trader to prioritize the symbols in the queue instead of just opening the next one in line once more than 1 meet the Open Position rules.
Would be nice that if more than 1 symbol meets the open position rules then they are prioritized based on gains that day or other parameters.
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This feature is already implemented. The solution is more indicators doing what you have described. If multiple symbols pass the same set of rules, there is only one logical way to purchase those symbols and that is alphabetically. If you want the trader to be more picky about which stocks it chooses, then you will have to put in more indicators to do so.
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Think a back testing feature is useful. If you are working on a group of strategies
for various market conditions but back testing would speed things up.
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It would save a lot of time
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I have thought about this also. Then I REALLY started to think about it.
No matter how much back testing you do, that particular strategy that was proven great in the back test, could be terrible in the market to come. I have seen strategies that perform really well in a month and then do nothing for the next two.
I also thought about how much data would be required to do this and how much computing power it would take to actually have a solid back test. Some computers out there can barely run windows, how are they expected to run a complicated, CPU intensive backtest? I guess this could be performed server side, but it would take up so much bandwidth to download the necessary datasets and so much CPU that everyone using CoolTrade would be affected.
I agree it would be an awesome feature. I just don’t think it is possible on the standard computers that most users have.
Just my opinion.
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I agree back-testing would be a nice idea but as Phil stated above just because the market did something in the past does not mean it will do it in the future. That is why I think simulating for a time until you feel you are comfortable with how the strategy is reacting to the live market I would be more comfortable with.
Just me though.
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CTP should absolutely have a back testing feature. This is a standard tool included with other auto trading/charting platforms out there which are less expensive (e.g. Trade Station, Trade Navigator, MultiCharts, Ninja Trader, Sierra Chart). Most allow EOD and intraday back testing periods and the amount of data available varies with each platform (at least 10 years of EOD data for most of them). Even if the back testing capability was for EOD only, as long as there was 10 years or more of historical data available and the testing start and stop periods could be user-defined it would still be
very useful.
The argument that no amount of back testing will guarantee future results applies equally to forward testing. Proper strategy testing involves forward testing and back testing not just one or the other. One of the purposes of back testing is to filter out trading strategies that have a poor chance of ever working and eliminate the need to forward test anything that doesn’t start off with good results. Depending on the capabilities of the back tester (can account for slippage, commissions or intraday price movements) and the sophistication of the rules used to test a strategy, it can do a very good job of identifying a good strategy from a bad one. Back testing can also be useful in identifying under which market conditions certain strategies and indicators will and won’t work.
The historical data and back test processing should reside on the local computer and not on a CTP server (likely too resource intensive to handle all users). How long the back testing will take depends on the local hardware being used, the length of the back testing period, the complexity of the strategy, the kind of data being tested (EOD or intraday) and the architecture of the back testing software itself. Trade Station and Sierra Chart are examples of auto trading software that are plenty fast enough for back testing even using intraday data so it’s something that’s already being done by competing products. It would be a useful feature in CTP when used properly.
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Everyone that agrees that the program needs Back Testing should post that they also want it. The only way that they will make changes is if enough of us ask for it. Strength in numbers.
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ditto
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I also desire back testing. I’d rather stay within the CoolTrader program than have to reach out to other software packages. Backtesting is a must and can quickly help rough out a strategy in a few minutes to hours vs. running forward testing for a few weeks. The plan would be to backtest refine your strategy and then forward test then go Live!
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Need Backtesting, so that you can develop a strategy while the market is closed.
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Backtesting is essential in tailoring a strategy. Else the risk is great to test in live.
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I would like backtesting for three reasons:
1. To save time* testing a new or existing strategy.
2. To test a simulated strategy when the market is closed.
3. To see how the strategy will perform under certain market conditions (up, down, sideways).
*These points in time can be identified by the user, and the strategy set to run--real-time, 2x-time, 4x-time, 8x-time, etc. so we do not need to wait for that amount of real-time to pass. Like we do now for forward-testing.
Some people pooh-pooh backtesting because they say that backtesting cannot predict future results. Well, duh! Neither can a monkey with a dartboard.
We don’t want to use backtesting as a Ouija board. We want it to stress-test our strategies.
Regarding Client or Server backtesting?
Each CoolTrader that wants to use backtesting shouldn’t have to download ALL the market data for ALL the years every time they want to use it. That makes NO sense, storage-wise, bandwidth-wise, or time-wise. It should be run on CoolTrade’s servers.
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I agree we do need backtesting
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Back testing is ridiculous...
I don’t wash my car today because it didn’t rain last week.
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Hi Folks:
Back testing I believe to be a complete waste of time. It’s old news. I have fooled with Trade Station and Sierra Chart and found the back testing to be like trying to catch smoke. Just when you think you have it, it is gone.
The CoolTrade simulator works fine. You can tweak your strategies all you want. Try using an IB data feed for your simulation and you will be have real time market data to see how your strategy will work.
Remember if your strategy is not profitable in simulation it is not likely to be so going live.
good luck
opie
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I would like to see Cool Trade develop a website where CT users could go to back test a strategy and see if it performs as expected. up markets, down markets and sideways markets It would be nice to be able to see how it may perform under those conditions.
You would want to start a new strategy without first testing it would you?
I am sure someone at Cool trade monitors the form. But if you realy want to put pressure on Cooltrade to create a BackTrading strategy testing site then please copy these comments and email them to tech support.
technicalsupport@cool-trade.com
Squeaky wheel gets the oil.
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Everyone that agrees that the program needs Back Testing should post that they also want it. The only way that they will make changes is if enough of us ask for it. Strength in numbers.
Also, there is no such thing as forward testing. You can’t test the future. By running a strategy for 30 days the best you can get is a back test for the last 30 days. And it took 30 days to create that report. However, a properly designed Back Testing routine for strategies could provide results in a matter is seconds and could go back over several years. Back testing strategies is a must for all serious investors. Other auto trading software such as TradeStation allow for Back testing of trading strategies.
Cool-Trade needs to get this feature implemented ASAP.
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I agree that a way of back testing a strategy is a necessary feature. As pointed out by someone else, almost every major trading software has back testing capabilities, and even other auto trading platforms have it too. It would potentially save lot of time forward testing a strategy that in the past (especially a recent past) did not produce good results. That is not to say it couldn’t produce good results but I would rather spend my time working with a strategy that did have good results, at least given whatever the constraints of back testing might be, .
For strategy development I would personal use the process of:
1. back test
2. forward test
3. go live
Any changes to a strategy would require going back to the starting point.
I wonder, given the date of the initial request, it appears that for some reason the CT developer(s) do not agree, or it is very difficult to implement, or it’s coming but not announced as of yet..
It would be nice to know.
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The main page should be updated to show the actual trade value reported by the broker. If the report uses the actual transaction reported by the broker, why can’t the main page be updated, too?
CTP uses the main page to execute the strategy, but when the numbers on the main page do not accurately reflect the final transaction, the strategy is not being executed as designed. I am running a strategy with a session stop loss of -$200. During active trading, the main page is showing closed trades of -$106. The actual transactions are only -$60. That can make a huge difference in whether my session shuts down for the day or keeps going and might make a comeback.
Also, a prior suggestion of showing number of trades on the Report is a great idea.
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This is still an issue for me in version 7.5.50 of CTP.
The closing* prices (Limit, Show Trades, Report) randomly just don’t match. On the main Trader page, the Net P&L showed -699.00; the CoolTrade Report showed -119.00 for the same trade.
The closing price was $61.0100 (Show Trades, main CTP) or possibly $66.81 (CoolTrade Report).
Which should I believe?
Agreed, subtotals for the number of shorts and longs would be helpful, in addition to the total number of trades (short + long).
*Attachment: screenshot showing ENDP, 100 shares, sold at 08:30 on 5/7/14 at two different prices (Show Trades v.s. Report). Note that I was not allowed to upload this attachment, got an "500 - Internal server error."
Thanks. --pilgrim1620
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In the latest release, there were indicators for a session goal with a trailing stop. I would like to have indicators for a session goal with a trailing stop that allows your strategy to keep buying according to the strategy and shut down on a trailing stop from the session high p/l after you reach your session goal.
Thanks,
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I would like to be able to generate a report showing the rule that was triggered for each buy and sell.
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wrmellor,
One of the ways I am comfortable with a lower priced stock is making sure that the below rules are setup:
Current Assets is Greater than Current Liabilities
Institutional Ownership is Greater than 10
Yesterdays Average Volume is Greater than 250000 Shares
30-Day Average Volume is Greater than 250000 Shares
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Sorry I replied with the wrong information. That is good idea to have this information.
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you just have to dig a little to find it.
In your CoolTrade directory, there is a "Logs" file. Inside of that file, there is something called a "TradeStatsLog". This log will show every rule that was passed to make the trade in detail.
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thank you mbulluss.
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thank you mbulluss.
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For some reason all of my new positions started trading in Manual Mode this morning (existing positions are still tradin in Stealth mode)... Can anyone shed light on how what I need to do to get everything trading in Stealth Mode?
Thanks
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That usually means your Day Trades Remaining is at 0 so all positions opened today cannot be closed today without violating the SEC Day Trader rule.
Tomorrow those positions will go to Stealth Mode.
Hedge
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why has dow nasdaq etc stopped showing live feed ...all squares are blacked out...stuck at Dow 62.20 @ 2;19 EST strealth trading is on
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I was seeing my feed all day. You might want to check to make sure you didn’t loose your internet connection at some point.
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Should we not have a Chart here (perhaps in its own category) where anyone / everyone could post strategies with their results / gains -- where they would be ranked by how they have done - what the percentage gain was for the most recent month, (and then going back as well). So that anyone, especially new people could quickly / easily see what is available and working the best (up to date). Perhaps there could be a little description - Long / Short, Rising, Flat, or Falling market, ETFs, or best used with certain sectors / industries, some of the risks, and anything important, etc.
Would this not be a huge, time saving benefit??
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One thing missing from the platform that would help in strategy creation and verification is the ability to plot every indicator used in a strategy. This would eliminate a lot of forum questions about what a particular indicator is doing in a strategy and whether it’s actually useful. It’s also a quick means of troubleshooting a strategy that isn’t working and more useful than just a numerical value. The current chart feature doesn’t contain most of the indicators supported for strategy creation.
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I BIG bump to this one!! I was thinking about this just a few days ago. Would really be nice to click a security and be able to plot bars with all the open position rule indicators plotted along with it!
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Hello, I am having trouble trying to access an options house account. Each time I get to the name and password it simply closes the cool trader program. I don’t seethis problem with the other trading programs. I see that there was some talk about this in an earlier post but didn’t see a solution that worked for me. I am using windows 7 (64 bit). One of the suggestions was to to switch to dos when in the program and type regsvr32 optionshouse.ocx. I did that and I received a message that said failed error code 0x80004005. I tried to log on as an administrator but apparently I don’t know how to do that. Can you help?
Thank You!
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chaszevitas,
First I would suggest making sure that your CoolTrade is up to date. You can do this logging into the CoolTrade software in Simulator Mode with your CoolTrade account. The going to FILE-> Download New Software.
Second I would make sure that you are running the software as administrator when you try to log in using your Options House account. Hold SHIFT+Right Click on "Launch CoolTrade" and choose "Run as Administrator."
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CoolTrade doesn’t work with optionshouse anymore and hasn’t for months.
As I understand it, problems occurred on the optionshouse side that CoolTrade could not resolve on the software side. So optionshouse is gone.
Hedge
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Ok, I’ve de-selected all strategies, and it even tells me that "Automated trader will not run", then I go into Cooltrade and "Close all Long" and "Close all Short" and eventually, all the shares are traded and closed. However, when I come back a few minutes later, more stocks are purchased (all long) and trading has re-started. How do I stop it so I can start with a clean slate and a new strategy? Thanks in advance!
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Jim,
Start by selecting the strategy that you want in the Strategy Wizard. Then close that.
Next fire off the COOLTRADE trader and on the login screen where you enter your email/pass, before you do the login, click FILE->REFRESH FOR NEW STRATEGY. That will give you a chance to start fresh with the new strategy. It should clear the active trades, clear the reports database, and set the starting account balance.
Jerry
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Thank you Jerry!
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to prevent cooltrade from purchasing any stocks I set two conflicting rules which have impossible possibilities. IE; todays open price is 1,000,000 less than yesterdays open price. todays open price is 1,000,000 less than 0. nothing get purchased ever.
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During the trade when markets are on and you change certain rules in your strategy wizard and save it and return. How to see those changes on your software? do you have to shut down the CTP software and re-start again or is there any feature that we need to click to update the changes? let me know thanks.
Sincerely,
Mihir J Sangani
New York
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Rule of thumb on when you update your current strategy to exit out of CoolTrade and restart it. Changes will take affect after the restart.
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Yep, Just another handy feature.
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1. Use different icons for CTP and the Strategy Wizard. People with reduced eyesight or those with less computer experience are easily confused when the same icon is used for multiple different programs.
2. Create a standalone report generator. It is nuts that we have to start CTP just to get the report of daily activity. Maybe this would mean locally storing the data at the close of day.
3. Allow the window size of CTP to be variable. Smaller laptops (now) and tablets in the future (maybe even now) are or will be capable of running CTP yet the display is too big to fit the screen.
4. For start and stop times on the Preferences screen, include a time zone so that people outside of daylight savings zones don’t have to change their times 2x a year.
5. SEC Pattern Day Trader rules only apply to MARGIN accounts. The Day Trader rule check should default to off (no checking done) if NO margins are chosen for the account or at least have a check box to indicate that the user is using a CASH account. I get more questions about this from new users and prospects. Even the simulation invokes the day trader check if no margins are checked. Very confusing for many people.
6. Fix the miscalculation of ACCOUNT VALUE, FUNDS ALLOCATED, and FUNDS AVAILABLE in simulation mode. Negative numbers should never occur unless margins are checked ON. This error is a big problem in marketing the CTP software as people who are thinking about buying can’t trust the display.
7. Similar to #6 above, fix the interaction of "UTILIZE THIS AMOUNT" with ACCOUNT VALUE, FUNDS ALLOCATED, and FUNDS AVAILABLE in simulation mode. The UTILIZE value seems to be ignored or overrun in simulation mode.
People are always looking for reasons NOT to trust the software when they are prospects. Don’t give them any reasons in simulation mode to lose trust. It just makes marketing CTP that much harder.
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***Continued from original post***
8. Enable the use of the mouse wheel for scrolling the positions table.
9. In simulation mode, CTP will exceed the max trades allowed. For instance, setting a max of 30 trades is ignored with 36 trades actually posting.
P.S. We are running 4 copies of CTP so we see a lot of these fixes/enhancements being needed.
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#1 is fixed with version 7.5.45.
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#1 is fixed with version 7.5.45.
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#1 is fixed with version 7.5.45.
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Re: #1 Icons: Jon, I find that CoolTrade 7.5.50 still has the duplicate "green chart" icons for both programs. The mouse-over description for the Trader is "LaunchStartCoolTrade.exe" and the Strategy Wizard is "Launch Ct Strategy Wizard".
What does LaunchStartCoolTrade.exe mean to a newbie? What is Launch Start? It’s confusing to non-techies. Why is the mouse-over description for the Trader not human-readable, yet the Strategy Wizard is fine? They should both be human-readable. Use English, not Windows filenames.
Re: #2 Reports: I wholeheartedly agree. It takes several minutes for the Trader to start responding to mouse clicks, so I leave it running until about 11pm just in case I want to look at the day’s or week’s reports, without having to wait to re-launch the Trader.
Re: #8 Scroll wheel: Add in 8a. Enable the use of the mouse wheel for scrolling the Reports.
When I see inaccurate numbers, obvious typos, and experience unresponsive GUIs, I’m disinclined to recommend the software to others (or I to attempt to gloss over the problems).
--PT
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Anyone know if this system will get up on the cloud - internet based?
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allow multiple strategies at same time
Currently you can run a long and a short strategy at the same time. I would like to be able to be able
to:
1) change the Short strategy to a second LONG strategy.
2) run a LONG live while running a second LONG strategy in test mode
3) be able to run two strategies at once
LONG and SHORT strategy both live (currently possible)
two LONG Strategies both live or both test mode or mixed Live and Test mode
two SHORT Strategies both live or both test mode or mixed Live and Test mode
Correct me if I am wrong, but currently if you are running a LONG strategy live you can not
at the same time run a different strategy in Test Mode. So, if you are actively trading and want
to test a different strategy you must stop your active trading and go into a test mode. Normally
you would want to test a strategy for at least a month to determine if it will perform as you are expecting. But that would mean you would have to be out of the market for a month while you are testing a new strategy. That doesn’t sound like a good thing.
I would like to see Cool-Trade develop a strategy test mode that can be run concurrently with the Live Trading. Any one else in favor of this idea?
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Enhance the Reports Generator. I would like:
1) to have a report that would list both open and complete trades on the same report.
2) have a report that indicates which Strategy was used in opening that trade
3) have a report that would list all trades opened by a particular strategy
4) have a report that would list all trades that were missed due to insufficient funds
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Can you fix the reports to pull in the actual buy and sell prices and calculate P/L? My P/L reports are off because for some reason CTP does not pull in the actual buy and sell price. Some times its off by 2 cents. In once case its off by 10 cents. I want to use my report as a way to sell the software, but I don’t want to know because I know its wrong.
Also, Can CTP pull in your commissions into the report and give adjusted P/L?
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I agree. After our first month of trading, we show a $1200 profit on our CT report, but when we double check in our IB side, it’s really only $800 or so in real profit. In fact, some of the "profitable" trades, granted some as little as $15 (according to CT) were not at all in reality when we checked in IB. Some even were actually losses. I understand there may be a slight delay in execution of the trades, but some of our prices in the entry and exit prices (between what reports in CT and IB) differ as much as .40 !
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The 2 causes that I have seen that occur are if your times are set too close to 9:30am when the market opens and late pre-market data comes in and the software acts on it. The other reason I have seen is when the broker is logging closed trades as FIFO and the software is closing LIFO so the trades are not matching up and the broker is showing losses even the software made profitable trades.
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It’s also an IB software problem if you trade more than one lot of a symbol.
While CTP is trading as though LIFO is in effect, you have to select LIFO at the broker’s end, though that only fixes part of the problem with Interactive Brokers. IB doesn’t treat LIFO the same on its web interface as it should on its application/API TraderWorkStation (TWS).
Too many times, CoolTrade shows a profitable trade, say $52, then the TWS Activity list shows the exact same trade just lost $112. What? No it didn’t! TWS, is a flat-out liar! It’s worse for shorts, as they are ALWAYS losers. Why can’t TWS calculate these correctly? >:-(
Here’s the crux of the problem: IB’s TWS cannot tell the difference between multiple-lot trades and single-lot trades, and simply does not honor LIFO--it always uses Average Cost. AFAIK, there’s no way to tell it anything different.
Example of what IB’s TWS does with two lots:
Lot#1: Buy 100 shares XYZ at $100. Price lowers. Lot #2: Buy another 100 shares at $95. Price rises.
Sell Lot #2 at $100 (should be a $500 gain, right?)
No, IB TWS says you only made $250. (100+95)/2=97.50 Average Cost open price, not $95 for Lot #2.
When you sell the Lot #1, that result is correct, because the Average Cost IS your open price with one lot.
If you go onto the IB website and look under Reports..Tax..Tax Optimizer, and pick either yesterday or today’s date, you can view or change the matching method (FIFO, LIFO, etc.) used to pair opening and closing trades.
Unfortunately, the Trader WorkStation was never told about this. TWS always uses Average Cost, and so if you are holding more than one lot of a symbol opened at different prices, the Realized P/L calculation uses Average Cost, and will always be wrong, compared to LIFO: single open price, single close price, NO averaging!
Pricing
If you want ballpark figures, look at the CoolTrade reports (that is, if CTP didn’t crash and restart and forget a trade or two--it happens). It’ll be off a few dollars, prices off a few cents. Eh, close enough for the IRS?
If you want sometimes-correct numbers (if you only buy/sell a single lot, no more), believe the TWS/TraderWorkStation Activity/Trades.
If you want correct numbers, use the Tax Advisor. But only if you check it every day or every other day, otherwise the data is gone.
Otherwise, look at the IB website’s Reports, Activity, Statements.
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I only use the ct reports for simulating.
Once live I only look at the broker reports, since that is what will get reported to the IRS.
I like that IB tracks my positions FIFO so I get to report losses to the IRS. However, by the time you finish closing all of the lots, all buys and sells (profits) will be accounted for and so it all eventually comes out in the wash.
If you really are that eager to report gains to the IRS then you can tell the broker to log/match the trades LIFO and they will change the reporting to LIFO. Why you would want to do that though is beyond my comprehension. For tax purposes you are allowed to match the SELL (lot) with any purchase (lot) that was done prior to the sell/close.
Enlightened
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Enlightened,
If that’s the case, then why did Ed Barsano recommend that we tell our broker to use LIFO?
It seems as though when using FIFO, and buying multiple lots on a decline, the first few lot sales of a stock will always be "losers" until the sale price rises enough. If there are also new buys in there (Add to Position I mean) within 30 days, then the previous losses in this stock will be considered Wash Sales by the IRS and therefore non-deductible.
How do you get around that IRS rule? Or are your strategy’s buy-sell timings so infrequent that they are outside the 30-day Wash Sale window, and therefore losses are deductible?
Are you doing your trading as a business entity, or an individual? That might explain the difference in LIFO/FIFO settings.
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I was at the SCW Investment club presentation by Ed last Monday and I heard his specifically say that the brokers match up the trades FIFO by default and he DOES NOT say to change it to LIFO. Also I’ve been trading as a business / LLC for years. That may be why I have never run into wash sales. That may be worth discussing with your broker if they are not letting you take losses just because you sold a position at a loss. My consolidated trade reports show the gains and losses from every trade.
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<img src=’’images/smilies/Grey/cc-smilie09.gif’’ border=’’0’’> Well, I see this is a longstanding issue...
Now it’s affecting the new PROFITS tab I recently upgraded to as well as the CT reports.
Reports has shown minor discrepancies in buy and sell prices since I started live trading last year but yesterday it didn’t just match the wrong lots when I closed a position,or show the wrong price in the trader, after CT closed the position it generated a totally fictitious buy price which causes a ~$75 gain (on the live page) to be reported as a ~$300 loss in the PROFITS tab ad the closed report.
I trade in an IRA so I don’t have to mess with the tax reporting but when CT has erroneous buy/open price and trades based on it, it hurts my profits. I know that when I catch it before selling/closing, I can fix the entry price in the trader.
So, is there any way to fix either the entry or exit price on a closed trade?
Seems like a pretty simple thing for software to do - calculate accurate P&L!
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<img src=’’images/smilies/Grey/cc-smilie09.gif’’ border=’’0’’> Well, I see this is a longstanding issue...
Now it’s affecting the new PROFITS tab I recently upgraded to as well as the CT reports.
Reports has shown minor discrepancies in buy and sell prices since I started live trading last year but yesterday it didn’t just match the wrong lots when I closed a position,or show the wrong price in the trader, after CT closed the position it generated a totally fictitious buy price which causes a ~$75 gain (on the live page) to be reported as a ~$300 loss in the PROFITS tab ad the closed report.
I trade in an IRA so I don’t have to mess with the tax reporting but when CT has erroneous buy/open price and trades based on it, it hurts my profits. I know that when I catch it before selling/closing, I can fix the entry price in the trader.
So, is there any way to fix either the entry or exit price on a closed trade?
Seems like a pretty simple thing for software to do - calculate accurate P&L!
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I was showing some prospects the great profits shorting QID until it had a reverse split 1:4 in the simulating mode. After the split it instead showed large unrealized losses and I could not edit the price by multiplying it by 4. All of the prior gains needed to be removed when I had to refresh the strategy and delete all of the profits made previously by shorting the QID, SPXU, SH, and especially the VXX. We need a way to make adjustments to the stock entry price after a stock split when in the simulated mode. This is not a problem when in live trading.
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My trader stopped working today at 1.
I did not notice until 2 (after 15 restart attempts)
A recommendation:
It may be a good idea to have the watchdog send an email when it has to restart.
This could be similar to the cooltrader’s option to send you an email whenever it makes a trade.
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Furthermore, I have noticed that when it abruptly stops, and when I restart it in the middle of the trading day, it logs several of my open positions as closed (at the market price) and then resets the purchase price to that market price (a net/net 0 P/L). The problem is that I might have originally bought the stock days ago, at a different price, but now Cooltrader sees it at the new "bought" price for that same lot. In more than one instance, because of this, it has traded what it thought was for a profit, only to see in my brokerage that it was really for a loss!
Please anyone help on this matter, this is very disconcerting. Do I need to have the "Halt Trading Upon Startup" box checked or unchecked? Also the "Close your brokers application upon program exit" box. What is suggested for these 2 boxes?
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I’ve noticed that sometimes in the middle of the trading day, CT will shut down. Fair enough, but upon restart what happens is that some stocks will show up in the "closed" transaction report for the day with a zero P/L (same buy/sold price). What I’ve noticed is that the original buy/entry price is then changed to that new (false) transaction price. Checking with my broker, this zero P/L "glitch" trade never happened, and they did not charge me for it. BUT, in CT, the recorded entry price is now the new/false price and several of my "profitable" trades actually closed out for losses (because of the change in the entry price). Has ANYONE ever seen this happen? This is a big problem. What can I do!?
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I’ve not seen this happen myself, but the few times that others have mentioned it, it was always with IB. I suspect the crash is happening in thier API. since I cannot repeat the problem I can’t test it. I can only suggest either trying another broker. I like MB a lot and no problems with them. or go to the ib website and see if there is another TWSAPI that you can install.
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That happened two days ago to me on ver 7.5.50. IB reported the trade, but CoolTrade said it was a break-even $0 trade. It wasn’t.
In addition, on a different recent day, CTP completely missed logging a trade. There was just no record of the position close at all, but the position was not listed as open--it was just GONE.
So now the CTP report has two discrepancies that I cannot fix. That’s why I do not trust the CTP reports at all, and go to the IB website for accurate numbers. Can’t even trust IB’s TWC (TraderWorkStation), as it always uses Average Cost when making a Realized P/L calculation--which is OK for a single lot/position, but is always off if you are holding more than one lot in a symbol (short or long). TWC should use LIFO, not Average Cost, or at least let you make a choice.
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Send the details in email to CT support. I have the reporting problem also and sent details and they are currently working on the problem. I’m sure the would appreciate more info.
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I would like to see the ability to STOP/BLOCK the further BUY orders for a specific stock. Right now, adding a stock symbol into the BLOCK box, stops all activity, including a SELL, and also removes that stock from the CTP display.
Among other possible reasons, if I want to change to a new strategy, or simply stop operations with a particular stock, I need to be able to prevent future BUY orders on a selected stock.
Thank you.
Regards,
Todd
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One crude workaround to block further buys on an existing symbol is to trade (temporarily or permanently) from a custom watch list of symbols rather than letting CTP continuously use the watch list tab. You can transfer the symbols initially created by the watch list into a custom watch list and then trade from the custom watch list. Then at any point you can add or remove any symbols as desired. This would allow you to block additional positions added for any given symbol by removing it from your custom watch list while at the same time still allowing you to close open positions on a symbol to be based on the rules used in your Exit Trade Rules tab and/or Profit Requirements tabs.
But that’s a short term band-aid fix. Ultimately what would really improve the portfolio management aspect of the software would be to support the ability to apply global rules to a group of symbols on a watch list or open positions and symbol-specific rules as well. For example if you could add a rule such as IBM < 185 in the Open New Positions tab or Add to Positions tab while also applying a global set of rules to the other symbols in a watch list, then you’d have far more control over the number of positions you hold in any given symbol and the conditions over which any symbol is acquired. This refinement could help reduce the amount of inventory held (or holding time) on a basket of symbols by allowing more selective buying and short selling.
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I would add to this a slightly different, but similar request. I would like to see a switch or button that when selected would prevent all further open positions. This would allow the trader to finish closing open positions when conditions are met, but not open anything new.
Would be nice and clean and more specific than "use my portfolio only" with an empty portfolio.
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I was very surprised that Cool Trade does not have the ability to help you exit a single stock in your portfolio. At the moment the only option seems to be to put it in your blocked list and then sell it manually. The ability to stop buying further positions but at the same time being able to have the program slowly sell off existing shares would be a valuable tool.
Regards
Steve
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I agree completely with this request (other than it should be "Block new Opens to accommodate short positions). I just raised this issue at a Saturday Q&A before I discovered it written up here. I found that the work-around’s were both clumsy, error prone, non-automatic, and using the potential solution of modifying the strategy, potentially disruptive.
Should something be implemented it should also include the ability to:
1. release any reserved funds (actually all of them for this symbol as no more Opening trades would be done.
2. specify that the entire position be closed once the break-even point (the average price of all of the stocks owned) and even better be able to specify a profit amount above the average price.
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I agree completely with this request (other than it should be "Block new Opens to accommodate short positions). I just raised this issue at a Saturday Q&A before I discovered it written up here. I found that the work-around’s were both clumsy, error prone, non-automatic, and using the potential solution of modifying the strategy, potentially disruptive.
Should something be implemented it should also include the ability to:
1. release any reserved funds (actually all of them for this symbol as no more Opening trades would be done.
2. specify that the entire position be closed once the break-even point (the average price of all of the stocks owned) and even better be able to specify a profit amount above the average price.
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I agree completely with this request (other than it should be "Block new Opens to accommodate short positions). I just raised this issue at a Saturday Q&A before I discovered it written up here. I found that the work-around’s were both clumsy, error prone, non-automatic, and using the potential solution of modifying the strategy, potentially disruptive.
Should something be implemented it should also include the ability to:
1. release any reserved funds (actually all of them for this symbol as no more Opening trades would be done.
2. specify that the entire position be closed once the break-even point (the average price of all of the stocks owned) and even better be able to specify a profit amount above the average price.
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I agree completely with this request (other than it should be "Block new Opens to accommodate short positions). I just raised this issue at a Saturday Q&A before I discovered it written up here. I found that the work-around’s were both clumsy, error prone, non-automatic, and using the potential solution of modifying the strategy, potentially disruptive.
Should something be implemented it should also include the ability to:
1. release any reserved funds (actually all of them for this symbol as no more Opening trades would be done.
2. specify that the entire position be closed once the break-even point (the average price of all of the stocks owned) and even better be able to specify a profit amount above the average price.
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I too would like to see the ability to stop adding to open positions without having to block the symbol and subsequently it being removed from the trader completely.
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I too would like to see the ability to stop adding to open positions without having to block the symbol and subsequently it being removed from the trader completely.
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In the Trader, when you click on something that subsequently requests your CoolTrade password, such as:
- *Personal menu item,
- Preferences menu item, or
- the Edit button within the Account Values section,
...a "Security Login" pop-up window appears, and prompts you to "Enter Your CoolTrade Password". But you cannot just type it.
The mouse cursor focus should be changed to the password input field in any of these cases, but it doesn’t.
Here’s what should happen:
1. Click on the menu item or Edit button, see the Security Login" pop-up box.
2. Type in your password and press Enter. Done.
Here’s what really happens:
1. Click on the menu item or Edit button, see the Security Login" pop-up box.
2. Type in your password and press Enter.
3. Realize it didn’t work, and try typing the password again.
4. See it STILL doesn’t work.
5. Move the mouse and click on the "Security Login" window.
6. Type in your password and press Enter.
7. Realize that didn’t work EITHER, and click in the unlabeled gray field while growling.
8. Type in your password a third time and press Enter. Done. Finally. What was I doing again?
So the Trader software already knows where it wants the password typed. You cannot do or click anything else, because the pop-up window is on top.
Why must we have to acknowledge to the software that "Yes, we agree, that’s where the password should be typed" by pointlessly clicking in the box? Just put the cursor there. Make input easy. Thanks.
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I’m buying on drops with stocks in a channel, but not always in an uptrend.
Because some are in a down-trend, I’m finding that any initial purchase will probably never become a profit simply because the stock will probably never return to the point where I bought it. Or will take so long that the opportunity loss is high.
I want to be able to set CT so that ALL initial purchases are done with a minimum of shares, and subsequent purchases done on drops (in my case) are a multiple: e.g.: When I first purchase ABC, I purchase only 100 shares, but when I do the next purchase on a drop, I purchase, say, 500 shares.
Then, if the stock doesn’t return to give me a profit on my initial purchase, the amount I sacrifice will be minimized to the initial 100 shares.
I’m making this work by making all initial purchases start at 100 shares, then manually purchasing a higher number of shares on drops - effectively defeating most of the roboticism of the program.
This seems to be a relatively simple issue to solve for a programmer. (said by a person who couldn’t program a toaster)
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You could just set the strategy to make the initial purchase with a greater (percentage) dip in the price, then you would want the first buy to be bigger and the same as additional buys and this should reduce the risk in the strategy.
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Also add:
Current Bid Price is at least X percent less than Highest Price in last Y days.
That way you are not opening positions at their high.
You can play with the X and Y values in the Strategy Wizard until you have the Watch List where you want it. Also look at the charts so you get stocks at the bottom of their ranges instead of at the top.
I learned this from Nick at Robotic Advisors.
Enlightened
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My CTP software was busy today. It sold several positions and began purchasing others. Since IB (probably every broker) waits a couple of days for the funds to be collected there were not funds available to trade. Unfortunately, CTP only sees the account balance and not the "funds available for trading", it kept trying to open positions. I received 540 emails that were buys, then cancels, again and again.
It would be great if CTP took into account uncollected funds. The field is available in the TWS window.
RexP
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Hi Rex,
Can you tell us, do you have a CASH account or MARGIN account?
I believe MARGIN accounts do not need to wait 3 days to free up the funds.
Enlightened
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Currently you can run a long and a short strategy at the same time. I would like to be able to be able
to:
1) change the Short strategy to a second LONG strategy.
2) run a LONG live while running a second LONG strategy in test mode
3) be able to run two strategies at once
LONG and SHORT strategy both live (currently possible)
two LONG Strategies both live or both test mode or mixed Live and Test mode
two SHORT Strategies both live or both test mode or mixed Live and Test mode
Correct me if I am wrong, but currently if you are running a LONG strategy live you can not
at the same time run a different strategy in Test Mode. So, if you are actively trading and want
to test a different strategy you must stop your active trading and go into a test mode. Normally
you would want to test a strategy for at least a month to determine if it will perform as you are expecting. But that would mean you would have to be out of the market for a month while you are testing a new strategy. That doesn’t sound like a good thing.
I would like to see Cool-Trade develop a strategy test mode that can be run concurrently with the Live Trading. Any one else in favor of this idea?
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Here’s a email reply I got from Eric:
Correct me if I am wrong, but currently if you are running a LONG strategy live you can not
at the same time run a different strategy in Test Mode. "eric - Correct"
So, if you are actively trading and want
to test a different strategy you must stop your active trading and go into a test mode Solution: purchase a second subscription - we have a large majority of our clients with 2 CT traders and with a price point of a little over $100 month this is the reason. Normally
you would want to test a strategy for at least a month to determine if it will perform as you are expecting. But that would mean you would have to be out of the market for a month while you are testing a new strategy. That doesn’t sound like a good thing.
Is there a way to "back test" a strategy?
"eric - You can pay for another service but usual backtesting does not include intraday information - CT does not offer a backtesting feature - see attached as well. Keep in mind all of the strategies you have access to are contributed from other users so you can use them as a template. See disclaimer below."
Currently you can run a long and a short strategy at the same time. I would like to be able to be able
to:
1) change the Short strategy to a second LONG strategy Is this possible, if not why not?
"eric -Yes - check your orientation videos you would just need to make the changes to your specifications."
It would be wonderful if CT could create a web site what CT users go to back test a strategy. I would save a lot of time and help the CT user find the best strategy for his situation.
....Marty
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Currently when you click on a stock in your watch list and then click on the "Rules" dropdown, the values for the stock in question are displayed for the the current strategy. The changes I would like to see are:
1) The conditions that are true are either high lighted or check so that it is easy it is easy to spot what conditions are true for that stock.
2) From the rules window, I would like to be able change the stock symbol.
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I just changed IB to Margin acct from Cash - do I have to wait 3 days for cash to be available for trading?
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as long as you are not using funds beyond your original cash, the margin account allows you the credit to open new positions immediately after closing a position without waiting the 3 days. Watch your "buying power" in your account. it will fluctuate as you utilize the margin in this manner.
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This morning when CoolTrade started, it made several purchases of 1000 shares of stocks. These stocks do not meet the criteria of the strategy that was selected before start-up, and the strategy is supposed to only purchase in chunks of 200 shares (not 1000). Luckily this occurred in Simulation Mode. But this is a huge issue if this can occur.
The stocks appear to be stocks that would match a previously used strategy, but I haven’t been simulating that strategy for over a week.
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Jared,
I apologize for the inconvenience. It appears that when you updated your software, the strategy files did not get updated. I will have your old strategy moved over immediately.
Ed
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I would like to see two new options in the greater than/less than area. 1) not more than. 2) not less than. IE; todays lowest price is not more than 5 percent greater than the 20 day SMA. This allows me to prevent stocks which have had a 8 or greater dollar jump in price to be in the buy list. often a stock with a large gap in price will reverse and become a looser. it often needs a couple days to settle out before I would want the system to buy it.
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anybody had an error message on watchdog " invalid picture" at opening i have many of these messages and they pop up often
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No. But I recommend you launch the Strategy Wizard first.
Then kill the watchdog.exe with the Windows Task Manager and then
click FILE->DOWNLOAD DEVELOEPER VERSION in the Strategy Wizard to update your software.
Hedge
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How do I get my subscription to automatically renew itself when it expires?
How do I get the funds to renew my subscription to automatically be withdrawn from my checking account (like autopay)?
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We do not have automatic renewal at this time.
Since the subscriptions are for one to three years, we send email reminders (with specials) for you to renew for multiple years.
That way CoolTrade does not keep your credit card information and will never just charge a card without your knowledge.
CT
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is there any way you guys can start doing that? or are you guys planning to do that at all in the future so I wouldn’t have worry about it too much? would you guys also accept payment through electronic check in the future?
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I paid for my subscription with an Echeck. I just sent email to customersupport@cool-trade.com and they sent me a custom screen that allowed me to fill in my check informaiton and then when the check cleared they sent me subscribe screen to complete the signup.
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Recognize when a trade has been rejected by the broker and stop re-sending the trade after the first rejection. This happens with TD Ameritrade where the broker will reject the trade and CTP tries at least two more times to get the trade through.
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Recognize when the account doesn’t have margin privileges because it takes 3 days for a trade to settle and the money is then tied up. And can’t be used. CTP assumes the money is available as soon as a position is sold, which is not the case when margin is not enabled. Which is the case in this situation. That is why the trade is getting rejected. This is happening with TD Ameritrade.
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Variable field size and variable window size would be a good feature. This would allow people/users with both small and large accounts to see all numbers in their fields. The truncation would be eliminated.
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I too would like CT to maximize to the screen size or resolution. Currently there is no way to maximize, stretch, or otherwise increase the over window size of CT. On a display running 1920x1080 there is a lot of extra room, and having the ability to maximize CT would/should eliminate/minimize the need to scroll the positions or watch list screens.
I’m sure for an experienced programmer this would not take much effort to achieve.
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I too would like CT to maximize to the screen size or resolution. Currently there is no way to maximize, stretch, or otherwise increase the over window size of CT. On a display running 1920x1080 there is a lot of extra room, and having the ability to maximize CT would/should eliminate/minimize the need to scroll the positions or watch list screens.
I’m sure for an experienced programmer this would not take much effort to achieve.
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Why should I be limited to 10 open positions per symbol?
I should be able to ride a stock at every .25 cents or .20 cents until it reaches 0, and I can’t because my trader stops buying at 10 open positions. I wish I’d known this before I created my strategy.
Technical support just confirmed that the trader won’t trade any stock with more than 10 open positions.
It seems to me I should be able to open as many positions as I want within the confines of my strategy. At least a hundred.
Please make the number of available open positions unlimited.
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Yes, this is a critical feature and a necessity for many starategies. Simply adding on anything less than 10% drops needs this.
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Does this still apply if/when you don’t use the pre-defined tables?
I haven’t gone more than 5-6 deep on my lots, but with a new strategy I was working on starting soon, this could hamper my trades as well.
Thanks!
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Does this still apply if/when you don’t use the pre-defined tables?
I haven’t gone more than 5-6 deep on my lots, but with a new strategy I was working on starting soon, this could hamper my trades as well.
Thanks!
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yes please Ed, this feature could dramatically increase profitability. The autotrader currently allows for 100 positions in total, but maximum 10 positions per symbol. If we could use these same 100 positions in total, but had the flexibility of adding more positions than 10 per symbol, e.g. could use say all the 100 positions on just 1 symbol. Many thanks
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Twice now, my autotrader has dumped all my open positions, and opened the same with the current stock price. So nothing was actually sold, but the stock was reopened with incorrect information, as if the trader dumped the stock and re-bought all the open positions at the current ticker price.
The first time this happened, I changed my strategy from 100 shares to 200 shares, causing the error.
The second time, it happened for no apparent reason. No change was made within the Wizard.
I’m not a programming genius, but wouldn’t it be nice if an error like this could be solved by shutting down the autotrader, and restarting the program? At start up, the autotrader could double check it’s open positions against the buy price recorded at the broker, causing the autotrader’s information to be updated to the correct buy price.
Just a thought, thank you.
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That was happening years ago and only came back with the addition of the new broker.
If you click FILE->DOWNLOAD BETA VERSION that should prevent it from reoccurring.
Hedge
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I’m kind of new to CT and am trying to figure out why I’m getting a "Rule Preventing Next Trade" on the right side green box saying "Max Trades (4) Reached", when I don’t remember, nor can find, where that may have been set in the Strategy Wizard. I’m thinking that the trader is now stuck and won’t make any trades for any of my open positions until this "rule" is fixed or removed.
Anyone know what I did wrong or should be doing? Any input appreciated.
Mike S.
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The maximum number of symbols that you can purchase is set on Tab 1 of the strategy.
Also the RULE PREVENTING NEXT TRADE only affects the symbol in the watch list that the message is appearing on. It has no affect on the positions that you already own. They can still be added to and/or closed.
I highly recommend you watch the daily webinars held by Eric Rogers at
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Can you add a parameter to the Watch List to manage the number of entries to be loaded into the Watch List for processing. Given the volatility in the markets these days, you could have 25 symbols for a particular strategy loaded one day and then 69 symbols for the same strategy loaded the next day. In these instances, you are left with changing the Watch List strategy each day to get the symbol count correct. This is fine if you are home to watch it load but if you are traveling or can’t be there then the Trader won’t process correctly. If there is a way to accomplish this, I would appreciate someone responding.
Thanks
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If you set your MaxTrades on Tab1 of the strategy, only that number of positions can get opened. So it doesn’t matter how many are in the watchlist.
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Thanks for the reply Hedge2. I realize that you can limit the number of positions that get opened by setting the the appropriate parameter. However, what I am experiencing is that when my watch list goes over 35 symbol entries, then my Cooltrader platform will consistently crash. I had tech support look at this for me and they recommended keeping the watch list count down. This is because the Cooltrader platform is constantly checking/processing the open symbols as well as the watch list symbols. I have lots of CPU memory and fast internet speeds but this was still causing issues. As I suggested in a previous post, given current market volatility, you could have 25 symbols in the watch list one day and the next have 69 which was a recent example I experienced running a short strategy over the last week.
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Instead of using a dollar amount (ie. 0.20), could it be possible to base max bid/ask range on % of bid or % of ask?
A good usage example would be a watch list (that is based on non-price criteria) that may have stocks in the $1-$2 range, and in the $100-$200 range. Using a constant $0.20 range for both inexpensive and expensive stocks may not be best applicable.
Perhaps a percentage, based on either ask/bid, or mean?, could yield a more desired result.
Thanks for listening!
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We see exit reason in Activity, but it would be nice to see somewhere (log?) what the values were for the Rules when a stock was opened (eg. Entry Reason(s)). Was E-Mini consecutive minutes =4.2? Was the Bid/Ask Range 0.05 ?
If we can identify "losing" purchases and analyze the indicator values for that purchase, perhaps we can better tweak the strategies to hopefully exclude a purchase like this in the future.
Ideally, capturing ALL indicators/metrics would be useful, but if that can’t be done, then perhaps just the value of the rules that triggered the open.
Thanks!
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I would like to see the report modified to include, on a new page, all of the information about the existing/open positions. As these open positions represent potential unrealized losses a net P&L should also be calculated.
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I would like to know, as I develop my strategy, what was the last rule satisfied before the trade execute.
This is very help when cross checking technical indicators on charts.
Thanks,
Hybrid
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I have now had 3 trades in the past week execute without my knowledge/permission for $1,400.00 + in losses. I have not received any reason as to "why", but would like to have an additional column added to prevent the individual person and/or the software from selling the wrong line/lot of shares.
In-between "Side Action" and Position Quantity" I would like to see a column called "Lot #" that lists the lots from 1-50 for example. This way when people go to manually sell/buy shares, cooltrade has another reference point to sell the exact lot/line you want to sell, which should show up in the gray pop-up box when you click on the line you want to sell. So in addition to the options of "sell selected shares" and "sell most profitable shares", it should reference "sell selected lot #3 of 100 shares", this prevents cooltrade from selling lot #1 or #2 at a loss, and will only sell lot #3 at a profit.
This may not rectify the existing issue I am having with the software, but this should eliminate it in the future.
Thank you.
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This is a great suggestion. I have experienced similar issues. Hopefully we can get this implemented ASAP.
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I am not with Cooltrade, just another user....
Are you sure you want to do that? check this out...
lot 1 purchase at $1.60 x 100 = $160.00
lot 2 purchase at $1.50 x 100 = $150.00
lot 3 purchase at $1.40 x 100 = $140.00
Current price = $1.50
sell lot 3 for profit = proceeds = 150.00, taxable profit = $10.00
Sell lot 2 for breakeven = proceeds =150.00, taxable profit=$0.00
Sell lot 1 for loss = proceeds = $150.00, tax deductible loss = $10.00
It messes with your P/L but actually benefits you more to sell the lot with the greatest loss,
The proceeds from the sale are the same, but the tax results are different.
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A request is being brought up by our investment club to have a
feature added to Cool Trade that will allow us to dollar cost
average our inventory of shares.
This way we can sell them ALL once price has gone up sufficiently
enough so we may get rid of all the open orphan trades that are way
up at the top of the range.
A member of our investment club wanted me to add his request as well:
Dear Ed & Mike,
I strongly 2nd this request!
If we have multiple positions on a given symbol at different entry levels,
it would be an advantage to average out those position’s in order to bring
down the average price. If it is at all possible to be able to right click on a
position and then be able to group those prior multiple positions into one
would be great!!
Thanks in advance for looking into this possibility,
Robert Fogel
305-970-4658
A Cool Trade User
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I am not sure if anyone else has seen this but I have 2 traders. One account is running live and the other is in sim mode. When i get a .CSV report on the sim account the sim data .csv comes from the account that is doing my live trading. I am not sure if i go in and purge the old sim data from the account that is now live trading if that will fix the problem. I will give that a try. but the funny thing is when i run the report normal the sim data is correct.
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Well an update. So i relaunched my live trader and selected sim mode for IB and Refresh for new strategy. That fixed the issue with pulling a .csv from the Cooltrade.org web portal but now no .csv will download from my second account. when i select .csv it just opens up in the normal page to show the open positions and closed positions. no .csv file is created for my second account that is running in sim mode. So purging the old sim data from my live trader fixed the .csv old data issue but now the new data from the New account running in sim mode does not work.
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Dewayne, I just found out the CSV as been fixed.
It was tested on your account and it works now.
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In order to be sure CT is up and running it should, there shall be a way to optionally be able to configure CT to send an email (or text message) on one of the following conditions:
1. that it has successfully started and has connected to the brokers site, or, (preferred)
2. that it has not successfully started and/or connected to the broker’s site.
This shall occur on a normal scheduled restart or in the event of a restart after a failure.
The only other way(s) (that I know of) to detect if CT is running completely in automatic mode is:
1. to physically check on it.
2. request email messages for trades and have received one which is very annoying and is error prone if there wasn’t a trade, or,
3. to be able to remotely logon to the hosting PC and check as if one were physically there.
As a fully automated system, none of the above are conducive to knowing CT is running correctly, especially if one is not near the hosting PC.
Thank you,
Frank
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Yeah, I agree. The watchdog should sent alerts on trader running or trader stopped.
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Great idea and I agree. Hate coming home from work to find my CT had shut down early in the morning for whatever reason.
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This would be excellent
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Would you please include an option to be able to sort the watchlist and have the CoolTrader go in that order?
I was watching CT cycle through the symbols. The 4th one down was $4.25 and the top one was $11...I would rather have had CT buy more of the lower priced stocks instead of fewer more expensive ones. We could get more trades for the money.
Thank you for your consideraton
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Would you please include an option to be able to sort the watchlist and have the CoolTrader go in that order?
I was watching CT cycle through the symbols. The 4th one down was $4.25 and the top one was $11...I would rather have had CT buy more of the lower priced stocks instead of fewer more expensive ones. We could get more trades for the money.
Thank you for your consideration
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Would you please include an option to be able to sort the watchlist and have the CoolTrader go in that order?
I was watching CT cycle through the symbols. The 4th one down was $4.25 and the top one was $11...I would rather have had CT buy more of the lower priced stocks instead of fewer more expensive ones. We could get more trades for the money.
Thank you for your consideration
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If not too time consuming..... it would be nice to have a single button to select just to see that particular days Closed trades instead of the multi step process that we currently have to go through. I think many of us check our CT profits each day and this would make it much easier.
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FYI to make Freestockcharts.com bypass the beginning screen use:
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FYI to make Freestockcharts.com bypass the beginning screen use:
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Thank you. I updated the latest Strategy Wizard with the fix.
Ed
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That fix is in the Beta and Dev versions.
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It’s nice that optionally CT will notify you of a trade however, sending an email with a link to the actually seems a bit clumsy. Why not just send the trade information in the email itself. It would also be nice if the trade info was made available as an attachment in .CSV format.
Justification:
1.It saves time, no unnecessary mouse clicking or trying to hit the link in an email message on your phone.
2. It’s a lot easier to read an email on a phone than it is to click on a link, open a browser and hope that it does get to the site.
3. the Emails or text contained in it can be saved if an audit trail is desired. If a .CSV file were avail it could be imported into Excel
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I agree completely, the emails are virtually worthless if you have limited time or access.
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SInce the majority of users I’ve spoken to will probably never use the "short" strategies would it be possible to instead simulate another Long strategy? The trader has the capacity to trade two strategies, one long and one short but it would be nice to allow the users to select and run another Long strategy.
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What a great idea! If you already have a successful strategy you could develop another one and buy another license once you a proven strategy. I am all for that.
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After trying to figure out why the program was automatically selling off stocks with in seconds of me doing a manual purchase, I realized that my exit rule was causing the sell off. I do not have a problem with this as it was my mistake, however, would it be possible to have the program evaluate the purchase request and advise if the stock will match one or all of the exit conditions forcing it to be sold?
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There are people who have objections to trading in certain stocks for personal reasons. It would be helpful to be able to permanently block a symbol.
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You can add a symbol to the BLOCKED list at the top of the automated trader and it will never show up in the automated trader.
CT
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Testing links
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bv6wrngwjscwxve/FIFO%20vs.%20LIFO.PNG?dl=0
<img src=’’images/smilies/Grey/cc-smilie07.gif’’ border=’’0’’> <img src=’’images/smilies/Grey/cc-smilie02.gif’’ border=’’0’’>
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Picture
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It would be of benefit to be able export data from the report in .CSF format so that it can be imported to Excel or a work-a-like application. This would allow the trader to generate custom reports not current supported by the CT Report application.
If this were done I would gladly create a base Excel report and post it so that other traders can use it as is or modify it to their liking.
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While CT does a nice job of auto trading it could use improvement in performing unattended auto trading. This would mean that the user not need to have physical proximity to their trading hardware and still know that (1.) the platform is operational and does not require attention, and (2) when trades are being made.
Currently the email message sent by CT only contains a link to the actual trade. To access the actual trade the user must click on the link, which opens a browser if one is not already running and displays the actual trade. While this works it can be both optimized and provide more meaning full information that it current does.
However, if running unattended the user may not be in physical proximity to the hardware running the CT application and be "monitoring" the CT activity from a phone or some other remote device. Using a browser on a phone or other like device is not an optimal use of these devices for this purpose.
Enhancement: request for trades.
1. instead of having the email contain a link to the trade, the trade information should be in the email. this would eliminate the need to use a browser to see the trade information, which if using a phone makes the entire process more efficient and friendly to the user.
2. For closing trades, in addition to the most recent closed trade the message should contain previous closed trades (only for the day).
Although CT is completely automated for trading and can run unattended in order for the user to know that CT is completely operational the user must, (1.) be able to have access (physical or remote) to their PC, or (2.) have received an email message of a completed trade. While it is not possible to have the ability to notify the user that CT has stopped operating (as in a power or system failure) it is possible to notify the user that CT is (or is not) operational at least at the scheduled startup time.
Enhancement request for status.
1. notify the user that CT has prepared to actively trade (it has successfully started, connected to the broker, and whatever else needs to be accomplished to auto trade).
2. notify the user when failures occur that need user attention for resolution.
3. SMS support for critical messages and notifications.
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My strategy involves scaling/adding to my winners.
The system only allows add based on a table or a fix price gain.
My strategy adds based on percentage gain.
In Tab 4 (Add to Current Position Rules)
I have placed my rule:
Today Current Ask Price is at least 5% greater than or equal to my same symbol highest trade price.
I thought all was good at this point.
It turns out that if I have, in my strategy settings, advancing preferences disable the trader will completely ignore my rule in Tab 4.
If I turn on the advancing positions then those settings override my Tab 4 setup.
I’ve attached a screenshot of the advancing preferences screen.
Can we get a third option to follow Tab 4 rules?
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I think if we gave the Advancing Preferences menu the same features as the Declining Preferences I could solve my issue.
Using Option 1 - Fixed interval based on % of entry price.
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Would you be able to update the ’top stocks for cooltrade active traders’ to allow users to change the parameters used. Currently the settings generate list based on 100 share lots and a $.75+ profit goal and $1.00 pullback re-entry. For example, I would like to change these settings to $.50 profit goal and $.50 pullback re-entry. Another example could allow for 1% profit goal and .5% pullback re-entry.
Thank you
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I’d like to see a popup after hitting the "exit" button to confirm the exit request on the CT trader before executing the exit. I accidentally hit the exit button while trying to hit the "Today’s Trade" button.
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Click on PREFERENCES in the robotic trader main menu.
You can turn on the EXIT REMINDER on the lower-left of the Preferences screen.
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Hi Fellow CoolTraders,
I have an idea to help CoolTraders track and respond to Market Volatility on both a short and a long term basis, automatically. On the Auto trader desktop I would like Ed to replace S&P 100 with S&P 500 and to replace E-Mini with the daily VIX Index (we are not trading futures, what’s the purpose of S&P 100 or E-Mini?). To the far right of the VIX Index line in the empty space beneath (Day Trades Left:), please insert (VIX 52 Wk HI/LO), IE: have a drop down menu to the right that manually toggles either the VIX -(HI) or (LO)- values, or cycles between- VIX (HI/LO) values during the day, maybe on a 1 minute bar. Clicking the (Profits) tab, I would like Ed to add a radio button labeled [VIX Profit (next line) Reinvestment] in the empty space below (Today’s Profits). Clicking this V-P-R button will open a dialog box that is labeled [Reinvestment of Profits Saved When Daily VIX Settles To: (a drop down menu or box to enter XX.X digits to 1 decimal point)]. Ed said in at least one of his webinars that he wants to add (Profits Saved) to (Funds Available) at extreme market draw downs and a historically high automatic VIX trigger value would do this with little daily maintenance. The (Edit Reinvestment) radio button and dialog box would work normally with no changes necessary. The VIX value can be left at zero in the new box if this feature is not to be used. Let me know what you think?
Have a Great day! - PRF
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Hi, it’s me again. I realized after the fact that I could increase the efficiency and profitability of the
(VIX Profit Reinvestment) dialog box I had created by switching from a fixed VIX profit target
value to a Trailing Stop style trigger value similar to an inverse of the (Start Profit Protection)
system that we use to take profits in the Strategy Wizard’s (Profits Requirements), tab(6). Once a
specific manually entered VIX value was touched (perhaps at 50% or more of the VIX 52 Week
High), a tight trailing stop would start to follow the VIX value higher until the VIX topped out , it
drops back to the trailing stop and the allocated (Profits Saved) dollars would be dumped
automatically into the (Funds Available) file. The result would be that CoolTrade would be adding
more saved funds to the total Funds Available near the bottom of a large draw down, increasing
the chances of adding more stocks to the Watch List for trading at a much lower stock price. I hope
this helps, thanks for your patience! PRF
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Hi CoolTraders,
Ed Barsano had commented several times during his webinars that he had wanted to force the
watch list at the bottom of the auto trader dashboard to check for the least expensive stocks first for
purchase before the most expensive stocks to allow more lower priced stocks to be purchased
from the Funds Available. As I understand it, for a watch list of 30 stocks, the auto trader cycles from
the least expensive to the most expensive stocks over and over again, IE: (#1 to #30), (#1 to #30),
(#1 to #30), continuously during market trading hours. My modification to the algorithm would be:
before the computer can advance to the next more expensive stock symbol in line, the computer
must cycle back and re-check the first stock symbol #1 for purchase, then re-check the next more
expensive symbol #2, then re-check symbol #3, and so forth until the most expensive symbol #30
is checked. So instead of cycling (#1 to #30), the computer will cycle through: (first check symbol
#1, then back to #1 and #2, then back to #1, #2 and #3, then back to #1, #2, #3, and #4 until finally
checking the most expensive symbol #30). By the time the most expensive symbol #30 is checked
once, the least expensive symbol #1 has been checked 30 times, the next more expensive symbol
#2 has been checked 29 times, the next more expensive symbol #3 has been checked 28 times,
and so forth until finally the most expensive symbol #30 has been checked just once to complete
one mega-cycle. Then the auto trader would start over cycling from the beginning with symbol #1.
ADVANTAGES:
1) Not re-inventing the wheel, hopefully this approach is just an internal algorithm programming
modification that does not require new real estate to be found on the dashboard to accommodate
it.
2) No need for a timer any more, and this approach can also be combined with a "Top Actively
Traded Stocks" filter as Ed had suggested in one of his webinars.
3) The computer cycling by my approach will use almost one-half less system cycle time and band
width resources allowing the program to run more efficiently. I can show you the math if you are
interested.
4) Purchasing the least expensive stocks will allow us to add many more stocks to the watch list
allowing us to try to max out the streaming limit of 96 symbols, thus increasing the chance for more
stocks to hit the 2-cent bid-ask spread for purchase, (the biggest limiting factor to new stocks
actively trading in the auto trader).
DISADVANTAGES: None that I can see?
Let me know what you think, have a profitable week CoolTrading! PRF
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Please add the ability for users to utilize Limit Orders within their CoolTrade strategy. It would be very helpful.. Thank you..
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Please add the ability for users to utilize Limit Orders within their CoolTrade strategy. It would be very helpful.. Thank you..
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