DaveDM

I'm not sure how many traders that belong to this site are Canadian. I'm looking to connect with traders in my area, we've started a sort of meetup group where we meet once a month to exchange ideas with local traders and discuss all things having to do with trading and the markets. If you are interested, feel free to join the meetup group at this site... http://www.meetup.com/Burlington-Investment-Idea-Meetup/ Looking forward to meeting and sharing ideas in future! Regards, DaveDM

I just within the last few days started getting tons of data disconnects. If this keeps up I won't be able to run TS on auto. Problem seems to be on TS's end, disconnecting all the time. For a company who's "claim to fame is auto trading this is a real disappointment and something they should have worked out a long time ago. i'm pissed.

I'm running a remote virtual dedicated server at GoDaddy dot com for about 80.00 US a month (they are cheaper if you go for a longer term than month to month) to run some auto strategies that I've been programming and testing with TS for the exact same reason. You need the internet and power redundancy if you are going to run anything auto. This also helps eliminate or at least greatly reduce data disconnects, which are obnoxious at best, totally destructive at worst! DaveDM

Stocks On The Move from Stocks, Investing, Business, and Finance News - Investors.com is a good service to find these kinds of stocks. I like their service because they track what breakout stocks other investors are looking at, too. In terms of software packages, try to find a good Darvas Box indicator for your charting package. They have one available for TradeStation. I like to use Darvas Boxes for breakout support/resistance levels. You can also use the 1/2 width of box, full width of box to 1/2 width / full width of box for targets and stops, so it makes managing your risk:reward at at least 1:1 pretty easy. Hope that's helpful. DaveDM

Sorry for the delay in responding... My problem with TradeStation are severalfold, and I admit it could be limitations on my part too, but here they are, as I see them... - TS crashes and hangs a lot. - Lots of data disconnects. - Minor changes in system settings ie. switches, flags etc. that you setup for the way it tests or is supposed to calculate will completely throw off the results entirely and you never know if you have your system settings set properly. I'm refering to look inside back bar testing and intrabar order generation. It's quirky. - It's great at coding up ideas relatively quickly and easily and getting an idea visually if things look good or not, don't get me wrong. I just think that after being in the market so long and as much experience as they have, they could make a more stable platform with better explaination of how the flags/settings affect results and how to configure for more accurate results. - They could also explain simple concepts like "if your profit/loss per trade is under x number of dollars there's a good chance that the strategy won't work out". - Depending on how well their data is coming through as well, I've had changes in backtesting results, this was really weird and caused major problems for me when coding. Would I stop using TS? No, every product has their drawbacks. No system is perfect. It is expensive but has many good qualities, but definitely LOTS of room for improvement still after all these years. Hope that makes sense. BTW I think TS is great for coding indicators and such. DaveDM

I wrote some code awhile back for TradeStation as a starting point to a gap strategy, I'll post it here. If you run backtesting on it you'll soon realize that it doesn't make sense to risk real money trading it. However -- I haven't given up on it yet. I'm thinking about ways to filter out the entries so that you enter the trade under ideal conditions. Those conditions could include using some type of trend determination filter such as Heikin Ashi, Momentum, Buying/Selling pressure etc. If / when I come up with a decent solution I'll be happy to post the conclusion. In the meantime, feel free to play with the code if it helps. DaveDM ----- Place the following in two separate Strategy documents in EasyLanguage, one for Gap Up and one for Gap Down... // Gap Up Strategy inputs: Percent_Fill(.75), // 1 = 100% Min_Gap_Size_Points(20), // 1 = 1 YM point Max_Gap_Size_Points(101), // 1 = 1 YM point Total_Contracts(1), Take_Position_Start(935), Exit_Positions_Time(1550), Risk_Reward_Ratio(1.00); variables: mp(0), Trade_Count(0), Min_Gap_Per_Short(0), Max_Gap_Per_Short(0), Min_Short_Entry(0), Max_Short_Entry(0), Target_Short(0), P_Close(0), P_Open(0), Gap_Size(0), Stop_Price(0); mp = marketposition; // Gap Open, Direction Short If time = Take_Position_Start then begin if Trade_Count < 1 then begin P_Close = CloseD(1); // find bar number to reference for opening price of today Value1 = FindBar(Date, Take_Position_Start); P_Open = Open[Value1]; // Open price after Take_Position_Start time Min_Short_Entry = P_Close + Min_Gap_Size_Points; Max_Short_Entry = P_Close + Max_Gap_Size_Points; Target_Short = P_Open - ((P_Open - P_Close) * Percent_Fill); Stop_Price = P_Open + ((P_Open - P_Close) * Risk_Reward_Ratio); if P_Open > P_Close then begin // Close[2] if P_Open >= Min_Short_Entry then begin if P_Open <= Max_Short_Entry then begin sellshort ("SHORT") Total_Contracts contracts this bar; Trade_Count = 1; end; end; end; end; end; // Short Exit if mp = -1 then begin if low <= Target_Short then begin // low buytocover ("Target_Short_GU") next bar at market; // * or use limit order // resets Trade_Count = 0; P_Open = 0; P_Close = 0; Min_Gap_Per_Short = 0; Min_Short_Entry = 0; Target_Short = 0; mp = 0; Value1 = 0; Value2 = 0; Value3 = 0; Max_Gap_Per_Short = 0; Max_Short_Entry = 0; Target_Short = 0; Stop_Price = 0; end; end; // Stop Loss if mp = -1 then begin if high >= Stop_Price then begin buytocover ("Stop_Loss_Ouch!_GU") next bar Stop_Price stop; // resets Trade_Count = 0; P_Open = 0; P_Close = 0; Min_Gap_Per_Short = 0; Min_Short_Entry = 0; Target_Short = 0; mp = 0; Value1 = 0; Value2 = 0; Value3 = 0; Max_Gap_Per_Short = 0; Max_Short_Entry = 0; Target_Short = 0; Stop_Price = 0; end; end; // Timed Exit since IntraDay trade only, exit all trades before market close if mp = -1 and time >= Exit_Positions_Time then begin; buytocover ("CLOSE_TIME") this bar; // resets Trade_Count = 0; P_Open = 0; P_Close = 0; Min_Gap_Per_Short = 0; Min_Short_Entry = 0; Target_Short = 0; mp = 0; Value1 = 0; Value2 = 0; Value3 = 0; Max_Gap_Per_Short = 0; Max_Short_Entry = 0; Target_Short = 0; Stop_Price = 0; end; ---- ^ that was the end of the gap up strategy. Place the following in a separate EasyLanguage strategy file for Gap Down. // Gap Down Strategy inputs: Percent_Fill(.75), // 1 = 100% Min_Gap_Size_Points(20), // 1 = 1 YM point Max_Gap_Size_Points(101), // 1 = 1 YM point Total_Contracts(1), Take_Position_Start(935), Exit_Positions_Time(1550), Risk_Reward_Ratio(1.00); variables: mp(0), Trade_Count(0), Min_Gap_Per_Long(0), Max_Gap_Per_Long(0), Min_Long_Entry(0), Max_Long_Entry(0), Target_Long(0), P_Close(0), P_Open(0), Gap_Size(0), Stop_Price(0); mp = marketposition; // Gap Down, Direction Long If time = Take_Position_Start then begin if Trade_Count < 1 then begin P_Close = CloseD(1); // find bar number to reference for opening price of today Value1 = FindBar(Date, Take_Position_Start); P_Open = Open[Value1]; // Open price after Take_Position_Start time Min_Long_Entry = P_Close - Min_Gap_Size_Points; Max_Long_Entry = P_Close - Max_Gap_Size_Points; Target_Long = P_Open + ((P_Close - P_Open) * Percent_Fill); Stop_Price = P_Open - ((P_Close - P_Open) * Risk_Reward_Ratio); if P_Open < P_Close then begin if P_Open <= Min_Long_Entry then begin if P_Open >= Max_Long_Entry then begin buy ("LONG_ON_GD") Total_Contracts contracts this bar; Trade_Count = 1; end; end; end; end; end; // Long Exit if mp = 1 then begin if high >= Target_Long then begin // high sell ("Target_Long_GD") next bar at market; // * or use limit order // resets Trade_Count = 0; P_Open = 0; P_Close = 0; Min_Gap_Per_Long = 0; Min_Long_Entry = 0; Target_Long = 0; mp = 0; Value1 = 0; Value2 = 0; Value3 = 0; Max_Gap_Per_Long = 0; Max_Long_Entry = 0; Target_Long = 0; Stop_Price = 0; end; end; // Stop Loss if mp = 1 then begin if low <= Stop_Price then begin sell ("Stop_Loss_Ouch!_GD") next bar Stop_Price stop; // resets Trade_Count = 0; P_Open = 0; P_Close = 0; Min_Gap_Per_Long = 0; Min_Long_Entry = 0; Target_Long = 0; mp = 0; Value1 = 0; Value2 = 0; Value3 = 0; Max_Gap_Per_Long = 0; Max_Long_Entry = 0; Target_Long = 0; Stop_Price = 0; end; end; // Timed Exit since IntraDay trade only, exit all trades before market close if mp = 1 and time >= Exit_Positions_Time then begin; sell ("CLOSE_TIME_GAP_DOWN") this bar; // resets Trade_Count = 0; P_Open = 0; P_Close = 0; Min_Gap_Per_Long = 0; Min_Long_Entry = 0; Target_Long = 0; mp = 0; Value1 = 0; Value2 = 0; Value3 = 0; Max_Gap_Per_Long = 0; Max_Long_Entry = 0; Target_Long = 0; Stop_Price = 0; end;

TS from my experience seems to be terrible at backtesting. Only forward testing seems to provide a true picture of a system's performance, however, it's very time consuming and then when changes are needed, you have to forward test again. It's like constantly trying to hit a moving target travelling at the speed of light. DaveDM

LOL LOL thats a guuuuud one

Watched it yesterday, it's about 2 hrs long. The basis for it is that the central bank (Federal Reserve) is in control of the country's money supply and that they basically run the world, and that Obama and all other politicians are just the public front men puppets of the people that implemented and control the Federal Reserve -- the "Federal" Reserve not being any more Federal than Federal Express, but a private entity controlled by the bankers. Whether or not this stuff is true or not we'll never know unless people were honest and came clean, however, it sometimes makes you wonder with all the weird things that go on in the world that don't make sense. When something doesn't make sense, how can you trust it? Conspiracy theory can be interesting and I try to keep an open mind while trying to be objective at the same time, so you gotta take this stuff with a grain of salt. If you were interested in the Obama Deception (I personally like the guy but watched it, it focused more on the 'power brokers' anyways), you might be interested in watching this one too, it goes more into global depth -- Zeitgeist -- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197

Sparrow, I believe Blu-Ray posted a Volume_Divergence indicator that measures upticks vs. downticks and can be applied to the specific issue your trading. This would ideally be much more accurate since you can see the data for what you are specifically trading as opposed to the entire "market summary". Hope this is what your looking for. If it's not, then you could take the basis of what he did with the indicator and if you could code all the symbols within the code and measure all the upticks for each and all the downticks for each (that's ALOT of code) and average them out, I think it could be do-able. I'm just not sure if you could have that many datastreams for 1 indicator or if it's possible within the code. You could try upticks of Data1, upticks of Data2 etc. and have them all on the same chart (the different ticker symbols) but hidden. I don't remember how many Datastreams TradeStation supports. Hope that makes sense and hope it's helpful. DaveDM