I have been looking into automating a couple simple trading strategies. right now I have IB and use Ensign Windows for charting. I think there may be a way to program an API to feed orders to IB but nothing too easy to find on this subject. I spoke to Tradestation and Esignal reps since they seem to be the other big boy's out there for charting software. Esignal said there is no way to automate trading thru their platform. I know that people have done this thru an API so I guess this was misinformation but the rep wasn't helpfull and didn't give me a lot of confidence. Tradestation seems to be set up just for automated trading but I would have to execute orders thru their brokerage directly. I am very happy with IB and Ensign but think it would be silly not automate some of my trading. Even just simple things like buying or selling on trend line breaks. I'm not sure I want to have two brokers but I also don't want to dump IB since they've been really great. Any advice would help. thanks
If you have some programming experience you can use Interactive Broker's API to automate your trading strategies. A couple of good places to get started with IB's api is: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/php/webhelp/webhelp.htm#Interoperability/DDE_Configure_TWS.htm and http://www.stockbotprogramming.com has several tutorials showing how to connect to IB's api and do things such as get historical data. Good luck
Thanks frost. I did a minor in programming but don't want to re-invent the wheel. Everything is telling me I should just switch to Tradestation. It looks like the only decent canned option where I wouldn't have to go to great lengths to set-up and tweak my strategies. Thanks for your input.
If you use esignal, ninjatrader might be a possibility for you. I use NT with TradeStation to send automated orders to my IB account. I wrote a custom script using functions that access NT's .dll file to actually perform the strategy automation. The script contains a trademanager based upon my IB account's marketposition, and also utilizes NT's easylanguage functions to issue orders and commands to TWS. NT provides the same functionality for esignal as well. Good luck, RoughTrader
I am using Ensign Windows charting. I really like the power and control in the software and would like to incorporate some of the alerts I've programmed into my trading. I am hesitant to go to Tradestation because they seem so commercial I almost feel I am surely gonna get fleeced. But again I don't want to re-invent the wheel. I think I'm gonna open up a small account there and play with the automation and use the charting. Thanks
A lot can be gained by "reinventing the wheel". Sometimes functionality you want is just not there in a canned solution. I do it because I trust my code more than the code in a canned solution, and because if something goes wrong or I need to adapt I have full control. In any event, trade automation is exciting.... Good luck
Ninja trader can attach to many front end and is top notch right now with its NT 6.0...looks liek the one to take the ball form TS and work with many brokers and not inhouse only clearing