My strategy daily ouputs about 10 recommendations on taking long or short positions on a given underlying using options. It also recommends the range of expirations dates as well as the range of strikes and the IV (or the bid price) I have to target. So, It is quite a bit of error-prone, order immission work I have to do every day. Is there any platform that could help me in automatizing it? A tipical 'macro' order would be: Buy 500$ CALL options for UPS at strikes in the 10% range of 110, expirations MAR 15 - April 9, using a price with a IV of 25% or two ticks below the bid. In case any of the generated orders by this macro is filled, kill the other ones. Thanks in advance. Arturo
What if they all fill before you get a chance to pull them? You sure you can have so many open orders with each bidding for the full desired size? Sounds like you need a custom "smart router" type application built to spray orders, probing multiple exchanges. Not trivial. I doubt there's anything generic available to do this. Let's see what others say.
Thank you. Generally I get the opposite problem: I am rarely filled because I place my order at least two ticks below the bid. Anyway, no problem with multiple fillings because I allocate only a tiny fraction on my trading capital when doing this kind of transaction. So my broker will kill my orders if the macro doesn' t.
I recommend you take your order generation software and have it bring up an order ticket or generate a sample order ticket but execute the trade manually by examining current spreads and liquidity ti work the order. I'd rather have a time lag than a bad execution with options.
Absolutely. I completely agree with you, Robert. I would be perfectly happy with a software populating the order mask with pre-filled orders waiting for manual approval. I don't have this software and it is just what I was asking for.
Good point. The answer however is no, because, unless a plane hits the world trade center, I end up buying anyway an option at a price I am comfortable with. If I look at more than one year of completely manual implementation of this strategy, I have got much more damage from manual mistakes and tiredness, than from market moving against me. Also, I keep well in mind what Robert posted a while ago about the danger of using a 'dumb' approach, especially in the opening.
Realtick Pro has the ability with their API to stage an order on the display. You can then take the staged order and manually change it then send. Realtick Pro can access US listed Equities, Options and Futures. https://www.lightspeed.com/trading-platforms/realtick-pro-and-express/realtick-platform-features/
Check out this thread, not sure at what stage they are now, but looks very promising. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/can-you-automate-your-option-strategy.326646/#post-4763738