I have a job and am busy during the day so I can't watch the market all the time. I'm looking for something a computer program maybe to monitor my positions for me. I have some programming experience but haven't done anything extensively and don't really have the time to learn right now. What I want is just a basic program that can close out my positions at the end of the day at a specific time or price level. Is there anything out there that can do just that?
Even with all of the technology out there that can identify entry and exit point. The human being still has to make the decision in this case.
====== JNu; Yes, its easy to set up a buy to close; buy to open... sell to close, market on close order .... Brokers differ; IB[Interactive Brokers]OX [Oprions Express ]...have more order set ups than that.OX works well with telephoine orders also. Part time any thing/trading /investing may be better to learn on; butnot near as good as full time.[Rule of 72 = work 12 hours a day for 6 days a week= 72 hours for 7. 2 years] Plenty of money managers/ traders/ investors/specs swing /posittion trade/invest; with end of day quotes.So end of day can be an advantage.Wisdom is profitable to direct-Not a prediction.
An account at IB (Interactive Brokers) will permit you to set limits, stops and a time to close. Mark them all with an OCA (One Closes All), and you can go about your other work without monitoring the positions. As far as I know, there isn't any platform you can run on your own that you can trust to reliably monitor and close open positions. I automate all entries, but exits are another matter.
many trading platforms let you send MOO/LOO and MOC/LOC orders. what platform are you using currently?
You are pretty much stuck in a bad place by your beliefs. (Who knows how you got them). For position trading stocks, the beginning of a trade is NOT at the end of a day. Similarly the end of a trade is NOT at the end of the day. As you can see, brokers do NOT accomodate making money position trading stocks. When I began trading, I position traded and just made one phone call (preplanned) a day for the first five years. About the beginning of the third year my weekly salary was less than my weekly commissions and fees. Recently, the PC was invented as was the copier. Because of this, you could probably take a smoke break and get decision making info that is equivalent to the phone call I made. Another advantage is that you can have the computer do the trading work for you automatically since it can be connected directly to your account. To repeat, you do NOT understand how markets work and you do NOT understand how to time markets. All you need is a volume look up table that is normalized to the 65 day average volume. The look up table can be a fine (sensitive to) a 30 minute chart. There are three trading volumes which lead price: DU, FRV and peaking volume. You wait during DU, You enter within 1 1/2 hours of FRV and you exit when volume cannot keep up with peaking volume. The normalized volume chart is posted as "Unusual Volume"; this is what trading volume is to CW type traders. The efficacy of the chart was tested. The sample was 400,000 stock cycles. No changes were made to the chart. The trading of stocks works best with a 3 Beta plus universe where the trading cycle is repeat 5times every six months. The published results (before ET was invented) are 6 to 8 day trades which average 11.1% per trade. 7 serial trades double your capital. This means you double every 42 to 56 days, except that today the cycle has shortened to 4 to 5 days. This means in modern times (Post PC invention), the doubling of capital is 28 to 35 days. 50K becomes over a million in less than a year. Your current beliefs preclude making money this way. I do not feel you can overcome your belief system. Your could read behavioral Finance and be told how to behave to change your beliefs. I do not think you will read about your fundamental problem and its cure. I put the rules of this ATR in this post. And I gave you the name of the look up table. This probably makes it impossible for you to do. You are set on foraging around the CW and not finding an alternate solution. The CW has so many and so profound examples of people wandering around until they reach the yipping point where they are then headed for the exit in trading. I would say your trip is well over half way done. In other words, you are a prime example of bad beliefs eliminating any chance of success. Notice how many posters here on preceding you down the path you are taking.
you may wish to consider learning that your entry and your exit are identities in software programing. They do have one periferal (sp) difference, however. You would have to think to discover it. This binary difference is the sentiment. You probably are advanced beginner of beginning intermediate. one of the common characteristics is entry/exit type trading. Later on more highly skilled levels, a potential trader considers how to keep track of market sentiment. The sentiment change of a trend and the trend end are not concurrent. This is because sentiment is price based and market timing is volume based. The beginning intermediate trader might know this. Most people do entries by a process called edges. Edges come from looking at the market for 10,000 hours. In that 10,000 hours, and as you point out, no one looks for exit edges although they are seeing them just as often as an entry edge. This lack of vision comes from NOT having a neutral bias. Most traders have edges that represent a long bias. This means they are totally unskilled in exiting (their mostly long edged entries). Poor belief systems is what this thread represents. The very poor unthought out beliefs come as a result of the fact that anyone is allowed to trade. The finacial industry's bread and butter is commissions fed by ignorance. The bread and butter comes from laziness and unthoughtfulness.
Thank you for assuming I'm new at this. But I'm way past the learning stages. The reason why I'm doing it part time is that my strategy require only 1-2 hours per day of maintenance. So I got a job to pass the time. I find it more relaxing, though tiring, to have another source of income and it helps to keep myself from getting too fixated on trading.
I trade index futures with Turbo Trader. It's pretty basic but fast enough and have everything needed for trading. But it doesn't have those MOO/LOO or MOC/LOC orders that you mentioned. Turbo Trader is tied to my broker, so if there's a better platform I can't use it. It doesn't even have a smart phone app either.