As most of you know, we at BT (and our affilliates) have been developing and using automation for years now. It seems that almost weekly we get the "latest and greatest" package to check out. Some of it is workable, and provides solid profits.....some of it is just duplicating what we already have been playing with for a long time (much of it on Redi or Trade FActory, etc.). Our "black box" developers are second to none in the industry, and have shown consistent profits. As far as the simple automation....I actually prefer the "auto in" and "tape read" out strategies (such as the openings and basket managers for "fishing"). PairCo has been leading edge as well with their addition to BT traders over the years. Glad to see our friends at Echo are keeping up with the games that are working. It does take constant modification of strategies and tools to stay ahead..... Best of Luck to all!! Don
Sure. You've no doubt read about opening orders elsewhere on this site. One of the things that I have built for myself is a fully automated program that will trade these. Basically, I'll start the program which in turn sends my orders at the appropriate time, monitors my positions, and closes them out based on criteria that I've built in. I can lean back and watch. I have also left the ability for the program to take inputs from me on any given stock. I will often take advantage of this,...and prove that the programs logic and built in discipline is superior to my trading skill. I could easily do the opening orders by hand; however, there's no way that I could take advantage of the sheer numbers of *opportunities* that I can include in this strategy with automation. The computer is quicker and can manage many, many more stocks than I could ever dream of. Basically, it's a game of probabilities, and when I have a strategy in which those odds are in my favor, automation let's me leverage the number of times I can take advantage of it. I've done the same with pairs. I've used both a commerically available product as well as one I've written for myself to trade pairs. Set the entry and exit levels, and the software will put on the position as well as take it off for you. I have other strategies during the day in which my automation will do half the job. If I can borrow Don's phrase from above, some of my "auto in" programs will enter my trade based on scanning and triggering much, much faster than I could do myself, and I manage the exit of the trade. I refer to these as my "half" finished projects.
Wow... I think you're my long lost twin or something, some parts of your program sound very similar to mine
Don, As usual you speak from your soapbox like Bright trading has something better than this. Where is it? I am using Predator Pro, and I have seen others that try to be like it, and I can tell you that this program kick a$$ over anything I have ever seen. I know a guy that used your PairCo guys toy, and toy it is compared to this, which runs in an excel spreadsheet and simply pops up an alert that allows you to then fire market orders if you press ok to get you into a spread. On most spreads, which are fairly thin, te last thing I want to do in this market is fire market orders at thin stocks, the price I will get into the spread is a lot worse than where I think I am getting in. I can't imagine any spread traders in the world using market orders on both sides of the spread who make money consistently. By contrast, this Echo stuff floats limit orders for the thinner of the stocks to leg me in to my spreads, sooooooo much better. It even does multiple layers, calculates its own price based on getting me in at the Bollinger Bands and out at the moving average. It also adjusts my bids and offers up and down based on the size of the leading stock bid/ask, upticks/downticks, Spus, so that I know I am actually buying and selling spreads where I want to. C'mon, the Pairco guys are running a macro from an excel spreadsheet.... how is that even in the same league? I agree with you that auto-in and tape-read out is king on Opening Orders.... But there is a limit to how much a trader can tape-read out by hand without missing stuff, I have been using this Echo software for a few weeks now to auto-exit me out of my opening orders and is does a much better job because it also tape-reads to determine exit points which means I can put my envelopes tighter and get into more trades as I don't have to watch 50 fills myself. I can tell you, it gets me out much better than I do by hand with years of experience doing it. If your "black box" developers are second to none, where is their software? How do I get my hands on it to try it? How come I have not heard you here touting it before, showing us automated entries and exits? Showing us a tool for taking the other side of gap trades, a fully automated spread/pair trading tool that limit order legs into and out of them? That allows me to send orders for 900 stocks on the open, all with an auto-quantity feature based on share price and average daily volume that I can adjust? One that has a tool for completely automating my "fishing" orders, canceling and replacing them all day based on my envelope size I set for each stock, getting my orders out of the way of a big spu move, then automatically applying my exit criteria when I get a fill and auto-trading me out of it? Where is yours that does all this and a ton more? Someone comes here with this great thing and all of a sudden you are like, yeah we have some guy somewhere that can do that.... Whatever! I have seen others, and I am using Echo's. And I can say there is nothing as good as this stuff, by far. Echo is keeping up with no one, they are setting the pace. But I'll bet everyone tries to keep up now, I'm sure in a year or two your "second to none" programmers will try to market a copycat product. I wouldn't be so upset if you weren't trying to come here and always one-up everyone, you haven't even seen this I'll bet. I know these guys, I've been with Echo for a while now, and I know that I have never seen a firm that tries so hard to help their traders make money. This stuff rocks! Kudos to Echo.
i've gotta agree with eddie on this one.....you really haven't seen this yet.... i don't think you realize exactly what predator entails.
I have to wonder why the website would detail every strategy this software offers for all to see. Within weeks you will have 100 prop guys trying to emulate your stuff. You may bring in new traders, but current Echo traders shouldn't be thrilled with that method of marketing imo.
I don't think strategies are being detailed in the site. It seems to me that it is a gray not black box system since trader still has to input parameters, values, indicator values that will trigger the buy/sell decisions.
We certainly don't "spread around" the black box systems that are making our "well capitalized groups" a great deal of money. I really wasn't trying to demean the upgraded Echo software, just trying to say that all this is very "fluid"....(software development by it's very nature is constantly changing). I try to think of the automation (most of which is now using FIX protocol, sending in thousands of orders.... not the older excel macro's.....(although I still use the "old system" lol) ). The people at Redi, Trade Factory, OmniPro, etc., have all developed some real cool stuff.....as I'm sure the Predator is...... Let's hope all this programming will make our traders more money!! Don
How would you feel? I have heard that some current and former echo traders are pissed off about it. Where do you think the strategies came from??? I heard a rumor regarding a potential lawsuit....seems some echo guys are not happy about their specific strategies being used for marketing and sold off for anyone with 100 bucks. Story developing....
I am a current Echo trader who has been with them for years using profitable strategies, and I can say that I have some secret ones that have not appeared in anyone's software yet. And I, like everyone at Echo by now I'm sure, am on the free demo of this and I can say that I don't think there are any strategies in it that everyone doesn't know about by now, I think Echo has just found a way to do them better. My feeling is that for most traders, they all get to the same place in the end, some just have a pinto to get them there, and Echo has given their traders a Ferrari. If I were competing with Echo, I would be worried too about losing traders to them, that's for sure. But as far as proprietary info being out there, Opening Orders have been around for years, but Echo has given guys a way to auto-trade out of them as well as in. I don't think that sells anyone out, and I don't think guys will be all trying to exit at the same place also, as each trader has to input what they feel the best place to exit is, 10-cents off the high, at a $20 loss, whatever. I think if anyone has put Opening Orders out there to the world to see I would look Don's way (not that there is anything wrong with that ). Where do I think the strategies came from? Well, I know that their office manager in Chicago was one of the first spread traders in this game, anyone can go to Chicago and learn how to trade spreads from him, I'm sure he developed the spread tools. Filter trading has been around since the beginning of time, filtering down to a select list of stocks and then buying or selling the ones that meet your criteria... The stuff that makes or loses is how good the trader's criteria is, which each trader has to put in themselves. What Echo has done is give guys a way to have the computer automatically buy or short anything that meets that criteria, which is pretty cool, but I can't imagine steals anyone's idea. From what I can tell, and I think this is the part you may be missing, the software just gives guys the tool to automate all these strategies, it is still up to the trader to input the criteria to use to do the automization with. It's not going to do anything that everyone hasn't already heard of I think, just gives everyone access to automization. I think what they were trying to do was give everyone access to programmers and a tool that can take any strategy the trader might trade and automate it, but it doesn't seem to all of a sudden enlighten people on a bunch of secret ways to make money. But it is a well made piece of software. I would be curious to hear from any Echo traders that think that somehow their secret strategy is in this software and they are mad that all traders can now do it? I'll bet you if you do a search on each strategy they list in the software, at one time or another it was talked about here even, making it public knowledge that anyone could use. I know that unlike most firms, the partners at Echo are good traders as well, you can go sit with most of them and watch them trade if you trade with the firm. Even Vito, the CEO, gives free training on the "Echo Methodology" that any trader can sign up for and go sit next to him for a week or two to watch him trade, so I would imagine that they compiled their trading knowledge another tool to help Echo guys. Maybe I'm biased because I trade here, but I find nothing wrong with a firm trying to look out for its traders and give them a tool to help them automate what they do already anyways.