croc1964, Have you ever thought of making a replay feature for your futures-trader? Have you seen the replay feature in Ensign Software. There are tick by tick intraday files for the NQ and ES futures available from Ensign that you can play back at up to 10X normal speed to simulate a trading day. It's a lot of fun and great training too. It would be neat to have something that could record data from Interactive Brokers and replay it tick by tick later at any speed to your trade simulator and also feed any charting program that normally works from Interactive Brokers data. I've made my own simulator that works with Microsoft Excel and the data from IB. It's at this site: http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?14000000036335 I'd love to make a playback feature like I'm talking about but unfortunately I don't know enough about programming to be able to do that. My only hope is to get someone with more programming skill like you interested in making one.
alamostrader, I have no real need to do just that, as I have created a link to Ensign to allow papertrading a Playback file with FuturesTrader. You trade the playback in FuturesTrader and see the chart of the playback file develop in Ensign tick by tick. Can only recommend it, as it sharpens your skills, and it gives you the feel to trade live from playback. Chris
Hi, the version FT1.81 released yesterday evening, has a Division by zero bug discovered this morning. I'm really sorry about, but it happend. So the Fix is available at www.futures-trader.net Regards, Chris
Yannis, select the Ticker Box (Click on the Ticker Button) Then doubleclick on the contract to change Change the expiry date from 200303 to 200306 Change the ESignal symbol if necessary. and then press <Store> Repeat this for every contract you need to change When you are ready, press <Save> To access the new contracts. Press Stop then Req (Below the IP Number field) or exit and restart FuturesTrader. Chris
Hi, back from vacation, I uploaded a new Futurestrader version at www.futures-trader.net What is new: The Arrow keys (Up/Down and Page Up / Page down) are supported in price /Tick fields. They don't work on Buttons, where the Caption can be changed with the mouse wheel. Replace Orders: The new default. Any order already submitted, will no longer be cancelled and resubmitted, but directly changed. To force a new order uncheck Replace Orders. It will reset to the default after one order has been sent. Submitting Market orders still cancels automatically all other open orders. Submitting Limit orders or Stop orders replaces any existing Limit / Stop order. Profit / Loss can be changed to Profit / Loss %, calculated as PL / Equity Risk can be changed to Risk %, calculated as Risk / Equity Quick Target from Entry can be changed to Quick Target from Bid/Ask Quick Trail Stop from Entry can be changed to Quick Trail Stop from Bid/Ask Minimumticksize and Multiplier will be queried automatically from IB, if you are connected and have API 7.01 installed MSH/MSL will no longer be evaluated, as some users complained it would distract them. The Orderbook has now a T colum: R=Real trade D=Demo Trade The Tickerbox is now displayed in a seperate window for easier change. Reversal Trades will always be sent as one order. The Statistics will count any reversal as a new trade. Please give me your feedback, if you have time. Regards, Chris
Hi, more than one week and no updates. It's time to release a new version, even if the next one might be around the corner, as Dan Clark, who already worked together with the guys from BT and AT, agreed to help with his insight to make FT an even better successor. Thanks Dan for the input already given. Version 1.97 adds - Tooltips. Move the mouse over a button, wait a bit and a little helpline will appear. I think I covered most of the important controls, so you get a grip what's used for what. - Bondtraders will find fractions on the Commandbuttons, the Minichart, the Pivots. In fact there remain just a few Entry fields, which will still show decimals for Bonds. These will disappear in a later version also. - Commissions. These are set through the Tickerpage. Select Ticker, then doubleclick on the Ticker to enter the Tickersetuppage - Button: To lock the floating Bid/Ask price move the Mouse to the little and watch the Button change to To unlock just move the mouse again over this Button. - < + >< - >Buttons: BT users might find these <+><-> Buttons on the right side of the Target and Stop Boxes useful. Press <+> to increase the Target/Stop by one tick, press<-> to decrease it. - When in a trade, the Rangetrade Module changes to a Covertrade module. Sometimes you don't want to set an order at the exchange, but want to wait until the Targetprice prints at least once before covering. Use the Covertrade module for this. This module allows to Reverse a position, something which the regular cover Buttons won't do. Set the number of contracts to cover (in the white contracts # box left of the Long/Short box) to any number greater than your current position and your position will be reversed when your target is hit. (If Autobracket is set to on, the reversed position will be secured by a Bracketorder using the current Bracket settings) - added a Real% calculation, so you know how much P/L% you made today. -Fixed some Bugs reported. Eg: The print function should work again. Regards, Chris Download as usual from www.futures-trader.net
FT1.97 has a bug in the statistics module not calculating P/L for Bondtrades correctly. Its been fixed in the next version. Download from www.futures-trader.net Chris
This newest FuturesTrader Version adds a bunch of new features proposed by traders activly trading the Futures and Stock markets. Trade from a MarketDepth window by clicking on the level below the current Bid/Ask spread to make sure you get the fill without the risk of a market order Trade a Stop and Reverse (SAR) or a Profit Target hit and Reverse instead of just covering your trade. Use the Square of Nine to inform you in advance about possible bumbs in the road up or down Download FuturesTrader from www.futures-trader.net or take a look at the Tradedesk Setup www.futures-trader.net/FT5.gif
The idea of being able to simulate virtual trades in real time is something I think we all could profit from. I'm currently trading through TradeStation and I cannot find a simulator that works with their data feed - does anyone here know of any? At the same time as I understand the brokers they'd rather have us place real trades, I'm pretty sure offering simulation would make them more money in the long run. What do you think?