I prefer real books to.. but unless i'm can get them dirt cheap.. as many as i read and want to read start really really adding up.. i just can't do it.. i'd be spending a fortune.. i'll telll you i love having them though.. its cool to have a bunch of options and derivative books on your self to just sift back through..
Good to know... I dug into the code a bit and realized i have some more studying to do.. Pull out my vb book from school and start making sense of it.. i cant wait to get a handle on it... does anyone ever model the spread changes on options over time? or as a percentage where in relation to the bid and ask do trades go through.how often and how big....?
You could just use the approach of http://www.hoadley.net/options/develtoolsOCFileGen.htm to start. Write out the data from the IB spreadsheet, then you can import it into Hoadley with a button click.
Yeah i saw that... You can collect historical data with the twsdde excel worksheet and save it to seperate excel worksheets... but you see.. I wanna be able to do things like map real time positions into the open position manager.. Or theoretical and or then theres already a way to import what you have in the open position to the oset options stategy evaluation tool... Your right though.. I'm going to start pulling down all the quotes into a seperate sheet in the twsdde sheet so i can later start saving them into a db.. Detailed options data on past expirations is expensive to buy!
Excellent. I am thinking of using Hoadley as an interim step toward eventually developing my own real-time environment that would later have more spread capabilities, searching for anomalies, etc.
Hello, I am hoping Comintel, justrading, and cdcaveman are still actively engaged in Hoadley Excel add-in. I am currently evaluating this software for potential for use as 1) RT multi-broker/account position manager. 2) Volatility Estimator/Scanner. ( Managing a DB is daunting). 3) RT Strategy/Risk tracker Given my the current techincal skills, I might as well 4) pitch for the Chicago Cubs in World Series. But, I digress.. According to the Hoadley website, they use the newer RTD (already obsolete) instead of DDE. My take on future proofing and upgrading the utility of this spreadsheet would best lead me to using 1) IB as a permanent data source as opposed to Yahoo which may discontinue service at anytime. Tick by tick on excel probably won't fly. 2) Using C# to build your IB front end instead of Java because it assures interoperability and references on the internet about working with excel/vba and RTD. 3) Asking Hoadley for access to those VBA code for personal use. Additionally, I found some stylistic queues on how to design the look of the Excel UI/Dashboards from CQG. Sexy: http://www.cqg.com/Market-Data/CQG-RTD-Excel.aspx I think its a marketable product for someone who can architect and build it. Heck, Somebody is making $50 bucks a month for the Stewie Robot from IB trading tools.
excel i don't really use that much.. Hoadley was a good tool when i started out to get a feel for differnet pay outs and such.. I started using R programming to do quantitative analysis and never looked back. Although i don't HFT or do scanning or anything like that..
xandman, I use Hoadley only for the Strategy Evaluation nowadays. I trade longer time frames so have no interest in RT. I only watch the market if I'm looking for an entry or exit, so I'm afraid I can't advise you on the matter. Couple of points. For portfolio level Greeks, I built my own spreadsheets. Beyond that when I put on a position I determine where the underlying needs to be for it to be profitable, and when I would close, so risk management thereafter is keeping an eye on those metrics. I have never tried out the Hoadley Portfolio Manager. For stress testing I use the tools in TWS, though I rarely bother to be honest, since I determine what I will risk before putting on the trade. Re data, for stocks I subscribe to Stockwatch at a cost of about $20 a month. Getting option chains this way is far superior to IB. For Futures options I still get the chains from IB, clunky but manageable.
As an FYI to anyone that uses Hoadley and also trades futures/FOPs, the most recent update to the Hoadley Excel Add-in includes data retrieval capability for Quandl. The Quandl data is futures-only, but it goes way back, it's free and in addition to specific contracts, they also build several continuous contracts. The data is loaded into the Hoadley Volatility Calculator (a separate Excel file) and then you can click a couple of buttons for vol forecasts, cones, probability distributions, skew, kurtosis, etc. I'm just getting started with it but here are few tips (see image): 1. You need to use the full Quandl commodity code 2. Column 5 is last/settle in the Quandl commodity databases 3. You need to register with Quandl to get a token (unique identifier). I don't know if it changes every so often, but it's easy to register and if you wish you can use your Twitter, LinkedIN or Facebook ID. There are also some ways to speed up or automate regular downloads, both within Quandl and Hoadley, but I haven't explored them yet.