Let's say that I am currently short 1 contract of ES @ 2100. Is there an easy way in any of the major trading software (IB, Tradestation, ToS, etc.) to ALWAYS go to 0 (i.e. +1 contract ES) when the price hits 2014, and ALWAYS go back to -1 when the price drops below 2100 again? In this simple case, market orders would be fine with me. But the key is that this trade could reverse itself a hundred times in a week without me touching a button (just simply obeying the rule of always short 1 contract when at or under 2100 & then always back to no net position when at or over 2014, until I'm ready to turn it off.
I assume you are talking native to the platform and not via some custom API solution. Might want to look at TOS. I thought you could set up alerts that would re-activate once they triggered, so in theory you could have some kind of bracket setup which ping-pongs back and forth. Not sure if you can configure it so that an order can be automatically activated to those alerts though. It's been a long time since I looked at it...
Goonier, thanks so much. My first objective would be to do this native. However a custom API solution would work as well if you, or anyone else reading, happens to know of either an off-the-shelf option or an option that is easy to program for someone with only barebones ability.
Not sure of an "off-the-shelf" solution. I'd double check the alerts thing on TOS to see if that works since that's built in. While you are at it, check the IB ordering system as well. Since you are only using price as your trigger, you may be able to set up some kind of OTO loop (One Triggers Other) or something. I'm not sure, but it's easy enough to play around with on either of their demo accounts to see if it does what you want. For a custom solution, I'd probably look to something Ninja or Multi-Charts related rather than tie into the API directly (if you don't have much experience, that is). IB has Multi-charts capability (C#). The logic of your system is simple, but there are lots of other potential issues to deal with since you are trying to leave things un-attended.
You would need some basic programming skills to achieve that. You simply set up an algorithm that has access to your current position at any time and fire a market order when your conditions are met. By the way your logic is flawed. when price reaches 2014 you want to be flat as you described but at the same time you want to be short below 2100. Obviously there is a contradiction here. And what will you do if price goes above 2100? Stay short? No stop loss?
2104 rather than 2014 makes much more sense, but as OP wrote 2014 twice in a single post I'm a bit curious
i960, you have a good sense of smell. And you guys are very right. I meant to write 2104 instead of 2014. My apologies. So the idea would be to be short when 2100 is breached to the downside, and no net position when 2104 is breached to the upside. This is not a trade in itself. It's a dynamic hedge that represents only a portion of the overall trade. I received some response on the Ninjatrader board which indicated Ninjatrader could do this. Any other ideas? Just trying to make sure I am using the best tools to do this.
In IB you could load up a bracket order where th e pnl take order is another bracket and ao on. Essentially a tree of attached orders