Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to look at my question... Soâ¦I am wondering if it would be possible to create an automated trading system based around very short term pair trades. What I would essentially want the automated trading system to do is began looking at two pairs of stocks at a specific time in the day for which I tell it to. I would want it to look at the two stocks as if equal dollar amounts had been invested in them both. I would then want the automated trader to buy into both stocks if say there was a $100 decrease in the spread, put a automatic limit order in at $100 profit and then always have an automatic stop loss of say 200 dollars? Would something like this be possible? If so what software would I have to use to achieve this and how complicated would it get for a complete newb. (note: I currently use TOS for trading and I would like to keep it that way but I understand that it is not great for doing automated trading). Thanksa ton for any help you can provide. Also, please note that I do not want to discuss the strategy of the trade I have brought up, that was just a random trade made up to just give an idea of what I am trying to achieve. Thanks again. If anything in the above text is confusing, please tell me and I will try to clarify more.
as long as your broker provides an API then you can program this yourself. As far as a COTS solution I dont know. For a newb with no programming experience I would bet that you never get this going.
I don't know much about TOS, I checked their website and I couldn't find any information about an api... except in their institutional product and then it was FIX-only and "coming soon". They're calling this 'thinkfix'. So seems as if it may be tough to use TOS at this time. Here's a pairs trading example of pretty close what you're trying to do : http://code.google.com/p/tradelink/wiki/PairsExample TradeLink works with IB, Assent and Sterling companies presently. It's free and open-source so it's good for paranoid people who don't want to share their ideas but still have a totally transparent platform for trading. http://tradelink.googlecode.com cheers