I realized that this may be more appropriate here, so forgive me for the double post. Thanks for any responses in advance. I currently use a Direct Access Broker who has a very limited risk management setup. Meanwhile, I have developed a set of rules which when enforced, work very well for me, but leave me subject to the occasional lapse in discipline which has cost me more money than i care to remember. I can usually go weeks at a time after a mistake, but inevitably, a momentarily lapse in judgement leads me to the same "style" of money losing trade every couple of months, when my trading brain decides to check out for what can be just a few minutes or even seconds. The solution was once provided to me, at a now long defunct broker. They programmed a risk manager that allowed me to set my max position sizes in individual stocks and sectors on a daily basis. I truly used it to great benefit, going my longest stretch ever without taking what i consider to be a completely avoidable loss. I have since had the proprietary end of this risk manager reprogrammed, and my question for the community is this: Does anyone know of, or actually use, a direct access broker, that allows the trader to access an API that interacts with their position sizing and order entry front end by individual stock and/or sector? This is precisely what my current broker does not do. It's becoming silly and quite disheartening that because they won't allow me to customize my risk management scheme, I wind up paying the market a percentage of my salary every month in trades which I realize are stupid mistakes which would not be avoided, but rather minimized by my assigning them a simple value at 7:30 each morning. For the record, I have already used Tradestation, and was not happy with their system reliability and pricing structure, so if possible, I am looking for a company that is more consistent with the higher end guys on the market today. Regards to all.
A time ago I made research about CME SPAN arrays. First time here on ET I see somebody asking about risk management. What functions that API would have? This defunct broker - do they had any documentation?
the defunct broker has no documentation to which i have any access. they simply folded and rolled up all of the programming... did they sell it? i have no idea, i asked to purchase "my" piece, but they were not interested. My risk manager is a very simple setup, the front end is already recreated...I simply need a DAB that will allow me to access the order entry and position limit portion of their front end for customization . My current broker allows me API access to market data and for the purpose described in the OP, it does me no good. I use it for other custom development projects I have undertaken, but can easily redo these for another platform if need be. My trading strategy is good; i don't plan to avoid these trades, I simply plan to keep them in line with my other trades by implementing a rules-based series of calcs. Please feel free to respond with any other questions/ideas. Kind regards.