Some more Help Please

Howdy,


Well ya’ll helped me a couple of weeks back with my Win7 questions… and now I come again with hat in hand asking for some more insight – Please


This weekend I receive an email from Tradient stating as of January 29th they will no longer be supporting Tradient Pro (my platform)

The options they presented – I can to migrate to;

Real Tick
Instaquote
Sterling

But I know jack about these platforms/ charting capabilities


My priorities for a platform

Reliability of platform (especially during peak times)
Minimal Process utilization – I run 4-5 charts simultaneously
Customizable charts (specifically candle color/ size)
Ability to route orders to various ECNs
Ability to customize orders
Responsive Customer support



My other option is to finally migrate to Trade Station (like I told Bolimomo I would several months ago) but I’ve demo’d their platform and found their customer service to be very non responsive



So any experience/ insight with these platforms you could provide would be greatly appreciated – obviously I have a lot of demo-ing to do in the next month – damn it


As always – I Thank You

RN

 

Update

Realtick – too smart and too dumb at the same time (IOW too many bells and whistles and not enough nuts and bolts - for my liking)

Instaquote/ Sterling – nope


Tradestation here I come – with big reservations…. I spoke to a representative, he said he would email me the docs to review and sign – 3 days ago….

Called him again this afternoon and left a VM - yee haa

imo - Their customer service leaves a lot to be desired


RN

 

Finally up on TradeStation – all I can say is wow – I’ve literally been trading in the dark ages

I would like to add their customer service became very responsive once they figured out I was serious about moving


I sim traded Thursday / Friday and probably will Monday (to those who maintain sim trading is valueless)

Now the question – learn easy language or not (I can see great potential in creating an automated trading system to supplement my discretionary approach) but I have "much" to learn before getting there

RN

 

Hello Redneck Trader,

Well sir it has been awhile since I responded to a message from you. I hope your trading is going well. You have taught me a lot in past. I hope I can do the same.

I have been coding in Easy Language since they first introduced it back in the mid 1990s. All my indicators and trading systems (about 400) are written in Easy Language.

Since I’m a retired former programmer, computer science teacher and data base administrator I consider Easy Language a representative retail language with fairly responsive trading extensions.

However, many younger traders with C language knowledge are gravitating towards C# based platforms (ninja trader) because of the tools that come with these C based programming platforms. I’m studying C# on the side.

For a lay person without a programming background EasyLanguage uses many of the common programming structures that have been around for decades in languages like COBOL or more commonly BASIC. This is important to the trader learning coding since you cab pick up a coding for dummies book and find many of the EasyLanguage coding structures taught in these texts. This is a great help to coding your first program.

Where Easy Language becomes more difficult is in its coding extensions that are not part of other common languages. These are reserved words in the EasyLanguage and have to be tested by the programmer to find out how they respond. These are the parts of the language that cause problems for programmers. Especially having orders executed the way you wish.

And for LOL you are not in the dark ages with retail programming languages. Many of these languages remind me of the programming languages I used in the late 1970s and early 1980’s. This industry has a long way to go match what professional programmers use today.

In your process of learning EasyLanguage post away. I would be honored try to answer all your questions.

RabbitOne

P.S. Sim trading is not valueless if you already know how to trade.

 

R1,

Holy cow – I would love any help, guidance, suggestions, slaps upside the head when I do something stupid – you would be willing to offer Sir


If we could start from the premise – I am a programming/ automated trading illiterate… but not afraid to do whatever it takes… We are good to go..


Please allow me a few weeks to get my discretionary going full steam, read thru the reams of TS forum posts, review the TS seminars/ learning modules, learn something about automated trading, develop a strategy/ approach – then I’ll start a thread


Thank You

RN





Aside for the newer traders;

I’ve switched platforms – now why is it taking me some time to get back up to speed…

The short answer is; because it is…..

The longer answer;

As a discretionary trader – the subtle nuances price undergoes throughout the day are what make all the difference – at least to me..

And although admittedly my charts are pretty bare – it is essential that whatever I do have on them is absolutely in sync – with each other, and with me….

This way I have the ability to pick up on these PA nuances as they are occurring… a mainstay of my approach.

And as every software charting package has its own idiosyncrasies, quirks, nuances – it is vitally important I take the time to set up my platform correctly and get completely comfortable with it.


Aside

Observation has always been an essential skill of successful trading – and shall remain essential as long as humans are involved – never overlook that fact

Nor ever overlook the fact – everyday we trade real money – counts… We go in with a half ass preparation – we will get half ass results

 

IMO, learning your platform well makes perfect sense but is something many don't bother with. In fact, sometimes calculations for packaged indicators might differ from platform to platform. Assuming that one is the same as another would be a mistake. Every platform has it's own problems.

Easylanguage is ok and they try to make it as simple for non-programmers as they can. I found TradeStation to have problems during busy times (big announcements) but it could have been my own setup. Before you invest a lot of time into learning Easylanguage, I would watch it during at least 1 heavy-traffic event to see if the chart responsiveness makes it worth staying.

 

Thank You

I'll wait till the next FOMC and remain watchful for any latency issues

RN

 

Hey RN:

The Easy Language is not all that hard to learn. But this comment is from me, someone who has extensive computer programming background. Yet to program in EL it should be fairly straight forward.

But here is what I don't like about automated trading using TradeStation. Like you I am a discretionary trader. But I alway stress that "Trading cannot be so one-dimensional". Meaning that to trade stock XYZ, you really can't just look at the price movement of XYZ itself. You look at the sector, the broad market, the VIX reading, the TICK, etc.. But to automate your trades in TradeStation, that's all you can do (I haven't learned otherwise. Maybe I am mistaken). The price movement of XYZ and all the built-in indicators based on the XYZ's prices are all you can access. I am unable to introduce a second/third/etc datastream to let me make a trade decision. For example, I only want to long XYZ if SPY also has a positive CCI reading. Or when VIX is below 30, whatever. Can't do it.

Nor can I mix periodicity. For example: how about if I want to long XYZ if the 1min Stochastics is oversold but the XYZ 10min Stochastics is overbought?