Here's another entrant : Tradebolt. Requires no TS coding. Reads orders from the system tracking control center http://www.investlabs.com/
Tradebolt users. I loaded up this app and there were a few things I didn't like about it. number one, it runs a process even when TB isnt running. number two, there was no uninstall exe. I'm concerned that apps like TB are sending my trades remotely somewhere to be analyzed and traded by someone else. i was especially concerned when I saw that TB needs the outgoing email screen disabled on the virus checker, and needs email alerts enabled in TS. Is there a less sketchy automation option from TS to IB, preferably free? If anyone has tried a few of these, I would greatly appreciate the benefit of your experience in making a best choice for security, reliability and price.
I'm not using it now but the older versions that work with TS 6 and earlier versions of Tradestation don't use the mail program, window notification is used instead. I think that Tradebolt starts up when a workspace containing Tradebolt in the title is opened. In my exp. it stays open even after closing the workspace. Who knows if they are trying to collect data or poach trades though... For what it's worth, I had previously contacted Investlabs to see weather they would be able to create a version of Tradebolt that was better suited to my specific requirements. I spoke with Doug who appears to be the owner / president of the company. He was very nice and did not strike me as a dishonest person. He might be able to answer your questions regarding why it is set up to send mail. At the time I contacted them, they were working on a commissioned version of Tradebolt for J-Trader (I think) and attempting to remedy incompatibilities with new versions of Tradestation so my project became a low priority... On that note: If there are any accomplished programmers interested in developing an interface between IB and Tradestation for scalping please PM me. Good luck with your search Vanilla, please let us know if you find anything of use.
I use TradeBolt for my automated trading and there is an unistall option in the control panel -add/remove programs table. I have also spoken with Doug and TradeBolt does indeed collect data but it only collects the number of contracts/shares traded and the symbol traded. It collects the data on a random time basis and does not collect direction. Doug explained that this data was necessary to collect fees from brokers. This makes a lot of sense and considering Doug's excellent reputation in the community I very much doubt he is collecting anything else. The ISV's already collect much more! As far as the tool goes it is simple to use and I trade several diferent symbols on several markets from one workspace. Hope this helps.
hmmm....I don't see any disclosures about any data collection by the software. It's not on Investlabs' website or more important - it's not in their license agreement (the license agreement is in the online PDF manual). If the software is collecting any kind of data and reporting it back to investlabs, it's doing so without informing the users and without the users' permission. Maybe I missed the information investlabs provided - if someone has a link to the disclosures can you please provide it here or via PM? (I guess I could contact investlabs but email to them takes days for a response). Thanks. -eLindy
Official Response Regarding TradeBolt: Some traders have expressed concern that TradeBolt is collecting system/strategy specific information in an attempt to spy or reverse engineer their system. We want to reassure all TradeBolt users, this is NOT THE CASE. In order to implement the billing system, it has become necessary to collect non-signal specific statistics. However, great care in designing this collection mechanism was used to prevent the data from being used to spy or reverse engineer a system. We collect the total number of sent, canceled, filled contracts per symbol. This data is collected at RANDOM times throughout the day. This was done so the data is specifically non-correlated to the timing of the actual signal. In other words, we have specifically designed the data collection in such a way so the data cannot be useful in spying or reverse engineering your systems. At the end of a day, we know the total number of contracts sent, filled, and canceled for each trader. However, we DO NOT know (1) when you placed the orders, (2) the nature of the specific orders, (3) the specific TS symbol, (4) the time you placed the orders, (5) the number of orders you placed, (6) type of order placed, (7) time of order. In summary, we have taken great care to protect the privacy of all TradeBolt users.
We disclose the fact of our data collection in the install license agreement. Here is it: "5.3 For TradeBolt useage accounting and billing purposes, certain generalized statistics are maintained pertaining to quantity of trades. This information is non-signal specific and makes no attempt to track a specific system, rather is it maintained for billing purposes of useage of the product." We will make sure that it also appears in the manual and in the manual on the web site.
My product offers a universal text file interface for integration between TS and IB. The Light version comes with a order simulator so that you can actually forward test your strategies in real-time simulation. Here is a link: http://www.ninjatrader.com/automatedtrading.htm and a link for sample TS code for integration: http://www.ninjatrader.com/ts.htm