Dear all, We have used Tradestation for both backtesting and as broker for years. We have used Interactivebrokers as broker for even longer (almost 15 years!) Interactivebrokers is probably the best broker out there for most people, from beginners to small hedge funds, because of low-commissions, margin rates, portfolio margin, many worldwide markets in one universal account and so on. We developed a few automated systems programming using IB's API (ActiveX) and they are working fine, even if that took time / much work to handle the burden of this far-from-perfect API. We think of accelerating the process of automation by connecting Tradestation to IB, so that we place orders on our Interactivebrokers' account while profiting from both the quality of TS market data and the automated strategies developed in Easylanguage. Which bridge would you advise? - We tried Tradebullet (http://www.tradebullet.com/download/) 10 years ago, and it was not working perfectly at that time. Do any of you have used it more recently as a bridge between TS and IB? - Tradebolt seems to have gone out of business. - Would you advise MetaOrder RT (RT Soft) for this need? (http://www.traderssoft.com/wp/ts/software/software-ts9/) - What about using NinjaTrader as a bridge between TS and IB? - Or maybe that Multicharts (as a replacement of Tradestation) could handle the connection to IB with more efficiency? (http://www.multicharts.com/automated-trading/) - Do you think any other bridge currently available that I am not aware of? I am almost sure than I have missed a powerful solution to handle this, but for now, I only saw these few solutions, and none seemed to have been deemed as perfect bridges to handle full automation. Thanks a lot for your help.
I played with two of them back in the day that are not available anymore. One was from Doctors Without Borders oddly enough. The other one had funny little flaws like it multiplied prices under 10 cents by 1000! I caught that before it placed any OTC stock orders and I'm glad, they probably would have filled me and there's not much recourse on OTC stuff...
Thanks for your answer. I cannot see the link between "Doctors Without Borders" and a bridge between TS and IB but hey, maybe one or two guys there thought they had time to play on the markets during leisure time... As for the second one, huge flaws like this are pretty dangerous, which confirms the need to heavily test on the paper trading account before sending real orders on markets. Hope that there are softwares now available on the market that are better than the ones you described!
Our TradeStation interface has been in production use for the better part of ten years. We have a lot of CTA's and brokerages using it. Detailed technical information on it's operation can be found here - http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/tradestation_integration.htm
Have not used it so can't vouch for it but it looks interesting: http://www.traderssoft.com/wp/ts/software/software-ts9/
Another option is buying Multicharts and running the same easylanguage systems with IB integration. Note Multicharts does not work exactly the same as Tradestation so you will need to do some testing.
Doctors Without Borders probably refers to Hyperorder ftom hypertrader http://www.hypertrader.it/hyperorder.shtml They no longer do free versions but still exist - can reach on support email - don't know if they have updated for TS9xx
Hi. Thanks for your answers. @Fonz : I did not really find the "right solution" for now. I have still to try Hypertrader, the RTSoft looks promising, and Ninjatrader seems to be another efficient solution even if it is the most expensive one. Will let you know when I eventually find the "best one" for my needs...