Chat Session Logs

4:30 pm:<LS_Chad> Afternoon guys
4:32 pm:<LS_Bill> Good Afternoon
4:34 pm:<Mike> hi all
4:35 pm:<Mike> Bill to send trades to AT should i stop using http method?
4:37 pm:<LS_Bill> up to you Mike, the old way still works, but there is no position feedback
4:38 pm:<LS_Bill> using trading orders, IRT checks for order status and updates the TR_POS, TR_ENTRY, etc.
4:38 pm:<Mike> ok i watch tomorrow again http way i think irt sent or opened a local file http page first each trade sent
4:38 pm:<Mike> guess i change to new way
4:39 pm:<LS_Bill> right, the old way uses your web browser to convey the http command
4:40 pm:<LS_Bill> IRT 8.0 now speaks http directly if trading orders are used
4:40 pm:<Mike> also we might need a cancel trade for a trade that is sitting in AT not filled be good
4:41 pm:<LS_Bill> it's there
4:41 pm:<Mike> ok good
4:41 pm:<LS_Bill> just look in the trading order, "order action" menu
4:42 pm:<Mike> i see no cancel looking
4:42 pm:<Mike> close position is different i think
4:42 pm:<LS_Bill> IB must be the destination mike
4:43 pm:<LS_Bill> the order action menu changes based on which destination you use
4:43 pm:<Mike> AT managed
4:43 pm:<Mike> need cancel for AT managed also
4:43 pm:<LS_Bill> I said IB must be the destination, not AT managed
4:44 pm:<Mike> ok yes, then i guess we need cancel for AT managed then also
4:44 pm:<LS_Bill> there is no cancel for AT managed since AT is managing the orders
4:44 pm:<LS_Bill> there is only a Close Position which tells AT to get out
4:45 pm:<Mike> try a buy limit for AT managed
4:45 pm:<LS_Bill> if the order AT has submitted is still resting unfilled, it will be cancelled
4:45 pm:<Mike> and what if it does not fill! it sits there all day????
4:45 pm:<Mike> dangerous really
4:45 pm:<LS_Bill> you can email Jerry about this Mike, as I understand it, AT managed "Close Position" does what you want
4:45 pm:<Mike> ok
4:47 pm:<LS_Bill> Close Position means "sell if I am long", "cover if I am short" or "cancel pending order if I am not yet filled"
4:47 pm:<Mike> ok good
4:47 pm:<Hayden> TWO WORDS SURE CAN SAY A LOT
4:47 pm:<LS_Bill> Jerry does not provide a "cancel" in the "AT Managed" API
4:47 pm:<LS_Bill> what do you mean Hayden?
4:48 pm:<LS_Bill> oh "Close Positon" you mean?
4:48 pm:<Hayden> Half a joke, referring to all the things Close Position can say
4:48 pm:<LS_Bill> yeah, there lots of "management" in AT managed positions ;-)
4:49 pm:<Hayden> I'll jump in with first question: did you think that the latest update would address the issue of wild prices from IB feed?
4:49 pm:<Hayden> I'm still getting a small number of irregularities
4:50 pm:<LS_Bill> still a mystery to me Hayden, I've not seen a single wild price here
4:50 pm:<Hayden> That the making Last to Zero fixes wonderfully, but I know that's a trick and not a solution
4:50 pm:<Hayden> I think I can live with it, but we seem to have run out of sources of the problem
4:53 pm:<Hayden> Boy, quiet night
4:54 pm:<Mike> Hayden did you get TSYS to trade into portfolio ok?
4:54 pm:<Hayden> Noel wrote to me about my upcoming IRT subscription renewal and I'd like to ask a question...
4:54 pm:<Hayden> Hi Mike, I've been sidetracked with adjusting to IB datafeed
4:55 pm:<Hayden> Bill and I wrestled over the problem - one that no other IRT user has. I'd get these wild spikes into the millions and billions - now that's solved
4:55 pm:<Hayden> but still some abnormalities.
4:56 pm:<Hayden> Before I switched I did try some TSYS trading, and it does work very well, but I'm going back to manual trading for now....
4:56 pm:<Hayden> building up to a new TSYS approach
4:57 pm:<Mike> ok
4:57 pm:<Hayden> What I'd like to hear about is the "need" for Optimization..... When I checked it out before, my understanding was that it's mainly for
4:58 pm:<Hayden> testing a variety of time frames, where I didn't seem to need that as much as being able to test differing numbers for entry and exit points
4:59 pm:<Mike> optimize can test varying anything
4:59 pm:<Mike> I optimized time frame, stop, target, TI settings, you name it... anything, even day of week, noon dead zone times etc...
5:05 pm:<Hayden1> Chad, Bill or Mike, would you like to say a word about the necessity of Optimization? I have tested it a bit when it was free :-) and now wondering if it is a Must Have?
5:05 pm:<Mike> hi enthios
5:06 pm:<Mike> i use or used optimization a ton
5:06 pm:<LS_Chad> optimization allows you to quickly find the best settings for your system
5:06 pm:<Hayden1> What the heck? I'm here, as Hayden1, Got a crash message
5:06 pm:<LS_Chad> whether that setting be stop loss, target, MA period, Bollinger Band period, etc
5:06 pm:<LS_Chad> or a combination of all the above
5:07 pm:<LS_Chad> for example..it answers the question "What stop loss would have made my system most profitable over last 6 months".
5:07 pm:<Hayden1> Understood Chad, but isn't it predominantly optimizing the time period. What about fine tuning entry and exit points? The earlier version couldn't do that (I think)
5:07 pm:<LS_Chad> Test from every penny from 0.04 to 0.50
5:07 pm:<LS_Chad> and give a ranked result of each value
5:07 pm:<LS_Chad> depends on what your entry or exit is based upon
5:08 pm:<Hayden1> Aha, did you guys do a lot of work on it in the last year or so
5:08 pm:<LS_Chad> if based on an MA, can optimize the MA period
5:08 pm:<Hayden1> Of course, say we talk about CCI, and choices are entry at -100, 0 or somewhere in between. Could Optimization narrow it down?
5:08 pm:<LS_Chad> some..not a great deal
5:08 pm:<LS_Chad> http://www.linnsoft.com/tour/optimization.htm
5:09 pm:<LS_Chad> sure
5:09 pm:<LS_Chad> CCI > V#1 AND CCI.1 <= V#1
5:09 pm:<LS_Chad> optimize on V#1
5:09 pm:<LS_Chad> and set V#2 and V#3 as the CCI periods
5:09 pm:<LS_Chad> and simultaneously optimize on all 3
5:09 pm:<LS_Chad> to give best combination of CCI periods and price level
5:11 pm:<LS_Bill> sorry, had to take a phone call
5:11 pm:<LS_Chad> in the CCI prefs window, both the CCI Period and the Smoothing period can be specified as variables (just type in V#2, etc)
5:11 pm:<Hayden1> Thanks a lot Chad. I guess I need to look into it some more. I have about a months before deciding whether my trading life can survive without it
5:13 pm:<Hayden1> Curiosity: can Optimisation be tested with $DEMO results?
5:16 pm:<Mike> Chad be good to be able to have opti step through the MA smoothing types we mentioned as good idea months ago i recall
5:17 pm:<LS_Bill> you can run an opti on $DEMO, but it may be difficult to interpret the results. $DEMO data changes often so the current data will generally not be available after the opti run.
5:17 pm:<Hayden1> Right, gotcha
5:18 pm:<Mike> any progress Chad on last x days for tick based charts?
5:21 pm:<Hayden1> Here's another question: How to convert IB's INDU symbol to IRT's INDU.X symbol. I tried to do it via instrument setup, putting IB INDU in at the bottom, but no luck
5:24 pm:<Mike> Chad you see that profile on chart not showing unless 6 pixels per bar thing i discovered?
5:25 pm:<MPx> sheesh...late
5:28 pm:<LS_Bill> Hayden, running IB version you should have INDU setup for realtime data from IB, setup the download alias as INDU.X so DTN can supply historical data.
5:28 pm:<LS_Bill> the download alias of INDU instrument should be INDU.X
5:29 pm:<Hayden1> Aha, just the reverse of what I was trying to do, right?
5:30 pm:<Hayden1> So INDU is my IRT instrument, and when I switch over to DTN, INDU.X will be the alias
5:30 pm:<LS_Bill> what do you mean "switch over"
5:31 pm:<Hayden1> Going from IB during open market to DTN after the close
5:32 pm:<LS_Bill> if your IB registration references your DTN id you can dl from DTN w/o leaving IB
5:33 pm:<LS_Bill> if you "reconfigure" to the DTN IQ version, then INDU.X must be the IRT instrument
5:33 pm:<LS_Bill> but if you stay in the IB version, it can get hsitorical data from DTN using the downloading alias and put the data directly in to INDU, the IB instrument
5:33 pm:<Hayden1> That's part of the problem. I wanted to cancel my yearly subscription to DTN and they said it's good until Jan. 31, 2006, so I might as well keep it until then
5:34 pm:<Hayden1> OK, I'll try that.
5:35 pm:<Hayden1> Didn't realize I could do that, seems that after the market closed I couldn't get anything from IB setup
5:35 pm:<LS_Bill> but this only works if your IB registration code provides both your U number and your DTN number
5:35 pm:<LS_Bill> goto Setup: Prefs: Registration and tell me if you have both IB and DTN accounts in the registration.
5:36 pm:<LS_Bill> the last profile I saw, has only the IB number
5:36 pm:<Hayden1> This is what Noel gave me today: IB Acct/DTN ID with the numbers, so I should be good. That was just today
5:36 pm:<LS_Bill> ok, good.
5:37 pm:<Hayden1> A bit of humor, just before coming into chat I wanted to reconfigure, but since everything was fine, IRT wouldn't allow me to paste the new registration
5:39 pm:<Mike> Bill any possibility of saying ticks over x days to a file and loaded only when needed?
5:39 pm:<Mike> besides me doing it manually
5:40 pm:<Mike> hi Steve
5:41 pm:<Steve> hi all
5:41 pm:<LS_Bill> I've been thinking about that Mike
5:42 pm:<LS_Bill> a way of making loading of ticks faster when there are millions of tick on file
5:42 pm:<LS_Bill> I don't think the solution is to put the ticks elsewhere
5:42 pm:<Steve_W> hi bill Chad et al
5:42 pm:<Mike> i'd keep out of db in a external file
5:42 pm:<Mike> only need million ticks rarely
5:42 pm:<Mike> for backtest and opti is all! only 2 reasons
5:43 pm:<LS_Bill> I think the answer is to find a way to make note of where the last N days of ticks begins and use that starting point when loading
5:43 pm:<Mike> ok
5:43 pm:<LS_Bill> you may see this in the next release or so, still thinking about it
5:43 pm:<LS_Chad> Hey Steve
5:44 pm:<Mike> as i dl todays ticks i see in log loading 7.5 million ticks every 2 minutes
5:44 pm:<Steve_W> hi Chad
5:44 pm:<Mike> ok soccer for kids bbl
5:44 pm:<Mike> great chat thanks
5:44 pm:<Mike> great any efficiency imporvements be great Bill
5:45 pm:<Mike> especially on tick front and last x days for tick based charts