Hello from Robocod

[robocod]

Hi,

I followed a link to this forum from another place. It seemed very interesting to me, so I've joined up.

I'm in the UK. I've been forex trading for about 9 months now. I'm using FXCM and in particular their Strategy Trader platform, which is c# based platform and allows me to write and test indicators and strategies (aka robots, EAs, StEAs, etc.).

But I'm actually learning to trade myself first (make some progress) - I figured it was dumb to just start trying to write an EA without any knowledge at all.

Although my EAs are not up to much currently, I am enjoying the ability to program my own indicators, and have developed several useful tools for my trading.

Oh, did I mention, I'm a professional software engineer, also a 'hobbyist' in Artificial Intelligence for about the last 20 years or so.

I also post on the DailyFX forum (FXCM's forum) and over on Informed Trades, under the name robocod also.

Please to meet you all.

robo

[Jim]

Hi Robo,

A warm welcome to the Trading Gurus community, especially since you're a professional software engineer too!

I'm using FXCM and in particular their Strategy Trader platform. I'm a professional software engineer, also a 'hobbyist' in Artificial Intelligence for about the last 20 years or so.

I don't know if this is in fact what brought you here, but have you checked out our Artificial Intelligence section, particularly this Strategy Trader in AI request. Would an ST-AI forum be of interest to you also?

Maybe you could even help solve some of the problems I encountered in the early days of Strategy Trader. I'm afraid I gave up on ST at that juncture, and haven't looked at it myself for quite a while now.

Cheers,

Jim

[robocod]

Yes, it was bomberone1 who posted on DailyFX a link to this site that got me interested.

I'm actually quite proficient in Strategy Trader these days, but I admit it has a lot of quirks and gotchas.

When I started this adventure into trading I was in two minds between MT4 based platform or C# platform. I went C# in the end (I was actually new to C#, but have been programming C for 20 years and C++ for 7 years).

One day I might try to pick up MT4 also. Also, MarketScope uses lua which is another language I've been meaning to pick up. But too many options for now, so I stuck with ST - quirks and all. (Actually, as I can't comment on MT4 and the rest - I don't know, perhaps they are just as quirky).

I had a quick look at your links to problems with ST. They seem primarily to do with OCO orders right? There is no such thing as an OCO in ST, all orders get cancelled at the end of each bar, and you place new orders programatically. Is there a microsecond when there isn't an order in place?... not sure maybe. I was concerned about what happens if the internet goes down, etc. or ST breaks - what is the actual status of the order(s) as far as the broker goes. I did some experiments into this, and managed to convince myself that it was ok. Safest option is to use a bracket order (stop loss + limit for profit target) and in the event of power cut / crash / etc. on ST these orders stay in place at the broker.

[robocod]

I had a quick look at your links to problems with ST. They seem primarily to do with OCO orders right? There is no such thing as an OCO in ST, all orders get cancelled at the end of each bar, and you place new orders programatically. Is there a microsecond when there isn't an order in place?... not sure maybe. I was concerned about what happens if the internet goes down, etc. or ST breaks - what is the actual status of the order(s) as far as the broker goes. I did some experiments into this, and managed to convince myself that it was ok. Safest option is to use a bracket order (stop loss + limit for profit target) and in the event of power cut / crash / etc. on ST these orders stay in place at the broker.

Actually, ignore that. That was from memory, and I don't actually use ST to generate orders much (still doing manual trades, just using ST for analysis) so my memory was a bit fuzzy. Now that I think about it, although there is no explicit mechanism to make OCO orders from ST, they appeared to be OCO orders at the Broker (you can see them on Trade Station II for example). Let me get back to with the details.

I can guess the issue you had, it's that you got all those "Order was cancelled at end of bar" etc. I seemed to remember that happened with trailing stops whenthe trailing price was changing each tick. But if you 'renew' the orders with the same prices, it didn't seem to throw up all those extra messages.