The order management "strategies" need improvement

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MidKnight
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The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby MidKnight » 28 Nov 2012

I've become extremely frustrated with the order management strategies that MC applies both when trading from the chart and from the DOM. Here are some examples of my frustrations with it, and being a new comer to the product there are probably a lot more issues with it.

1) You create a "master strategy" exit strategy and auto apply it. This master strategy will have 2 profit targets and 1 stoploss. If you scale in, it will continually move your previous stops and targets set based upon the new avg position price. Furthermore, it will sometimes change the order sizes of your existing stops and targets.

Lets say you go ahead and do the following, buy 2 contracts at a price of 100 with a stop loss of 10 points and a targets of 10 points and 20 points.
avg position: 100
stop loss: 90 (but it will submit 2, 1 lot orders)
targets: 110 and 120

Now price drops to 96 and you buy 2 contracts again.
avg position: 98
stop loss MOVES to: 88 (with 2, 2 lot orders)
targets MOVE to: 108 and 118

Why don't you just leave the existing orders were they were and base the new orders from their entry price rather than from the average entry price? Also, why do you lump the order sizes together? This is not what a decent order entry system does, or at least gives the flexibility to treat it as one single position or as separate positions. Other systems I've used in the past treat them as separate positions (button trader, zeroline trader, NT).

Then there are times when I try to get around this lumping of orders that MC does by decreasing the quantity on a target order and then adding it back as a separate limit order. MC.net will covertly re-add the quantity back to that target order and mess up my whole trade management. It doesn't make any sounds or notifications when it does this, it just does it (and it shouldn't).

I had bought this product with the thinking that it was a complete package but there are many problems surrounding manual trading and discretionary trader features. Unfortunately, this has become a big disappointment for me and I really really hope that MC staff rectify this.

With kind regards,
MK

Zoli
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Zoli » 29 Nov 2012

Hi MK,

I am a discretionary trader as well and I completely agree with you. Basic order handling strategies are completely unusable as well, will give a simple example on a demo and attached a screenshot:
- sell limit 10 contracts 1.29422, attach a Profit Target of 1.29351
- sell limit 10 contracts 1.29437, attach a Profit Target of 1.29301
The logic is simple, after the limit orders get triggered, you should be having 2 buy limits of 10 contracts each at 1.29351 and 1.29301 because those prices were the reason why you sold in the first place thinking that you can actually buy back your positions there.
With MC everything is fine when the first limit gets triggered, but once the second one gets hit MC will combine the positions and attach a Profit Target to 1.29358 which I think translates to first order's profit size times 2 (1.29422-1.29351=$7.1 * 2 = Total $14.2). If it would not combine, the profit outcome would be (1.29422-1.29351=$7.1) + (1.29437-1.29301=$13.6) = Total $20.7.
I hope I am not wrong by saying MC takes into consideration the first position's take profit when it combines the positions. It is the only logic I could find to back this behaviour in the example.

I don't suppose this will change soon, the only workaround is to use limit orders all over and check the trades regularly. I know it isn't a great solution as it should be a simple "if then" order management to avoid having to sit in front of the monitor all day waiting for your limit to get hit and then to place another limit order, but many times I was thinking I am the only discretionary trader using MC (happy am not :)) and posted what I thought would be more widely used features/bugs instead. I really hope MC Team will realize this way is wrong.
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MidKnight
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby MidKnight » 29 Nov 2012

Yep Zoli, that is a problem. What I don't like about not using the strategy is that OCA groups won't be available. If potentially you lose power or Internet dies you could be very exposed. Yeah I know what you guys are thinking, someone should have a backup for these rare situations. But as I experienced two years ago when my country had its largest and most devastating natural disaster in its recorded history (large city destroying earthquake)....well sometimes there is too much chaos going on to be able to use or even think about backup systems.

I'm still using Button Trader is its clear that MC.net will not fill my order entry needs at this time - and that's a shame because getting all my trading needs into 1 platform was a big part of why I bought MC.net in the first place.

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Dave Masalov
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Dave Masalov » 29 Nov 2012

MidKnight, Zoli,

Thank you for your feedback. We understand your concerns. Exit strategies functionality will be improved in one of the future versions.

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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Zoli » 15 Jan 2013

Hi,

I'm very pleased to see this being changed (solved) in beta 2 v 6526.
Also, for anyone interested, now the GTC orders are sent properly to LMAX, they don't go through as GFD. I am grateful MC team did not forget to fix this as well (ref: my last post in this topic http://www.multicharts.com/discussion/v ... 19&t=11104 ).

Many thanks to the team.

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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Zoli » 16 Jan 2013

Hi,

A little update re LMAX orders. It has been fixed for Limit orders to appear as GTC in LMAX, but if you place exit strategy eg. Profit Target it appears as GFD instead of GTC.

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Dave Masalov
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Dave Masalov » 17 Jan 2013

Hi,

A little update re LMAX orders. It has been fixed for Limit orders to appear as GTC in LMAX, but if you place exit strategy eg. Profit Target it appears as GFD instead of GTC.
Hello Zoli,

We failed to reproduce the issue on our end. Please right-click on the Profit Target exit strategy, click Edit, then click More parameters and make sure that you have GTC Selected in the Time In Force field. See attached screenshot.
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Zoli » 17 Jan 2013

Hello,
Please right-click on the Profit Target exit strategy, click Edit, then click More parameters and make sure that you have GTC Selected in the Time In Force field
I have never thought to set up GTC separately for Profit Target. I thought that if the main setting is GTC everything would be. My mistake. Sorry about that and thanks for the reply.

duegal
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby duegal » 22 Feb 2013

I understand the previous posters point of view and i agree with you guys. But i personally prefered the functionallity of the exit strategies in MC8.0 better. In my trading style i prefer to work with a combined position so i uninstalled 8.5 and i use 8.0 instead. Granted I have not used 8.5 more than 2 days and that was the release candidate version but i did not like it very much.

So what i am saying is that one should be able to select if positions should be treated individually or if they should be combined depending on their needs..

One of the main reasons that i bought MC was that i could trade manually with combined poitions that adjusted and TP levels to new average price and pos size

Or what do you guys think?

/Frans

Fatudno
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Fatudno » 25 Feb 2013

I understand the previous posters point of view and i agree with you guys. But i personally prefered the functionallity of the exit strategies in MC8.0 better. In my trading style i prefer to work with a combined position so i uninstalled 8.5 and i use 8.0 instead. Granted I have not used 8.5 more than 2 days and that was the release candidate version but i did not like it very much.

So what i am saying is that one should be able to select if positions should be treated individually or if they should be combined depending on their needs..

One of the main reasons that i bought MC was that i could trade manually with combined poitions that adjusted and TP levels to new average price and pos size

Or what do you guys think?

/Frans
Agree

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Andrew MultiCharts
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Andrew MultiCharts » 25 Feb 2013

So what i am saying is that one should be able to select if positions should be treated individually or if they should be combined depending on their needs..
You can install MC 8.5 beta 2. It is possible to make it work as it was working previously in MC 8.0 (but have access to all the new feature).
  1. Windows Start menu
  2. Type "regedit"
  3. Find the following path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\TS Support\MultiCharts\TraderServer
  4. Change the following key ATM_PositionBasisMode to: dword:00000001

Fatudno
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Fatudno » 25 Feb 2013

So what i am saying is that one should be able to select if positions should be treated individually or if they should be combined depending on their needs..
You can install MC 8.5 release. It is possible to make it work as it was working previously in MC 8.0 (but have access to all the new feature).
  1. Windows Start menu
  2. Type "regedit"
  3. Find the following path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\TS Support\MultiCharts\TraderServer
  4. Change the following key ATM_PositionBasisMode to: dword:00000001
I am using MC, I've just followed your instruction but I could not find ATM_PositionBasisMode?

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Andrew MultiCharts
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Re: The order management "strategies" need improvement

Postby Andrew MultiCharts » 26 Feb 2013

I am using MC, I've just followed your instruction but I could not find ATM_PositionBasisMode?
Here are the reg files for all versions of MultiCharts:
  1. MultiCharts 32 bit & 64 bit
  2. MultiCharts .NET 32 bit & 64 bit
You need simply to download them and run to adjust the specified registry key.


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