Difference between revisions of "Chart Trading"

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Exit strategies applied to positions and strategies applied to orders are visually different on both on the chart and in the DOM: exits strategies applied to positions have “p” letter to the left of the number of contracts.
 
Exit strategies applied to positions and strategies applied to orders are visually different on both on the chart and in the DOM: exits strategies applied to positions have “p” letter to the left of the number of contracts.
  
<div style="background-color: #E5F6FF;">Example 1 - Shows exit strategy attached to the individual order:
+
<div style="background-color: #E5F6FF;">Example 1 - Shows exit strategy attached to an individual order:
  
 
# Open position is -1 contract.
 
# Open position is -1 contract.

Revision as of 14:38, 29 January 2013

The chart trading panel allows placing manual orders directly from a chart. The chart is cursor-sensitive, so right-clicking on the chart will create an order at the price level you clicked on. Orders can be also dragged and dropped directly to a specific price on the chart.

You can send single orders and entire strategies using the methods described above. MultiCharts supports simple single orders, One-Cancels-Other order groups (OCO), as well as automated entry and exit strategies. The Entry Automation and Exit Automation strategies can be applied by drag-and-drop or by right-clicking to individual orders, and entire positions (see Orders and Strategies).

Orders can be changed or cancelled by right-clicking them and choosing the appropriate option in the shortcut menu or from the Chart trading panel itself. Strategy levels (such as profit target and stop loss) can also be easily changed and moved around. Strategy names are shown on the appropriate levels, showing where the orders came from.

Active orders are shown in a bright color, while dependent inactive orders (wait for the active order to be filled before becoming active) are shown in transparent colors. Changing the size, or the price, of the parent order will automatically recalculate and update the dependent orders.

1.png

Show/Hide Chart Trading Panel

To show/hide chart trading panel, click the Chart Trading Panel button 2.png at the top-right corner of the chart.

Full and Compact Modes

To switch to Full/Compact Mode, right-click on the chart trading panel and click Switch to Full/Compact Mode.

Selecting Broker

To select a broker, click the arrow on the Broker Connection button 3.png and select a broker in drop-down menu.

For more info see Broker Profiles Overview

Connecting / Disconnecting Broker Profile

When a broker is selected, click the Broker Connection button 3.png to connect or disconnect it.

For more info see Broker Profiles Overview

Selecting Account

Select the account number in the Account Selector box 4.png.

PnL and Current Position

Current Position and Profit and Loss are indicated in the PnL and Current position box on the Chart Trading Panel and on the PnL Marker on the chart. Positive value (profit) is colored green, negative value (loss) is colored red.

Profit and Loss can be indicated in: Ticks 5.png, percents 6.png and dollars 7.png.

To change indication type, click the PnL and Current position box. Current Ask and Bid prices are indicated below. On the chart the Profit and Loss can be also indicated in: Dollars 9.png, Ticks 10.png, Percent 8.png.

Click the PnL Marker to change indication type.

Current Position is marked with red or blue color. Long position is colored blue. Short position is colored red.

One-click order placing

Chart Trading panel provides the opportunity of one-click order placing.

Buy or Sell Market orders can be sent by pressing Buy Mkt and Sell Mkt buttons. Buy Ask, Buy Bid & Sell Ask, Sell Bid buttons send buy and sell limit orders at ask and bid prices respectively.

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Place Order

Place Order menu allows you to place Stop, Limit and Stop-Limit orders as well as to automate certain methods of entering or exiting positions (see Orders and Strategies). It’s perfect for avoiding repetitive tasks, increasing your productivity and focusing on trading. Automation is especially useful when you need to apply an order pair quickly.

12.png

Place Order menu strategies give you competitive advantage over other traders: they allow you to exit the position faster than others. They also reduce the risk of two orders execution and would be especially useful for traders who use pyramiding strategies. Each strategy is an OCO group – if one order is filled, the other is canceled.

Note: Not all brokers support server-based OCO groups. Consequently, there is no 100% guarantee that only one order will be executed (See OCO-Orders Risk)

Orders and Entry Strategies are shown as icons on the Chart Trading panel and can be easily applied to the chart. You can visually change the order levels, which saves a lot of time when managing your orders.

The icons are rearranged automatically: the last used icon is displayed in the top left corner of the menu.

To expand or collapse the Place Order menu, use the Expand/Collapse buttons.

To scroll icons in the Place Order menu, use the Scroll buttons.

To select Exit Strategies Average Open Position Price calculation mode:

  1. Select File in the main menu, click Preferences, select the Trading tab
  2. Enable the recived from broker button to use the price received from broker or the calculated based on order(s) execution price button to use the price calculated by MultiCarts based on entry order(s) execution price.

Exit Orders Management

Exit strategies applied to an open position change the number of contracts according to the current position size.

Exit strategies applied to active orders do not change number of contracts regardless of the open position size (do not "jump" onto the active position after the parent order was filled). They remain active and keep protecting orders that were generated by the parent order.

Number of contracts for exit strategies applied to the open position changes taken into account strategies applied to filled orders and their effect on the overall position. In other words, strategies applied to the position protect the remainder that is not protected by strategies applied to individual orders.

If a position was opened by an order that has an exit strategy attached from a flat position, then this strategy is applied to the entire position and “protects” it (see Eaxmple 2 below).

Exit strategies applied to positions and strategies applied to orders are visually different on both on the chart and in the DOM: exits strategies applied to positions have “p” letter to the left of the number of contracts.

Example 1 - Shows exit strategy attached to an individual order:
  1. Open position is -1 contract.
  2. Sell limit order for 1 contract is sent to broker.
  3. Profit Target exit strategy is attached to the sell limit order.
  4. Sell limit order is filled. Profit Target becomes active. Open position is -2 contracts. Profit Target size is 1 (attached to the order, not the position).
  5. Sell market order for 2 contracts is sent to broker.
  6. Sell market order is filled. Open position is -4 contracts. Profit Target size is 1.
Example 2 - Shows exit strategy auto-attached to an order opening the position from a flat position:
  1. Open position is flat.
  2. Buy market order for 100 contracts with a Master Strategy auto attached to it is sent to broker.
  3. Buy market order is filled. Master Strategy becomes active. Open position is +100 contracts. Master Strategy size is 100.
  4. Buy stop order for 200 contracts is sent to broker.
  5. Buy Stop order is filled. Open position is +300 contracts. Master Strategy size is 300 (protects entire position since the position was opened by an order that has an exit strategy attached from a flat position).
Example 3 - Shows exit strategy attached to the entire position:
  1. Open position is +50 contracts.
  2. Buy market order for 100 contracts with a Master Strategy auto attached to it is sent to broker.
  3. Buy market order is filled. Master Strategy becomes active. Open position is +150 contracts. Master Strategy size is 100 (attached to the order, not the position).
  4. Buy stop order for 200 contracts is sent to broker.
  5. Buy Stop order is filled. Open position is +300 contracts. Master Strategy size is 300(attached to the position).
Example 4 - Shows both exit strategy attached to the entire position and exit strategy attached to an individual order:
  1. Open position is +10 contracts.
  2. Stop-Loss #1 exit strategy is applied to the open position. Stop-Loss #1 size is 10.
  3. Buy stop order for 5 contracts is sent to broker.
  4. Stop-Loss #2 exit strategy is applied to the buy stop order. Stop-Loss #2 size is 5.
  5. Buy stop order is filled. Stop-Loss #2 becomes active. Open position is +15 contracts. Stop-Loss #1 size is 10. Stop-Loss #2 size is 5.
  6. Buy market order for 10 contracts is sent to the broker.
  7. Buy market order is filled. Open position is +25 contracts. Stop-Loss #1 size becomes 20 (attached to the position). Stop-Loss #2 size is 5 (attached to the order, not the position).

OCO-Orders

One Cancels Other (OCO) orders are the price orders sent in a group. When any of OCO orders is filled or partially filled, the system cancels or reduces size of other orders in this OCO-group.

Note: Reduce size functionality is supported by Interactive Brokers only: if one order in OCO group is partially filled, others are reduced in size proportionally.

All Entry Strategies are placed with OCO-orders.

There are two types of OCO-groups in MultiCharts: Native and Simulated.

Native OCO-group is used when the broker’s API supports OCO-groups. In this case all OCO orders are sent to the broker directly and unfilled OCO orders will be cancelled by the broker. (Native OCO-group is supported by Interactive Brokers and FXCM).

Simulated OCO-group means that all OCO orders will be sent to the broker, but once one of them is filled, other orders from this OCO group will be cancelled by MultiCharts. In this case, when one of the OCO orders is filled, MultiCharts will send a command to cancel or reduce size of the second OCO order to the broker.

Please note that in case of high market volatility there may be not enough time to cancel the order and therefore both orders may be filled. Both orders also may be filled in the unlikely event of crash or connection loss.

All OCO-orders of the same group will have the same OCO-ID. You may check it in the Orders tab of the Order and Position Tracker window.

Orders and Strategies

Setting Order Quantity

Set order quantity by one of the following methods:

  • Type in order quantity in Order Quantity box 10.png in Chart Trading; or:
  • Click the Trading Calculator button 11.png.

Calculator automatically increases the current trade size setting by one, e.g. if you had 1 in order quantity field, calculator would automatically make it 2.

You can modify the number of contracts by pressing +1, +2, +5 etc. buttons. Zero button resets the number of contracts to zero.

Buttons on the right side of the calculator contain 6 last values.

You may set this number of contracts by pressing those buttons. To apply the modifications click OK, to cancel the modifications click Cancel.

Setting Time in Force

To set time in force of the order, use the Time in Force box in Chart Trading panel.

  • DAY – Good for one day
  • GTC – Good ‘Til Cancelled
  • GTD – Good To Date
  • IOC – Immediate or Cancel Order

Order Modification

Order modification allows adjusting price level and changing the quantity of the order that has not been filled yet.

Adjusting price levels

To modify order price, drag the order marker on the chart and drop it to the desired price level.

When you drag the order with the mouse, it shows the difference between the actual position of the cursor and Bid or Ask price while you hold left button.

If you move the order somewhere between Bid and Ask on the price scale, it shows you current spread value changing dynamically.

To cancel the price level adjustment, press Esc before releasing left mouse button.

To modify the length of the line connecting order marker and price label on the price scale see Chart Trading Settings.

Changing Quantity

Change quantity of the order by one of the following methods:

  • Right-click the order marker on the chart to see the shortcut menu, select Change Quantity and select the quantity; or:
  • Click on volume value on order marker on the chart and modify the quantity in Trading Calculator (see Trading Calculator)
Note: Unlike DOM, in Chart Trading the orders with the same price levels can be moved and modified separately (without joining the orders into one group) by drag-and-drop. If you want to cancel the price level adjustment, press Esc before releasing left mouse button.

Cancelling orders

Cancel separate threads or the order/strategy completely by one of the following methods:

  • Click on the Close button on order/strategy marker; or:
  • Right-click the order marker on the chart to see the shortcut menu and select Cancel Order.

To cancel multiple orders at a time orders use Cancel Asks, Cancel Bids and Cancel All buttons.

The Cancel Asks button cancels all pending buy orders. The Cancel Bids button cancels all pending sell orders. The Cancel All button cancels all pending orders.

Close position

Close the position by one of the following methods:

  • Right-click the order marker on the chart to see the shortcut menu and click Close Position; or:
  • Click on the Close button on Chart Trading Panel;or:
  • Click on the Close button on the position marker.

Closing the current position cancels all pending orders.

Reverse position

Reverse the position by one of the following methods:

  • Right-click the order marker on the chart to see the shortcut menu to call context menu and select Reverse Position; or:
  • Click the Reverse button on Chart Trading panel; or:
  • Click the Reverse button at the right side of position marker on the chart.

Reverse closes the current position with market order, cancels all pending orders and sends market order to open the position in opposite direction for the same number of contracts.

Chart Trading Settings

To configure Chart Trading Settings:

  • Open Format Chart Trading window by one of the following methods:
    • Right-click on the chart to see the shortcut menu, then click Format Chart Trading…; or
    • Right-click on the Chart Trading panel to see the shortcut menu, then click Format Chart Trading…; or
    • Click the Format tab in the main menu and then click Chart Trading.
  • Select Common Settings tab

Require Order confirmation – when enabled, the confirmation window will be shown every time you place an order

Show Open Positions – enables/disables active positions indication on the chart

Show Historical Orders – enables/disables historical orders indication on the chart

Show Active orders – enables/disables active orders indication on the chart

Show Trade Panel – shows/hides Trade Panel

Show Best Bid & Best Ask – enables/disables indication of Best Bid & Best Ask in Trade Panel

Stop Limit Offset – allows setting default Stop Limit offset with spin-box

PnL Display Unit – allows selection of PnL indication type (Currency, Point, Percent)

Use as Default – saves the settings as Default. All subsequently created charts will use the same settings

Appearance

To configure visual parameters of Chart Trading orders:

  • Open Format Chart Trading window by one of the following methods:
    • Right-click on the chart to see the shortcut menu, then click Format Chart Trading…; or
    • Right-click on the Chart Trading panel to see the shortcut menu, then click Format Chart Trading…; or
    • Click the Format tab in the main menu, then click Chart Trading.
  • Select Historical Orders tab or Active Orders and Positions tab

Historical Orders

Select one of the standard 40 colors from the palette box, or click Other to use custom colors for the key components of historical orders markers.

Change the style and the size of the components using 28 custom vertical and horizontal arrows and 7 custom sizes.

Connecting Line Length - modifies the length of the line connecting order marker and price label on the price scale.

To configure order markers size you should change Status Line font size.

To change Status Line font size right-click on the chart to see the shortcut menu, click Format Window, select the Status Line tab and modify Font Size.

Active Orders and Positions

Select one of the standard 40 colors from the palette box, or click Other to create custom colors for the Active Orders and Positions.

Change style and weight of connecting lines using 5 custom line types and 7 custom weights.

Default Active Order Colors

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Accessing Performance Report

To access a Strategy Performance Report:

  • Apply a strategy to a chart.
  • In the menu select View then click Strategy Performance Report.

To access a Trading Performance Report:

  • Connect a Broker Profile.
  • Make sure that the chart shows historical trades.
  • In the menu select View then click Strategy Performance Report.