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How to Automate the Execution of Your Trading Strategies for Equities, futures, options and NOW FOREX

Imagine having your computer monitor the markets for you based on your own custom strategies and —when an opportunity arises—having it execute your trades faster and more efficiently than humanly possible. Then once your order is filled, imagine it watching out for your exit, and automatically placing all of your orders.

Strategy Order Generated

TradeStation makes Automated Trading a reality

Using TradeStation’s powerful and flexible EasyLanguage® technology, you can describe your trading rules—when to get into the market and when to get out—using simple, English-like statements and trading terms, very similar to how you would describe them to another trader. You can automate virtually any trading strategy imaginable, including multiple conditional entries and exits, profit targets, protective stops, trailing stops, and more. (See strategy testing section for more details on writing your own strategies).

Now automate your fundamental strategies too

And now, new for TradeStation 8.3, in addition to automating your technical strategies, you can automate strategies based on fundamentals with over 900 historical fundamental reference data fields.

Announcing New Forex Strategy Automation

Forex traders—it’s your turn. TradeStation 8.3 now allows you to fully automate the execution of your forex strategies too. It even allows you to specify the built-in stops and strategy properties in the local currency and choose to see strategy results and performance results in the local currency of the symbol or in the currency of your account.

First, TradeStation searches for buy and sell opportunities based on your rules

Once TradeStation knows the conditions you're looking for, it actually starts monitoring the markets for you—tick-by-tick—in real-time. The instant it spots a buy or sell opportunity based on your trading strategy for a stocks, options, futures or forex, you hear a voice alert:

"Strategy Order Generated"

Since TradeStation already knows the details of your order, there’s no need to manually type it in. Using the speed of direct-access execution, TradeStation will automatically send your stock, options, futures or forex orders to the major exchange or ECN you've chosen in your strategy. The entire process is virtually instantaneous.* That means that you can literally sit back and watch it execute your trading strategies for you. Of course, you also have the option to have TradeStation prompt you for a confirmation before sending your order.

Once your order is sent, TradeStation monitors the market until your order is actually filled, and lets you know with another voice alert:

"Order Filled"

And that’s only the beginning...

Then, TradeStation Tracks Your Open Position Based on Your Exit Rules

Once you have an open position, TradeStation tracks all your strategies’ open positions in real-time and continues to monitor the markets based on your trading rules, diligently standing guard so that you don't miss your exit point—no matter how simple or complex your exit criteria. TradeStation is even intelligent enough to recognize that certain things can affect how your strategies are executed in real-world trading. Things like partial fills, for instance. Here are just a few examples:

TradeManager Screen

Example1: Partial Fills

Picture this: Your equities strategy has just generated an order to buy 1000 shares, but it has only been half filled. So, you’re long the market 500 shares, and you still have an open order for 500 additional shares. Well, adapting to partial fills is no problem for TradeStation. While the market conditions that generated the entry continue to be active, TradeStation maintains your open order for the additional 500 shares. But, if your exit order is triggered, TradeStation is intelligent enough to automatically cancel your open order for the remaining 500 shares.

Example 2: Maximizing Buying Power on Multiple Orders

Have you ever had a strategy with multiple orders where only one of the orders is supposed to be filled, depending upon which market activity or condition occurs first? For example, you’d like to short at a certain price level, but go long at another price level. It’s easy to tie up your buying power with two open orders if you’re not careful. So, in these instances, TradeStation can monitor the market, constantly gauging what order is closer to the current market price, and make sure that only one order is active at any one time. The result is that you don’t tie up your buying power with two open entry orders when only one is to be filled.

Example 3: Trailing Stops

Suppose you’d like to ride market strength, but close your position if you lose more than 20% of your profits at any time. Something like this would be almost impossible to continually calculate manually—especially in a volatile market where it can matter the most. With TradeStation, you won’t have to worry about manual calculations. Using the superior processing power of your computer, TradeStation can automatically recalculate and move your exit order price for you, keeping up with the market every step of the way.**

You've simply never had the ability to automate your trading with this degree of sophistication

TradeStation integrates custom strategy development, strategy testing and strategy automation to enable you to trade your strategies more effectively by allowing you to identify and react to changes in market conditions. When seconds can mean the difference between a big gain and a disappointing loss—as they often can when trading—we believe you'll find this a significant advantage.

 
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