Hi,
I am considering building an interface between my automated stocks trading system and C2. However, I have a question about how the hypothetical trade engine (and even the auto trading) handles times when the buying power reaches zero.
For example, I typically submit anywhere from 1 to 50 BTO limit orders at varying times during the trading day. The position sizes are of varying sizes so, in times of falling markets, I can end up with between 10 and 40 open positions before the buying power is used up. Past experience shows that it is critical that all outstanding orders are cancelled ASAP when the system becomes fully loaded; I obviously don’t want to end up opening more positions than allowed only to have them closed by a margin call some short time later.
So my questions are:
1) Does C2 automatically cancel BTO orders when buying power is used up?
2) If not, do I have to cancel the orders individually? I see that I can cancel all orders for a system but what about just the BTO orders (i.e. I want to keep the close orders active).
Otherwise do you have any other suggestions?
Best regards
Andy Bower
1) Does C2 automatically cancel BTO orders when buying power is used up?
No. You’ll have margin call and any new executed BTO order will be rejected.
2) If not, do I have to cancel the orders individually? I see that I can cancel all orders for a system but what about just the BTO orders (i.e. I want to keep the close orders active)
In system configuration you have: “Automatically cancel opening orders when buying power drops”. It’s exactly what you want.
Otherwise do you have any other suggestions?
During high market activity C2 might have delays in cancellation of BTO orders as any broker. To minimize the impact it’s better to auto-trade your system. In the case C2 will have no delays in cancellations/fills in most of cases.
Hope it helps,
Eu
Also don’t forget that unlike C2, most brokers apply all open limit orders against account equity. This means the autotraders must have enough cash support all the limit orders you send as if they were filled.
Thanks for the replies.
As EU New noted, the system is only really suitable for auto trading; it would be difficult to manually enter the number of orders that come ready during very busy times. Most of the time you’d get away with it but, as I said before, it is those times when the system becomes fully loaded that are most critical (there have been 3 so far this year).
When trading this system directly with Interactive Brokers I don’t see the BTO orders being limited but that could be because they allow a higher intraday buying power anyway. Normally, the account has 2:1 margin but IB allow a daytrader margin that is much higher (4:1 I think). I don’t make use of this but presumably it allows more outstanding orders than would otherwise be possible.
Regards, AB
the system is only really suitable for auto trading;
Best way to start for the kind of systems:
- open you system as test system. In the case it won’t be visible for public.
- configure your software/C2/auto-trading software.
- check that the zoo above works as you expect
- reset your system statistics
- convert your test system to public system.
Eu
P.S. MK will correct me if I have outdated info and it’s impossible to covert test system to public now.
