Getting Started

To get started, obtain the IB Robot trading software and install it on your computer.

To start the robot, select it from your start menu and the following window should appear.

You'll need to login with your StockTickr username and password. Once you login successfully, the other login buttons are enabled for the Trade-Ideas login and the TWS connection.

Enter your Trade-Ideas username and password and click Login. To connect to TWS, you'll need to start TWS and enable API connections by going to the Configure menu and choosing API then All API Settings.

Check the following check box:

Once you've enabled API access, you should be able to login to TWS from the trading robot.

Once you're connected, you can click on the Automated tab to add a new trading strategy. Click on the New button to create a new automated trading strategy. The following window appears:

The Automated Trading Strategy window has several sections.

Signal Config

Allows you to choose whether signals should be traded long or short. Click on the Alerts button to select the Trade-Ideas strategy to trade signals from.

Activation

• Ignore Signals Before - local time that this strategy should start trading signals that are received.
• Ignore Signals After - local time that this strategy should stop trading signals that it receives.
• Stop after sending - allows you to choose a maximum number of orders for this strategy to send per day. After this threshold is met, no more signals will be traded until you stop and start the robot.
• Queue orders, don't transmit - tells the robot to simply queue the orders in TWS and not actually submit the trades. This is useful if you want to review the trade before it actually gets sent to the market. If this box is unchecked, the orders will be transmitted automatically.

Position Sizing

Fixed Shares

Always use a fixed number of shares for each trade.

Fixed Dollars

Always allocate a fixed amount of capital to put towards the trade.

Volatility Based

Size your position based on the volatility of the stock. This should be used in conjunction with the Stop Loss below.

• Dollars to Risk - Allocate an amount of capital such that if your stop loss is hit you will lose this amount of money.
• Volatility Ratio - A real number that gets multiplied by the volatility to determine the position size.
• Volatility Floor - A positive real number to use as a minimum volatility. If an alert comes in that has a volatility less than this number, this number will override it.

Orders

Each signal sends a combination of orders to TWS. This section allows you to configure your entry orders and exit orders.

Entry Order

Limit orders are the only type of entry orders supported at this time. We will be adding market orders in the future.

• Limit Offset - At signal time, the robot obtains the latest quote from Interactive Brokers' real time data feed. Use this limit offset to control the limit price for the entry order. For long strategies, you could use -0.05 to try to get price improvement. You can also just enter 0 to use the signal price.
• Good for Seconds - This is the number of seconds that the order should remain valid before being canceled. If canceled, all orders for this signal are canceled as well.

Stop Loss

None

Don't use a stop loss for this order.

Percent Away from Signal Price

Use a stop offset to enter a percent of the signal price to use for the stop loss value. For example, choosing this option for a signal price of $50 and a stop offset of 2 would enter a stop loss of $49.00 (for long strategies).

Dollars Away from Signal Price

Use a stop offset to enter a dollar amount away from the signal price to use for the stop loss value. For example, choosing this option for a signal price of $50 and a stop offset of 1.00 would enter a stop loss of $49.00 (for long strategies).

Volatility Based

Uses the parameters in the Position Sizing section to determine a stop loss.

Time Stop

A time to exit the position.

Specific Time of Day

Uses a local time to get out of the position. Choose a time using the hour, minute, and seconds fields.

Seconds After Signal

This would be an order that gets you out of the position after a number of seconds has elapsed since the signal was received.

Trailing Stop

You can optionally enter a trailing stop that is used with the order.

None

Don't enter a trailing stop order.

Percent from Signal Price

Use a trail offset that is a certain percentage away from the signal price.

Dollars from Signal Price

Use a trail offset that is a certain dollar amount away from the signal price.

Volatility Based

You can enter a trailing stop based on the volatility of the stock that the signal is for. Use the Volatility Ratio and Volatility Floor just as you would for the Position Sizing section.

Record Keeping

Fills you get from orders from the robot are automatically entered into your StockTickr account so that you can go back and review your results and do performance analysis. You can enter a comma delimited string of tags that will be assigned to trades from this strategy. You can use the Recommended Tags to guide you.

more coming soon...