Bracket Trader eSignal Link

[Harndog]

Bracket Trader Question - Entries

Hi:
I just ordered Bracket Trader in the hopes of being able to use buy stops or sell stops with it. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case.
I can use it with market orders, by I was hoping to be more lazy - ie here is my limit offer with trades automatically entered.
I am looking to use BT with IB and have greater control of my orders.
For example, if I sell a certain price, I am looking to have a stop place automatically with a target for exit 1 and then trail the balance.
Any suggestions?
Harndog

[betsteven1]

BUY STOPS

I believe that you can set your buy stops thru the DOMe FEATURE ON THE LEFT SIDE

[mattgundersen]

Bracket Trader and $PLAYBACK

I'm trying to use the latest Brakcet Trader with the eSignal $PLAYBACK feature and am not having much luck. Wondering if anyone else having luck?

added BTLinker.efs to my chart. Changed chart to $PLAYBACK and started playing back an EPF file.

Went to Bracket Trader and selected tools->eSignal Connection->Playback.

Nothing happened - didn't see BT show any values.

any ideas?

thx.m.

[mat583]

Re: Reply to post 'Bracket Trader eSignal Link'

; charset=us-ascii

I missing something when using esignal playback with BT.
I have follow the steps to no avail. I get this message in BT,
"esignal not detected on your system!!"
Somehow esignal is not talking or connecting to bracket trader in
playback mode.
Your help is appreciated.

thanks
Mike

P.S.
Please send me the instruction on how to post to the forum and how to
retrive the answers.

thanks

[email protected] wrote:

Hello mat583,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[pretzel]

Here are the entry orders available on Bracket Trader:
1. Market entry
2. Limit entry at Bid (for buy) or Offer (for Sell)
3. Stop market entry
4. Stop limit entry
5. Stop limit entry with negative offset
6. Market if touched entry
7. Timed entry (entry at a specific time without regard to price)
8. Double-sided breakout entry with cancellation of opposite order if filled
9. Double-sided fade entry with cancellation of opposite order if filled

Check the Quick Guide and the FAQ's for more info.

For eSignal Playback to Bracket Trader link setup questions, check out

http://www.bracket-trader.com/esignal2.htm

http://www.bracket-trader.com/BT_eSignal_Setup_Tutorial.html

pretzel

[scjohn]

I have noticed, that when replaying a tick file, the bid/ask are always the same, i.e. there is no spread shown in Bracket Trader for the bid/ask. Is this normal? When palying backa tick file for the SP emini (ES) I would expect to see at list 0.25 tick spread between the bid and the ask. If i use the functions: getMostRecentBid and Get MostRecentAsk, and display those values on the chart; I will see a spread of 0.25 between the bid/ask.

[mattsb]

Matt,

I just went through the setup for using Bracket Trader to replay tick files saved from eSignal.

I will assume that you have used Tools/Tick Replay/Tick Downloader to save a tick file for the commodity you want to practice on.

Follow the instructions here: http://www.bracket-trader.com/esignal2.htm.

i.e. Open a new Advanced chart, Add the BTLinker.efs. Then click on Tools/Tick Replay/Replay Tick File choosing the Tick file you saved in the step above. Use the Jump feature in the Tick Replay Symbol: $Playback window to put a number or ticks on your chart. Setup your chart with any other studies or efs that you want to use to practice with.

Now, Open BracketTrader. In the upper Right hand corner of BT is a radio button for SIM. Click on that. Then click on (In the BT window) Tools/eSignal Connection/eSignal Playback.

If you have paused the playback in the eSignal Replay window, start it again. If it is running, then you should see the Bid/Ask?Last prices change in BT.

See if one of these things doesn't get you going again.

[scjohn]

mattsb,

It seems I did a bad job in my explaination. I have everything set up and running as you described. The bid/ask/last are changing but they are always equal to each other. In other words, in BT i will see 1136.75 1136.75 1133.75 (bid/ask/last) or 1136.50 1136.50 1136.50, but I will never see 1136.50 1136.75 1136.50.

Hopefully I have have explained what I am see better, this time.

[mattsb]

scjohn,

I don't think that eSignal maintains a Tick history of the changing bid/ask prices, but only the last price. That being the case, you will only see the one price reflected in BT. You will have to be the one to decide if not having the spread shown will have an overall affect on your simulated trading. I would think that in the long run, it will all equal out as to be unnoticeable.

[scjohn]

Matt,

I did a quick and dirty EFS that dispalyed the return values of the built in functions: getMostRecentBid and Get MostRecentAsk. The output from these two functions did show the spread and seemd to reflect what was going on in the price chart.

I am new to ESignal so I do not know of all of the details of the programing langauge, but at least on the surface, it would appear to be possible to get the bid/ask sent to BT.

[mattsb]

John,

Writing quick and dirty or slow and clean is way ahead of me! I'm jealous ( I suppose if I were that jealous I'd take the time to learn, but too many other irons in the fire!).

You might want to talk to the BT developer. He may be able to give you some guidance on hooks to the eSig data that BT isn't pulling now.

I'm curious. Do you have some way of buying at the bid and selling at the offer? Is there a system with these as the triggers? I usually manage to buy at the offer +1 and sell at the bid -1.

Good luck. Sorry I wasn't anymore help.

[pretzel]

scjohn,

The playback files from eSignal only gives out the last trade price, no bid/no ask. This is the same even with Ensign playback.

The getMostRecentBid and Get MostRecentAsk is used for live data, not from playback files. BT can get the bid/ask from live data in eSignal but this is not the purpose of BT as it is designed to get the data from IB. BT only gets playback data at present.

pretzel

[pruggera]

Tick replay has bid/ask

To download bid/ask data with the tick downloader, you need to not check the "Save trades only" box on the Tick Downloader popup.

Tick replay data downloaded from eSignal via Tick Downloader:

Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,1,18, ,
T,010110,072824,1230.00,5,
Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,7,18, ,
Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,7,12, ,
Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,5,12, ,
T,010110,072824,1229.00,2,
Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,6,12, ,
Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,9,12, ,
Q,010110,072824,1229.00,1230.00,11,12, ,
Q,010110,072825,1229.00,1230.00,12,12, ,
Q,010110,072825,1229.00,1230.00,12,10, ,
Q,010110,072825,1229.00,1230.00,13,10, ,
Q,010110,072825,1229.00,1230.00,13,8, ,
T,010110,072825,1230.00,2,

Lines with T are trades, lines with Q are bid/ask quotes. Here is some code that will display the bid/ask during replay:
/************************************************** ***************
Provided By : eSignal. (c) Copyright 2003
************************************************** ***************/

function preMain() {
setStudyTitle("Bid, Ask and Trade Size");
setShowCursorLabel(false);
}

var nBidSize = 0;
var nBid = null;
var nTradeSize = 0;
var nTrade = null;
var nAskSize = 0;
var nAsk = null;

function main() {
if (getCurrentBarIndex() < 0 || getBuildNumber() < 606) return;

nAsk = getMostRecentAsk();
nAskSize = getMostRecentAskSize();
nTrade = close();
nTradeSize = getMostRecentTradeSize();
nBid = getMostRecentBid();
nBidSize = getMostRecentBidSize();

var barA = " "; // 20;
var barT = " "; // 20;
var barB = " "; // 20;
var vColor = Color.white;
var Total = 100;

if (nTrade >= nAsk) vColor = Color.green;
if (nTrade <= nBid) vColor = Color.red;

var vSpacer = " ";
var vTotal = nAskSize + nTradeSize + nBidSize;
var vbarApercent = Math.round((nAskSize/vTotal)*100);
var vbarTpercent = Math.round((nTradeSize/vTotal)*100);
var vbarBpercent = Math.round((nBidSize/vTotal)*100);
for (i = 0; i < 100; ++i) {
if (vbarApercent >= i) barA += vSpacer;
if (vbarTpercent >= i) barT += vSpacer;
if (vbarBpercent >= i) barB += vSpacer;
}

// Relative Size Bars
drawTextAbsolute(1, 16, barA,
Color.green, Color.green, Text.BOLD|Text.BOTTOM|Text.RIGHT|Text.RELATIVETOBO TTOM,
null, 10, "Ask bar");
drawTextAbsolute(1, 10, barT,
Color.black, Color.black, Text.BOLD|Text.VCENTER|Text.RIGHT|Text.RELATIVETOB OTTOM,
null, 10, "Trade bar");
drawTextAbsolute(1, 4, barB,
Color.red, Color.red, Text.BOLD|Text.TOP|Text.RIGHT|Text.RELATIVETOBOTTO M,
null, 10, "Bid bar");

// Size Labels
drawTextAbsolute(0, 16, " A SIZE: " + nAskSize + " ", Color.white, Color.green,
Text.ONTOP|Text.BOLD|Text.BOTTOM|Text.LEFT|Text.RE LATIVETOBOTTOM|Text.RELATIVETOLEFT,
null, 10, "Ask size");
drawTextAbsolute(0, 10, " T SIZE: " + nTradeSize + " ", vColor, Color.black,
Text.ONTOP|Text.BOLD|Text.VCENTER|Text.LEFT|Text.R ELATIVETOBOTTOM|Text.RELATIVETOLEFT,
null, 10, "Trade size");
drawTextAbsolute(0, 4, " B SIZE: " + nBidSize + " ", Color.white, Color.red,
Text.ONTOP|Text.BOLD|Text.TOP|Text.LEFT|Text.RELAT IVETOBOTTOM|Text.RELATIVETOLEFT,
null, 10, "Bid size");

// Price Labels
drawTextAbsolute(1, 16, " A: " + nAsk.toFixed(4) + " ", Color.white, Color.green,
Text.ONTOP|Text.BOLD|Text.BOTTOM|Text.RIGHT|Text.R ELATIVETOBOTTOM,
null, 10, "Ask");
drawTextAbsolute(1, 10, " T: " + nTrade.toFixed(4) + " ", vColor, Color.black,
Text.ONTOP|Text.BOLD|Text.VCENTER|Text.RIGHT|Text. RELATIVETOBOTTOM,
null, 10, "Trade");
drawTextAbsolute(1, 4, " B: " + nBid.toFixed(4) + " ", Color.white, Color.red,
Text.ONTOP|Text.BOLD|Text.TOP|Text.RIGHT|Text.RELA TIVETOBOTTOM,
null, 10, "Bid");

return;
}

[scjohn]

Originally posted by pretzel
scjohn,

The playback files from eSignal only gives out the last trade price, no bid/no ask. This is the same even with Ensign playback.

pretzel

Disclaimer: I am no expect on ESignal. If you download bar data for replay, then you are correct. You only get trade data. If you download tick data for replay, you get both trades (T lines) and bid/ask (Q lines) data.

scJohn

[pretzel]

I know the bid/ask are there but I cannot get the data before.
I ask about this and got a no for an answer - http://forum.esignalcentral.com/show...4138#post24138

When did eSignal make the change?

Anyway, big thanks to you, prugerra. I'll see if I can get BT to link to the bid ask data.

pretzel