Choose your ninjatrader strategies/autotrader wisely and carefully

 Choose your ninjatrader strategies/autotrader wisely and carefully

There are hundreds of strategies and autotrader available for ninjatrader.
If you want to use one of them you need to be cautious. Otherwise, you will lose both time and money.

Here are some tips to help you make the right decision.

1. Ignoring the Ads and attractive performance.

You are buying a strategy because you want to make money. When you see some really good performance of a strategy, you may not be able to resist your urge to make the purchase.

Company won't show you the drawbacks in their frontpage. Most content you see will be how good they are. I'm not saying they are not as good as they described. But nothing is perfect, sometimes you need to know more about the NOT good part.

Pay attention to the backtest results

I won't say the backtest is total useless, but there will be a significant difference between backtest and real-time test results. The reason is historical trades are not matching the real time trades. This is due to the historical data only have the Open, High, Low, and Close prices , but not intra-bar tick information.

2. Facing Reality

There is no such autotrader can continuously make profit for you, even if there is one, will you sell it to others? The reason developers sell strategy instead of using it is simply because it's not very profitable. Please consider an autotrader as a tool but not a goose that laid the Golden Egg. 


3. Understanding the mechanism

Basically autotrader is a combination of orders and conditions.

Orders include: enter long and short, exit long and short, profit target and stop loss target. You also need to think about what OrderType (Limit, Market, Stop, StopLimit) is the best for your strategy.

Conditions are where and when the orders should be sent out. It can be indicator's signal, chart pattern or specific price movement.  Different strategies/autotrader use various combinations.
Before you pay, make sure you totally understand how that autotrader works.



4. Simple is good.

I saw a lot of autotraders have toolbar or panel with many buttons.

Do you know that these features are not officially supported by Ninjatrader.
Could it be because these functions may cause unexpected issues.

Ask yourself, are those additional functions really matter to you? Apple beats Blckberry with just one button. Keep that in mind, you are not buying a multimedia keyboard.


5. Issue you may encounter

Ninjatrader is a good platform, but its order handling is not very friendly.
The most common problem you may have is overfill, which is caused by either one of the following two conditions;

a.Both Stop Loss and Exit order are filled at the same time;
b.A reversal entry with either Stop Loss or Exit order are filled at the same time;

Reversal entry will generate an Exit order for the previous position in addition to existing Stop Loss or Exist order, overfill is resulted as any two or all of these orders filled within one second with no cancellation on each other.  Sometimes too fast is not good.

Take a look how many people have this issue: https://www.google.ca/search?
q=overfill+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ninjatrader.com


6. Features you need

Make a checklist of all features you need, such as email notification when an order is filled, or display PnL on chart. Be sure the autotrader you are buying comes with those features. Otherwise, nobody can add them for you because the files you received are encrypted. Only the owner can modify it and most vendors don't take custom project.


Use these tips as a filter, a lot of unqualified strategies/autotrader will be knocked out.

If you have a great strategy in your mind but can't find any existing one to fit your need, then try to build your very own strategy. If you are not familiar with programming, I'm willing to help if I'm not occupied.

Feel free to contact me: toslancer@gmail.com if you need any help with Ninjascript or Thinkscript.

Convert a mq4 to TOS

You may have some favorite indicators on MT4, and you want to keep using them on TOS.
If you want to convert a mq4 file to Thinkscript we can help you.

We create custom thinkscript for you.

If you have a good idea but don't know programming, we can help you with that.

Our primary services include:

Creating custom stock patterns in Scan that meet your special needs.

Testing and debugging your own custom thinkscript.

Making custom Scan, Studies, Functions, columns, signals and indicators.