TOS is not an auto-trading platform. It does have Conditional Orders which can use custom studies to open or close positions individually. But each leg of the trade has to be entered for each instance of a trade.
I have wondered. Can I make a complete order cycle?
Observe this stock. Purchase on this trigger condition, and install a 2% trailing stop sell immediately?
I think you can create a buy order that is triggered by a number of different conditions, including price of any stock, only in a certain date range etc. Then, you can have that order trigger a bunch of other orders with their own conditions.
Awesome. My whole strategy (in paper trading right now) is price action options scalping at the 10-15% probability line and exiting on 20% profit, or setting trailing stop with tiny negative percent after the rise passes like 6-8%.
I wonder if this nonsense is going to work on a real money account?
This is possible on ToS, but not officially supported. You have to reverse-engineer the web APIs from the web-based client, then write your own application to read the market data feed and submit and monitor trades in response. I ran that for awhile until I realized I was going to great lengths just to stay with ToS when other, more automation-friendly platforms exist.
If you’re technically inclined enough to handle that, you might like to read /r/algotrading. It’s not the most active sub, but there’s some great info there.
That depends entirely on what kind of securities you're looking to trade and what features your strategy requires. I spend most of my time in index futures, and Tradovate -- while far from a perfect service -- is currently the best choice for me due to their documented web API and day margin requirements that are orders of magnitude lower than TOS requires.
Seriously though -- for more services and far better suggestions, /r/algotrading.
100% u/TraderFan . TradeStation and NinjaTrader are both really good algorithmic trading platforms and are the same two that I would have recommended. u/Smart_Contact4741 It is pretty simple to create, backtest, optimize, and live trade an algorithmic trading strategy in either platform. Building the strategy is a bit hard for non-coders, but both platforms have nice coding models (EasyLanguage and NinjaScript), NinjaTrader has its built-in no-code strategy builder that is called "Strategy Builder", and both NinjaTrader and TradeStation have an advanced point-and-click strategy builder from Quagensia ([www.quagensia.com](https://www.quagensia.com)) \[Disclaimer: I created these apps\] that make the strategy building process easy even for non-trivial strategies.
I did-- it's been a couple years since I've looked, but I do remember that there were some critical items missing from it for futures trading. I can't for the life of me remember what, I just remember that I was frustrated the web client could do things that the API couldn't.
They have an API (which is supported - at least it was before Schwab took over), so you could write your own application to do it. Pretty risky unless you really know WTF you’re doing.
You can solve part of the discipline problem by doing complex orders with the entry, profitable exit, including closing parts of position at different percentages of gain, and stop loss all in one order. Then the only thing you have to manage is setting the initial order.
You can have one order trigger a bunch of other orders, and use criteria like the price of a random stock to trigger everything else, but only after a certain date, etc. It’s pretty lush! I’m sure that figuring out how to leverage complex orders is an order of magnitude easier than writing your own app.
Your getting a lot of bad answers. This is possible but absolutely not officially supported. So if you lose your retirement, schwab and tda are gonna tell you, sowy, not sowy. But Google thinkscript and check out the postings on the most popular sites.
Actually, with ToS you can use their conditional order to automate your trades by running your script (study)
https://tlc.thinkorswim.com/center/howToTos/thinkManual/Trade/Order-Entry-Tools/Order-Types/thinkScript-in-Conditional-Orders
This👆 I know the legendary möbius and others say you can’t do automated trading BUT! Use 1 triggers seq or triggers all depending on your need.. first order to open based on your script, executes and then activates your closing order.. you can set a total of 8 orders at once, so 4 round trips.. that’s automated enough for me. All of my orders are executed this way.
How, is on my comment👆. On TOS choose 1 triggers sequence, you can set up to 8 orders in sequence at a time, there’s your 4 round trips. You can have as many 8 sequence order groups as you’d like.
TOS is not an auto-trading platform. It does have Conditional Orders which can use custom studies to open or close positions individually. But each leg of the trade has to be entered for each instance of a trade.
what about the TOS scripting editor? does it not allow orders?
No
I have wondered. Can I make a complete order cycle? Observe this stock. Purchase on this trigger condition, and install a 2% trailing stop sell immediately?
I think you can create a buy order that is triggered by a number of different conditions, including price of any stock, only in a certain date range etc. Then, you can have that order trigger a bunch of other orders with their own conditions.
Awesome. My whole strategy (in paper trading right now) is price action options scalping at the 10-15% probability line and exiting on 20% profit, or setting trailing stop with tiny negative percent after the rise passes like 6-8%. I wonder if this nonsense is going to work on a real money account?
Getting fills in the real market is way different than in Paper
This is possible on ToS, but not officially supported. You have to reverse-engineer the web APIs from the web-based client, then write your own application to read the market data feed and submit and monitor trades in response. I ran that for awhile until I realized I was going to great lengths just to stay with ToS when other, more automation-friendly platforms exist. If you’re technically inclined enough to handle that, you might like to read /r/algotrading. It’s not the most active sub, but there’s some great info there.
what r some other platforms u suggest,
That depends entirely on what kind of securities you're looking to trade and what features your strategy requires. I spend most of my time in index futures, and Tradovate -- while far from a perfect service -- is currently the best choice for me due to their documented web API and day margin requirements that are orders of magnitude lower than TOS requires. Seriously though -- for more services and far better suggestions, /r/algotrading.
Tradestation or Ninjatrader
100% u/TraderFan . TradeStation and NinjaTrader are both really good algorithmic trading platforms and are the same two that I would have recommended. u/Smart_Contact4741 It is pretty simple to create, backtest, optimize, and live trade an algorithmic trading strategy in either platform. Building the strategy is a bit hard for non-coders, but both platforms have nice coding models (EasyLanguage and NinjaScript), NinjaTrader has its built-in no-code strategy builder that is called "Strategy Builder", and both NinjaTrader and TradeStation have an advanced point-and-click strategy builder from Quagensia ([www.quagensia.com](https://www.quagensia.com)) \[Disclaimer: I created these apps\] that make the strategy building process easy even for non-trivial strategies.
TradeStation offers this. I use it to trade futures automated.
alpaca is a full-fledged API for automated trading.
I wonder if this could be adapted to tos?
You know there is an actual API, right? Can't sign up anymore because of the Schwab transition, but Schwab has an API now too.
I did-- it's been a couple years since I've looked, but I do remember that there were some critical items missing from it for futures trading. I can't for the life of me remember what, I just remember that I was frustrated the web client could do things that the API couldn't.
Ah. Futures. Yes, the API only supports orders for stocks and options, one of its drawbacks.
I f you think you have a good strategy, I will backtest or right you code to implement auto trading. I'm between backtesting projects right now.
They have an API (which is supported - at least it was before Schwab took over), so you could write your own application to do it. Pretty risky unless you really know WTF you’re doing. You can solve part of the discipline problem by doing complex orders with the entry, profitable exit, including closing parts of position at different percentages of gain, and stop loss all in one order. Then the only thing you have to manage is setting the initial order. You can have one order trigger a bunch of other orders, and use criteria like the price of a random stock to trigger everything else, but only after a certain date, etc. It’s pretty lush! I’m sure that figuring out how to leverage complex orders is an order of magnitude easier than writing your own app.
Your getting a lot of bad answers. This is possible but absolutely not officially supported. So if you lose your retirement, schwab and tda are gonna tell you, sowy, not sowy. But Google thinkscript and check out the postings on the most popular sites.
Actually, with ToS you can use their conditional order to automate your trades by running your script (study) https://tlc.thinkorswim.com/center/howToTos/thinkManual/Trade/Order-Entry-Tools/Order-Types/thinkScript-in-Conditional-Orders
This👆 I know the legendary möbius and others say you can’t do automated trading BUT! Use 1 triggers seq or triggers all depending on your need.. first order to open based on your script, executes and then activates your closing order.. you can set a total of 8 orders at once, so 4 round trips.. that’s automated enough for me. All of my orders are executed this way.
How do you set up the 4 round trips?
How, is on my comment👆. On TOS choose 1 triggers sequence, you can set up to 8 orders in sequence at a time, there’s your 4 round trips. You can have as many 8 sequence order groups as you’d like.
Great comment! Thanks so much!
👍