Strategies not exiting EOD and IB

[sharpie]

I am/was about to go "live" with a strategy that does not exit at EOD. It has scaled exits (profit targets) that will likely trigger in a following day so continuous running of my strategy is essential (I think). My broker is IB. It forces a logoff every night, so I must disconnect. When I disconnect my strategy closes down. I presume when I start it up I will have lost track of my various positions, entries (tags),variables, etc. I read some posts about this, but they are a year old. Am I missing something or am I simply screwed? What is the current state of affairs on this matter? And, what reccomendations do you have?

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Correct, when you restart the strategy it's a new instance, but it'll recalcuate historical positions so with the 'Immediately Submit' option under 'On starting a realtime strategy' (Tools > Options > Strategies > NinjaScript) it would 'pick' when you restart, provided strategy and account positions are still in sync - http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/H...tPosition.html

NinjaTrader 7 will address this and offer strategy persistence feature options to keep it running on disconnects - http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/NT7/NinjaTrader7.html

Persistence between sessions
Strategies will now be maintained between NinjaTrader shutdown and restart. On restart, you can multi-select strategies in the Control Center Strategies grid and enable all strategies to run in a single click. You can disable, change parameters and re-enable a strategy. You can now also save a set of parameters as default. You no longer have to re-add strategies every time you restart NinjaTrader.

[nintra]

Promising news, AT LAST!

Persistence between sessions
Strategies will now be maintained between NinjaTrader shutdown and restart. On restart, you can multi-select strategies in the Control Center Strategies grid and enable all strategies to run in a single click. You can disable, change parameters and re-enable a strategy. You can now also save a set of parameters as default. You no longer have to re-add strategies every time you restart NinjaTrader.

Great, will this per strategy Enabled check box be made also persistent so after the platform has been restarted user doesn't have to manually interfere?

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

I don't believe there an 'auto reenable' feature, however when you restart, all strategies can be started with one click....

[nintra]

Still hoping for reconsideration as it's an early beta stage

I don't believe there an 'auto reenable' feature, however when you restart, all strategies can be started with one click....

Could you please elaborate on this, so users will understand the exact reasons for not allowing strategies to be automatically on (i.e. re-enabled) after the platform restart. Especially when you made already the biggest step to make it work - making the strategies and connections persistent after restart. If I understood this correctly, that would enable the strategies to survive after system reboot (for whatever reason) and continue their work without the need to use such ancient gimmicks as key stroke scripts to re-enable strategies after restart. Is there any legal reasons like even remote possibility of some responsibility battle for possible client losses due to out of sync state of a strategy? Because if there is not such concerns, I couldn't see why the strategy couldn't be made permanently on (or scheduled accordingly) and the end user will be responsible for all possible consequences. After all, NT7 is having even low level calls to brokerage account to query its state and issue orders directly.

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

nintra, those are two different issues here -

a) connection loss handling, where you have three choices in NT 7 how to handle this -

Connection loss handling
You can now control how a strategy behaves on a loss of connection. Recalculate the strategy to ensure any missed data is accounted for, disregard missing data (maybe your strategy is not dependant on historical data) and keep it running as the connection comes back up or stop the strategy and send you an email alert.

b) saving applied strategies and settings to workspaces to make those persist accross sessions - in this case you need to reenable strategies with one click, needed connection could be set on 'auto connect' to make this very seamless...

Persistence between sessions
Strategies will now be maintained between NinjaTrader shutdown and restart. On restart, you can multi-select strategies in the Control Center Strategies grid and enable all strategies to run in a single click. You can disable, change parameters and re-enable a strategy. You can now also save a set of parameters as default. You no longer have to re-add strategies every time you restart NinjaTrader.

[nintra]

Sorry, but the questions are still standing

nintra, those are two different issues here...

Bertrand, I was perhaps unclear. Slap me hard if I seem to be too persistent on the automation and robustness issues
What I meant on connection persistence is that:

New Automatic Connect on Application Start Up
You can enable any defined connection to automatically connect when you start NinjaTrader.



Now you guys also made strategies persistent after restart - so IMHO all my questions in previous post are valid and I'd love to hear a developers response on those questions. Essentially, will NT7 allow running strategies unattended after system and NT7 restart, if not, what are the reasons for such a deliberate decision. Thank you in advance for the answers and keep doing a great job with NT!

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

NinjaTrader NEVER recommends running strategies unattended. The features help in getting set up, but were never designed or meant for unattended sessions of strategies.

Note: That feature means you can auto connect to a data provider on NinjaTrader startup. It does NOT mean you can auto start strategies on startup.

[nintra]

?

NinjaTrader NEVER recommends running strategies unattended. The features help in getting set up, but were never designed or meant for unattended sessions of strategies.

Note: That feature means you can auto connect to a data provider on NinjaTrader startup. It does NOT mean you can auto start strategies on startup.

Perfectly understood that. But may I ask WHY? One thing is not RECOMMEND, the other - to deliberately make it IMPOSSIBLE without extra (external) tricks.
As strategies writer and an automated trading bots designer, one might have perfectly understandable and reasonable need to have robust execution platform; so I just want to UNDERSTAND your point as the developers' one. Is is because of technical impossibility to ensure a strategy will be in sync on restart, a legal reason, other valid reasons? Maybe I should ask you guys how many of you are actually using some NT strategy on live account?

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

nintra,

There are many reasons why we do NOT recommend running strategies unattended. As such we have to position ourselves in a manner that is in line with our policy. For one, there are many liability reasons why we do not want people running strategies unattended.

[nintra]

Frankly speaking ... would help close the subject

nintra,

There are many reasons why we do NOT recommend running strategies unattended. As such we have to position ourselves in a manner that is in line with our policy. For one, there are many liability reasons why we do not want people running strategies unattended.

1. I understand you are making money NOT by trading (that includes running NT w/out or with NT strategies in ANY mode)

2. Many software makers (those are your competitors, even if you want to distance the precise definition of your market segment from their) have unattended modes for ages, can you name a company that removed unattended mode due to legal liability at some stage? Probably not, they might re-work their legal clauses in this regard more than once, but hardly removed their advantage by deliberately making unattended autotrading hard or impossible. Maybe I'm wrong?

3. If not, why don't you choose a policy, that IF the user insists, (s)he can use the unattended mode solely at their own risk (much like one time warning confirmation dialog that enabling one-click mode for trading may cause undesirable consequences by instant order submitting to a market)? So giving an user this ability as the OPTION (be it NOT RECOMMENDED one) would rightly justify your efforts to develop NT at max and also ask the full price for offering that.

4. If you are legally binded with some agreements let's say with some of brokerage firms that you are NOT ALLOWED to offer unattended trading mode, please state it here clearly, so at least the case might be closed and the questions withdrawn.

5. If none of those (3 or 4 above) apply, please list these MANY technical, liability or other reasons that make you choose to DENY unattended execution of NT strategies. Thank you!

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

nintra,

Your suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. Currently, NT7 will not automatically re-enable a strategy on application start up. I personally don't recall all of the logic that made up this decision. We are at the start of our beta process and as such, I anticipate a lot of feedback on a lot of areas both good and bad. If we have taken some wrong turns, we then likely have the ability to reset our course. This may be one of them. I will add this suggestion to my personal list of beta feedback enhancements.

[nintra]

Appreciated - the response does leave a hope

I will add this suggestion to my personal list of beta feedback enhancements.

Thank you Ray, that's good you understand my point. I took your response as there are NO major obstacles to implementing this rather simple (well, on the technical GUI surface) UI enhancement (i.e. persistence of enable/disable strategy run switch), thus there are NONE of the unsurmountable legal or policy issues mentioned and NT7 may (let's knock the wood - WILL) have this essential for autotraders feature as the result of user feedback and future set refining for everyones mutual benefit.