Tradestation does not allow trading two or more strategies on the same stock symbol.

[Trade95]

Is it possible to send a signal from Tradestation through their email messages to NinjaTrader that would then send the order to Ameritrade.

In Tradestation when I check the box: Generate strategy orders for display in TradeManager’s Strategy Orders tab – Automate execution using SIM##### account with confirmation off.

I receive the following warning dialog box:

“A strategy cannot be automated for an account when there is the possibility that another strategy that trades the opposite direction is applied to the same symbol in another chart.”

Do I need to generate strategy orders for display in TradeManager’s Strategy Orders tab to have the orders be emailed to NinjaTrader?

If I can trade two or more strategies in Tradestation on the same symbol and bypass their restrictions because I’m sending the orders to NinjaTrader, could you explain how I would set that up to avoid their warning messages.

Thank you.

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello Trade95,

Thank you for your post.

Yes, it is possible to use the email interface to send orders from Tradestation to NinjaTrader. Here's a link to our help guide that walks you through how to set that up:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/set_up.htm

As far as your intentions to use this to circumvent Tradestation's restriction on using multiple strategies, that unfortunately won't work. As the setup works, once you've set this up to send the strategy's orders to NinjaTrader, orders will NOT be sent to any live Tradestation brokerage account; only NInjaTrader will receive them and execute the orders.

Running two strategies on the same account runs a real risk of your acccount ending up in an unintended account position. Think of it this way - you have two strategies running on the same account/instrument combo. Strategy 1 enters a trade with a 5 long buy order. The account position and strategy position are now both 5 long. Then Strategy 2 enters a trade, but it enters with a 8 short sell order. So now, Strategy 1 thinks the position is 5 long, Strategy 2 thinks it is 8 short, and the actual account position is 3 short. This causes issues if you do not expect the position you are actually in.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.

[Trade95]

Thanks for your reply. I realize it sounds like it won’t work, but I was doing something similar with another charting software that was sending the orders to Interactive Brokers.

I would put all trades related to one strategy on one chart and the other strategy had its own chart, and each chart sent all orders to IB not caring what the purpose of the order was for, profit target or stop loss, if it was a buy or sell order that’s what it would send and that's what IB would process.

In your example if I were doing what I used to do with IB then the chart that thought it had 5 long positions would still think that and if I had any attached OCO orders they would still function and be sent to IB if the price reached their levels.

Conversely the other chart would still show an 8 contract short position. If for example a profit target was reached on the virtual 5 long position an order would be sent to IB to sell 5. In reality I would then go from having 3 short at IB to having 8 short at IB.

The math actually works because trades are sent from each independent chart and even though they are funneled into the same trading account, IB just processed all orders unaware of what the purpose of the order was.

I was able to do that with another charting software but unfortunately Interactive Brokers has not made it’s zero commission rate work with it’s TWS software which is what the other company used for its API.

I’m not sure if you meant that it’s not possible at all or that it would just be confusing to do that.

Is there a way to have Tradestation send the orders from two different charts without me having to check that box that brought up the warning dialog box? If so, then it might work if Ameritrade just processes the orders as they’re received the way Interactive Brokers used to.

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello Trade95,

Thank you for your note.

I would not be able to verify if there is a workaround for that warning dialog within Tradestation - you'd need to ask them directly. However, my understanding is that you'd need to run the two strategies in two different Tradestation workspaces, and it would also be advisable to ensure all entry signal names are unique between the two strategies in order to run more than one strategy on an instrument in this way. Again, this would not be recommended and will lead to inaccurate PnL reported by the strategies.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.

[Trade95]

Hello, I think there was a misunderstanding, I went back and reread your first reply where you wrote:

“As the setup works, once you've set this up to send the strategy's orders to NinjaTrader, orders will NOT be sent to any live Tradestation brokerage account; only NInjaTrader will receive them and execute the orders.”

I did not want to send my orders to the Tradestation brokerage, I wanted to have Tradestation send through email the orders to NinjaTrader and then NinjaTrader would forward them to my Ameritrade account.

I realized after reading more of the NinjaTrader documentation…
https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ntegration.htm

…that I’m not supposed to check the box that says, “Automate execution using Sim etc.” which is perfect since that is the check box that does not allow one to trade concurrent strategies on the same symbol in Tradestation which was the problem that I wrote about initially.

To work with NinjaTrader I need to only check the box above it that says, "Generate strategy orders for display in TradeManager's Strategy Orders tab."

Also reading more of the NinjaTrader documentation it said the following:

“If you are running concurrent strategies on the same market you should ensure that you either
•Make all signal names unique or
•Run the concurrent strategies in different TradeStation workspaces
This will ensure accurate processing of your automated signals.”

You had mentioned setting up unique signal names as well, so after reading that one can run concurrent strategies on the same market I wanted to make sure that before I fund the account at Ameritrade that I can definitely do the following:

1. Send orders from Tradestation to NinjaTrader through Tradestation’s email notification.

2. Multiple strategies on the same symbol, as long as they have unique signal names, will be sent to Ameritrade for processing in the same Ameritrade account.

If that is correct, that would work great for what I’m trying to do. I had cancelled my NinjaTrader subscription but still have a couple of months left and if all works well I’ll renew it again.

Also, could you tell me if I can test all of this by sending orders from Tradestation to NinjaTrader and then to my Ameritrade paper trading sim account.

Thanks again.

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello Trade95,

Thank you for your reply.

I do apologize as I must have misread the initial request and was thinking you were trying to route the orders to both NT and TS, not TS > NT > TDA. Yes, you can use TradeStation to pass orders to NT that will then send those orders to your TDA account.

As we've mentioned previously, running multiple strategies on the same instrument and account combination is not recommended, but yes, NinjaTrader could route whatever it receives from TradeStation to your TDA account. Just be aware that this is a very easy way to find your account in an unintended position.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.

[Trade95]

Another question, if I open a brokerage account through NinjaTrader, would I be able to do the same thing as with a stock account. Can I send futures trades from Tradestation through their email system to NinjaTrader to be executed through the broker you work with either PhillipCapital or Dorman Trading.

Since the margins are so low for the NQ micro contract it would be possible to open separate accounts to be able to trade each system individually on the NQ contract in order to avoid the possible problems with trading multiple systems on the same account as you mentioned previously.

If I did that would I be able to open one primary account with additional subaccounts to be able to segregate the funds and the trading systems, one per account. Or would I have to open multiple separate accounts.

One primary account with multiple subaccounts would be much easier to open but if that’s not possible I could try trading multiple systems with unique signal names on the NQ micro in one account to see if it worked okay, and then if there were problems open multiple futures accounts.

Thanks again.

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello Trade95,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, you can route orders from TradeStation to a NinjaTrader brokerage account. You would want to speak to our Brokerage Support team about what they would be able to set up for you. This forum is primarily for the software itself, so they aren't on here, but you can reach them via email at brokeragesupport [at] ninjatrader [dot] com. I know they are able in some cases to set up multiple accounts under the same login, so that could definitely be a possibility.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.

[Trade95]

Hello, the account is funded and I set up the connection and the email notifications, all the test messages worked for each of them Active, Cancelled, Filled, and Rejected.

The Ninja control panel shows the account name and the amount in the account. I checked the box in Tradestation to send orders to the Trade Manager but nothing happened when the automatic orders started to be filled in Tradestation.

I thought maybe the problem was that I was in Simulation mode in Tradestation so I logged into Live mode but it still did not work. In NinjaTrader I have Global Simulation unchecked and in the Tools>Options I have AT interface checked, the default account is my account at TDA and I have Tradestation email interface checked with Market order on TS fill selected.

Is there something else I need to do to have the orders sent from Tradestation to NinjaTrader to TDA. Also my TDA account is up and running as well, and all of them are on the same computer. At first I had forgotten to change my AntiVirus software to not scan outgoing emails, so I changed that and it still did not fix the problem.

Thanks for your help with this.

[Trade95]

I did not rename the workspaces, I'll try that and see if it works.

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello Trade95,

Thank you for your reply.

The workspace name must contain "NinjaTrader;" (one word, without the quotations) otherwise NinjaTrader will NOT process any trade signals received from TradeStation.
Please double check this page of our help guide to make sure you have the Tradestation workspace set up correctly:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/workspace_options.htm

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.