MakerMovers

Reducing Latency and Increasing Bandwidth in Your Trading Environment

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:54 GMT

Marissa recently created a YouTube video titled "Reducing Latency and Increasing Bandwidth in Your Trading Environment." http://www.trade-ideas.com/VideoHelp/YouTube_Index.html?date=2010-02-19#id36. We've gotten so much response to this, I want to elaborate on a few points.

First, a quick picture will show the path your data takes using HTTP mode vs. a TCP/IP socket. There are more network hops. But more than that, HTTP mode requires your data to be massaged and reformatted. This adds overhead and takes time.

That picture was an ideal case. If you choose to switch between HTTP and the default, high performance mode, that's what you'll see. But if your corporate firewall forces you to use an HTTP connection, it's probably so they can make you to go through their proxy server, as shown below.

The proxy server is another way for the company to monitor what you are doing. It will inspect each message, looking for porn and other things they don't approve of. This proxy server was made for individuals browsing the web one page at a time. It was never designed to support realtime streaming stock alerts. It will get overwhelmed easily. One person monitoring the stock market with Trade-Ideas is like 100 people browsing web pages. You want to avoid the corporate proxy server to maximize performance.

I also want to add a clarification. Marissa pointed to an old video to show how slow HTTP can be sometimes. http://www.trade-ideas.com/VideoHelp/Menu.html?video=Trade-Ideas%20Pro%3A%20Columns%3A%20Charts The stock charts were slow back then for a couple of reasons. That example showed HTTP used in the traditional way. Now Trade-Ideas can provide stock market data much faster, even in HTTP mode. That's because of our proprietary data aggregation and streaming compression technology. That speeds up your internet connection, even when you are forced to use HTTP mode.

A lot of people ask about ping time. As you can see in this picture, pings only give you an ideal picture your speed. They avoid the corporate porn filter and a lot of other things. They are good for measuring ideal network speed, not the actual message traffic. The latency monitor in the Trade-Ideas status bar uses a more accurate measure. We send our test message through the same mechanisms that we use for normal stock alert messages. You need that if you're trying to diagnose any network problems.

At Trade-Ideas we're always striving to make sure you get your stock market alerts as quickly and efficiently as possible. But you might need some help from your IT department. If they ask questions, this page will tell them everything they need to know. http://www.trade-ideas.com/Application/FirewallsAndProxies.html

Stock Scanner Settings in a Market Going Nowhere

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:53 GMT

What does one do when it looks like nothing is happening? Traders often find themselves frustrated at times when seemingly there is nothing going on. This is a time that separates the professionals from the amateur traders.

Professionals know first of all that there is no need to push it. Getting frustrated mentally only hurts your own performance. The market could care less. The first step is to get smaller. Trade smaller share sizes to avoid being whipsawed. The second thing is to use a stock scanner to find tops of ranges for stocks and then fade the moves. When it is clear that the market is not following through use the power of analytical software to find those names that are at either the top or bottom of their 10 or 20 day range. Trade Ideas these filters available to make such a task very easy.

Once you find the stocks the next thing to do is figure out which ones of those are statistically overdone. One great way to do that is to use daily Bollinger Bands this will find the really oversold at the bottom and the really overbought at the top. Having access to this information gives the trader an edge in an otherwise stale market that can "bleed" the inexperienced trader through frustration.

Stock Scanner Setting to Catch the Trend-line Break

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:26 GMT

The Trade-Ideas stock scanner can not only show you events that are happening now that have implications for short term day trading, it is also used to find trading patterns for longer term investing or swing trading.

One of the most powerful trading set ups is a trend-line break either up or down. What we will demonstrate now is how simple it is to create a monthly trend-line breakout system using alerts and filters that are inside the Trade-Ideas stock scanner.

Let's start with the filters. We are looking for stocks that have been trending lower as of late. In order to find that stock pattern we will use our position in 20 day range filter. We will set the maximum value to 15%. That means that stock has to be trading in the lower 15% of its trading range over the last 20 days. To avoid stocks that don't move we added a volatility filter set to have the stock trade at least a range of 1 dollar over the last 20 trading days. If you ever want to know how to set min and max values in our filters and what those values mean, click here to access a tool that we created which specifically explains everything in detail.

Now let's set the trigger to get us to see when the negative trend is broken. The easiest way to do this is to select a 5 day high as the trigger and to make sure that the high is above the high of yesterday.

In the attached picture above you can see the last stock that came across SNMX, take a look at the daily chart for yourself. Finally to make sure this strategy is viable we ran the odds using our OddsMaker. We said we were going to be buying these stocks and holding them for 3 days. Sure enough the results are pretty impressive, with a win rate for this strategy at over 66%.

Being a successful trader means finding what is working more quickly than your competition. This whole exercise took less than 10 minutes to build and test the strategy. We are certain that no set of tools on the market today can get you better and more timely results. That is the power of using the Trade-Ideas stock scanner and our back testing tool called the OddsMaker.

Click here for the exact set up.

What can a Stock Scanner do for you?

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:53 GMT

There is lots of stuff going on behind the scenes at Trade-Ideas. As we work to bring the latest innovations in trading and investing to market we really want to hear from our users. Here is the bottom line. We have lots of alerts and filters to choose from. Basically, when you configure the Trade Ideas stock scanner, you can slice the market up in almost any way that you can imagine. That said, we know there are great ideas out there and we would love to incorporate them if possible. Here is a small example of some features that are coming soon to a Trade-Ideas stock scanner near you.

1) MACD's on multiple time frames

2) Stochastics on multiple time frames

3) RSI on more time frames

4) Top lists

All of the above is already in the works and being tested. Tell us what you want. Post a comment on the blog or send an email to dan@trade-ideas.com

We are serious about getting more of our customers involved in contributing to the feature set!

Investing Smart: Don't Trade Away Your Freedom to Profit

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:28 GMT

Investing and trading are not really all that different. The question is of course the time frame. Day trading has often been portrayed in a negative fashion but in reality the mechanics of investing and day trading are the same. It is all about the time frame, but even that is a bit misleading, the truth is that it is more about control.

When one says, "I am in it for the long term", it is simply a phrase that says I am letting go of risk controls. That may sound harsh but it is true. If an investment starts to perform poorly, how long is the long term? When Ford Motor Company went from $40. per share to $1 at what point do the long term investors say enough? This is at the heart of failure in stock trading as well as investing in the markets. When you give up control, you set yourself up for failure. The big brokerages want this believe it or not. They want you to give them your money and they would prefer if you completely let them control it from start to finish.

Ever wonder how brokers like Schwab and Fidelity still charge $8.99 per trade and try to sell it as cheap? Think about it. You just bought 100 shares of a $10 dollar stock. You just paid 9 cents a share!!! If you had to repeat the process 10 times during the day, you will have paid the brokerage $90 dollars that day. This pricing basically says, please don't trade often. When it is price prohibitive to trade often people feel like they have an excuse for why they give up the control. Do not let yourself fall into this trap. There are less expensive alternative that are just as safe, that will give you the kind of pricing that at least makes it possible to get out of danger. Imagine a car that only turned right!

Does that mean you have to trade stocks often? Not necessarily, you just need to have the ability to do so without punishment. We are fortunate today because many things that are important to long term investors, like P/E ratios, sales, and debt can be incorporated into stock scanning software where the results automatically make sure you are only looking at candidates that meet the minimum level of performance in a long term investing or trading strategy.

The Trade Ideas stock scanner incorporates fundamental data so that when you see the stock scanner results, the stocks are not only performing well from a technical analysis and price action point of view they also have strong or weak fundamentals depending on which way you are looking to trade the stock. Click here to see all the fundamental options that are available in the Trade Ideas stock scanner.

When looking at strength or weakness don't settle for being one dimensional. Take advantage of all that the Trade Ideas stock scanner has to offer, including a wide breadth of fundamental data to help you zero in on winning trades!

iPhone Stock Screener, version 2, is now available in the app store

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:58 GMT

Be sure to check out the recent upgrades to our iPhone app!

What's new in version 2

We've added more icons for clarity.
You can now log in to your Trade-Ideas account from your iPhone. This is not required, but it will allow you to access some additional features.
Your scans can now include custom symbol lists. You can now scan for only certain symbols, or exclude certain symbols.
You can now sync your stock scans between your iPhone and your computer. You can create a market scan on either one, and then use it on the other.

Free Realtime Market Data on the iPhone

We've gotten one request more than any other. People want to get realtime market data rather than delayed data. And they want it for free.

That's a little tricky for a number of reasons. There are exchange fees, of course. But we're working on it. We plan to set it up where you can use the data from your Trade-Ideas account or your brokerage account on your iPhone. You're already paying for that, so why not use it everywhere you go?

Do you like our iPhone app?

We've got a lot of active users, but only a handful of reviews in the iTunes store. This is a free product. We're doing it all for the publicity. If you like our iPhone app, and you want us to continue working on it, please give us a good review. Thanks!

Download our Free iPhone app

Click here to get more information about our app, including download instructions. iPhone Stock Screener Help

Stock Scanner, Stock Screener, Stock Filters: Know the difference

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:46 GMT

We find that many people today are confused about the difference between common industry terms that describe software that helps to identify trading opportunities. This blog post is to help clear up this problem. Let's start at the top.

Stock Scanner - A stock scanner, like the Trade-Ideas real time stock scanner is software that watches the market in real-time and then displays events in a streaming format. That means you do not have to manually do anything to get new information. As new stock alerts occur they are streamed directly to your desktop.

Stock Screener - A stock screener, like the one found in the Trade-Ideas trader's area section gives the end user a list of filters like price, volume, and many other criteria by which to limit the search. Once the user inputs all of the appropriate stock filters, the software goes to the database and retrieves a static list of all of the stocks that met the criteria. The most important thing to note is that stock screeners are static, that means they do not update unless you refresh the page or manually adjust the filter criteria.

Stock Filters - Stock filters, like the ones found in the Trade-Ideas help section are used to limit the criteria by which to search for opportunities. Examples of stock filters include, price, volume, EPS, beta, or even a customized symbol list. Stock filters are very helpful in refining scans or screens in order to not be inundated with tons of information.

We hope this helps to clear up what you are actually looking for when evaluating trade detection software.

Stocks Down for the Day: A Great Pattern for Your Scanner

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:28 GMT

A very common question we get is,

"How do i find stocks that are down for the day? I only see 'up' filters."

A new video shows how to find stocks that are up or down for the day, using our "up from the close" filters. Thank you Marissa for explaining that so clearly.

A related question is,

"Why don't you add a down for the day filter?"

The short answer is that you only have one column in your market view showing this information. You wouldn't create an up for the day column and a separate down for the day column. That would be a waste of space on the market view, and it would be a waste of space on our config window. The video shows the relationship between the filters and the fields in the market view. It's all the same data!

Another question in this theme is

"Wouldn't it be easier to have a down for the day filter?"

I admit that I used to have these same thoughts. Sometimes negative numbers are confusing. But once I started to work through some examples, I realized the power of negative numbers. I would not want to type in something like:

Show me stocks where: The price was up from the previous close.
Also show me stocks where: The price was flat from the previous close.
Also show me stocks where: The price was down no more than 0.5% from the previous close.
Also show me stocks where: The price was down at least 1.5% from the previous close.

It is much more concise to enter just two values into the filter. http://www.trade-ideas.com/MinMaxNegative/?min=-0.5&x=-1.5&filter_name=FCP

I started from the video. The market as a whole was down about 1%. I'm looking for stocks that did not move the same was as the rest of the market. But then I started making some changes. What if the market is down by only 1/4%? Or up by 1/4%? By expressing these values only as numbers, it was easy to move the range around as I needed it. And by using the our new filter visualization tool, I could really see what was going on.

Good luck modeling? Call us or contact us with any questions or help you need building your patterns.