Hey traders, and welcome to another software update! This time, we have introduced some much needed functionality for Strategy Tester and Trading Bots: Instant Exits! Details after the jump!
New trading bot exit and backtesting terms
Users of our strategy functions and trading bots have long demanded the ability to exit a trade at the moment the price reaches a certain target level. In the past, this was limited to the close of the candle, which means that the candle had to close to trigger the exit. Now, instead of having to wait for the candle to close, when you use the Take Profit, Stop Loss or Trailing Stop options, you will exit your trade the moment the price meets your specific requirements.
As can be seen in the image below, next to each of the above exit options, there is a new prompt “After the candle closes” that can be turned on or off. You now have the ability to more precisely define your exit, and choose between exiting immediately or as soon as the candle closes.
This function becomes increasingly useful as the time frame used in the strategy or bot increases.
Let’s say, for example, that you enter into a trade at the opening of a daily candle with a “take profit” target of 10%. It is possible to hit your target during the day and then give back some of what it gained at closing. Take the example graph in the image below. The target was reached at lunchtime and the stock ended up closing 3% lower than the original target. With the old positions on the platform, we would have exited this trade at the end of the day because our profit target was, in fact, met, however, we would have made a profit of only 7% instead of the full 10. %.
One can imagine the frustration of having a stop loss or profit target hit early in the session but the position doesn’t actually close until the time frame candle that is actually being tested has closed.
This new functionality solves this problem, allowing traders to have more accurate exits and, in turn, a more realistic view of how their strategy is working as well as the potential for increased gains and reduced losses.
New Strat Smart Checklists
In addition to the new exit functionality described above, we have also added two new smart menus to the default selections available to all TrenSpider users. They’ve been specifically created with the Strat trading community in mind, and they’re called:
- 3x base layer styles
- Full time frame continuity
The Smart Checklist is a tool option that can be accessed through the “Sidebar” button. Simply click on the sidebar button, select “Add new widget”, and then select the “Smart checklist” option.
Next, click on the dropdown in the Smart Checklist and search for either “Core Strat Pattern 3x” or “Full Time Frame Continuity”. Select the checklist you want and the conditions will be loaded automatically.
3x base layer styles It automatically scans for the type of bar that occurs in the daily, weekly and monthly time frames. With this script, you can quickly see what pattern is forming on each timeframe you are interested in without having to have all the timeframes on your chart at once. The green squares inside the smart checklist indicate the type of candle that forms on each time frame.
The full time frame continuation is a very commonly requested pattern for the vest traders and is simply defined as at least four major time frames all displaying the same type of candle, be it red or green. When all the major time frames agree, there is more confidence that the price will continue in the direction of the candle color. For our pre-set checklist, we have included every major time frame, from 1 minute to monthly, so that the trader can instantly know which time frames are in progress and which are not! For example, in the image below, we can easily see that all candles except for the 5PM and 65PM candles are green!
We hope you find these two updates simple, but useful, and we look forward to adding more functionality related to The Strat and instant alerts in the future!