Start of June 2010 Update

The next release of ATM will have enhanced messaging capabilities. There used to be just email and SMS as ways to be notified when trading systems and alerts did stuff. And a popup-notifier and/or system tray for when there were unread messages.

v3.0.3 will see messages being sent by any combination of your choosing from:

• email
• SMS
• Twitter
• Growl
• Snarl
• Notify.io
• Notifo

And of course the popup-notifier and system tray icon.

Growl, Snarl, and Notify.io are all "notification handlers", which receive messages from a variety of different sources and pass them on to you via whatever method you choose - be that just an alert on your computer, or they forward via email, SMS or whatever. So if there's a way to be notified, I'm pretty sure ATM can now handle it - if not directly then certainly indirectly through these notification handlers.

I know what you're saying. "That's cool Sharky, but enough already with the ancillary stuff! Give us automated trading!". And you're right, Mr Shouty. Dead right.

The truth is, FXCM is all connected. But then I found out about a pesky thing known as NFA Compliance Rule 2-43(b).

This rule was enacted in the U.S. quite a few months ago. But stoopid Sharky had his nose buried too deep in programming to bother reading forums anymore. So one day he updates the files that FXCM gave him, and suddenly there's all this stuff about Rule 2-43(b).

It threw us a little.

This rule changed the game a little with respect to currency trading. It says that trades opened in a currency must be closed in the order that they were opened. Open trade #1, open trade #2, open trade #3, and they must be closed first trade #1, then trade #2, then trade #3.

This is a big deal because of stop losses and take profits. Let's say trade #1 had a stop loss that was 500 pips away from the entry price. And let's say trade #3 had a stop loss just 10 pips away. There's a very real chance that trade #3 would be closed first. Which is not allowed.

Some brokers have rejiggered their backends (ahem) so that traders don't have to worry about that. Although the trader might be closing trade #3 first, the brokers work behind the scenes and do some mathematical/accounting magic to ensure that actually it was trade #1 that gets closed and the trader is none the wiser.

FXCM took a different approach. Basically they took the approach of them not doing anything differently, removed the ability for traders to place stop losses and take profits on individual trades, and said that if you want to keep trading as before then you can always use FXCM Australia or FXCM UK (both countries having solid financial regulatory bodies but not the first-open-first-close rule).

Being able to attach a stop loss and/or take profit to a particular trade is 100% necessary for ATM's style of trading. You might have 3 trading systems, all with different rules, all backtested separately, but all trading in EUR/USD. One trading system might have a longer-term outlook and put the stop loss 500 pips away. Another might be very short-term and put the stop loss 10 pips away. There is no way to group these trades together as being a single "position", as FXCM in the U.S. wants us to.

So, the question that we have struggled with, and the reason for the delay, is what do we do? :-)

I'm thinking we'll probably release a version that can trade with FXCM Australia or FXCM UK. But I'm also thinking we'd still need to add another broker which can trade in U.S. accounts.

Anyway, I delayed having to make a decision by focusing on the new messaging stuff. But that's almost finished so we'll have to devise a plan fairly shortly. Stay tuned.

By the way, how's the backtesting going? If you need help, advice, want to brag about your results or ask "can this be right?" then use the forums.