Manual trading

The Order window has quite a lot of fields to fill in. Starting from scratch, it's slow and cumbersome when you want to send an order to the broker as quickly as possible. But there are 2 ways you can pounce on a trade if need be:

1. Fill in all the details beforehand, and save it. Keep the status at "New". When it comes time to actually place the order with the broker, you can just click "Edit" and send. Even if you have to change some fields then it's just a couple of clicks.
2. Copy an existing order that you already sent to the broker. Set the status back to "New". Edit the other fields, send to the broker.

See also:

• Statuses of orders and trades

 
For Orders

• New - before you've sent the order to the broker.
• Open - you've sent the order to the broker.
• Entered - the order was taken up, and a trade was opened.
• Cancelled - you cancelled the order before it was taken up.

 
For Trades

• Open - the trade is currently sitting with your broker. You have the option of moving the stop loss or take profit. Any profit or loss is only a paper profit or loss at this stage.
• Closed - the trade was closed, or the stop loss was taken out, or take profit hit. The profit or loss is real.

 
Changing the status

You are free to change the status at any time to any value. But it's best to keep the status in sync with the broker.
 

That is, you want to gradually purchase more units as a trade goes in your favour. But you want to exit everything at the same time.

Just like pyramiding out, what you need to do is set up multiple trading systems. The systems would be exact copies of each other, with the only difference being the entry rules. In this way you get different entry points, but they all exit at the same time.
 

That is, you want to take partial profits, but keep some money on the table.

For example, I know of a trading system in which you buy 3 contracts at the same time. The first contract is exited by use of a take profit, perhaps 10 pips above the entry price.

The second contract has a trailing stop-loss.

The third contract is exited when the reverse position is taken (the system was mirrored, and if in a long position, this contract would be exited when the rules for going short were met).

It's important to realise that such rules essentially create multiple trading systems, not just one. You have trading system #1 where you use a 10-pip take-profit, trading system #2 where you use a trailing stop-loss, and trading system #3 where you exit at market when opening a trade in the opposite direction.

And that's exactly how to set it up in ATM - make multiple trading systems instead of one. They'd be an exact copy of each other, except that the trade management rules would differ.

Because every system would have the same entry rules and values, they would all enter a trade at the same time. But with the trade management rules being different, they will exit at different times.

See also:

• To pyramid in

This is good for people who want the entry to be done by a computer, but then want to do the trade management by themselves. Such people may have a mechanical system for knowing when to place orders, but for whatever reason they can't pull the trigger themselves (analysis paralysis, a really complex system with a lot of entry rules, etc). However, once in the trade, they have no trouble looking after it by themselves.

Essentially, you just create a bare-bones trading system - entry rules, entry values, and an initial stop loss value. Once ATM opens the trade, it therefore has no instructions on how to manage it, so you are free to do it yourself.

In this scenario where you want to do the trade management yourself, it might be a good idea to have ATM alert you that it has opened a trade.
 

This is good for people who want to do the trade entry by themselves, but after that want the trade management to be done by a computer. Such people might have a discretionary system for knowing when to place orders, but the trade management aspect is mechanical. Or maybe you're just at work and see a really good opportunity to buy but you don't have the time to baby-sit the trade once open.

First, you will need a trading system - the one that is going to do the trade management. And, that trading system will require entry rules and values because they are mandatory for a system to do anything at all. The trick is to set the entry rules such that they could never be true. For example, have two trading rules:

1. the Close must be above SMA(5)
2. the Close must be below SMA(5)

Both rules could never be true at the same time, so this trading system will never open an order by itself.

The entry value can be anything you like. I guess "enter at market" is easiest, remembering that it will never be triggered. Similarly, set the initial stop loss value to anything simple - maybe entry price minus 50 pips.

You then set up your trade management rules as per your preferences.

Set the auto-trading status of the trading system to be "Trade Mgmt Only". On the Command Centre, start the scheduled processes that download or create the price bars required by your system. And finally, make sure the auto-trading scheduled process is running. You are now free to place orders manually.

From here there are two possible scenarios - whether you can use ATM to place the orders, or whether you're at work or somewhere that you only have access to your broker's platform.

In either case, and this is ** very important ** ensure you always use a stop loss, and ensure a trading system has only one open trade at any time. It is also important to test these strategies in a demo account before proceeding with real money. As you should with any trading system.
 

If you can use ATM to place the orders

When placing your orders or trades manually, do it through the Order window. This lets you specify directly the trading system that opened the order or trade. Also put a tick in the "Handled by ATM" checkbox." Then that trading system (which you have currently auto-trading) sees the trade there and looks after it with its trade management settings.

It's better to use market orders though (which are turned into a trade instantaneously). Because the trading system's entry rules can never be true at the same time, and also because you have the status set to "Trade Mgmt Only", if the system sees an open order there it will want to cancel it.
 

If you can't use ATM to place the orders

In this case, you are restricted to using only one trading system per account to do your trade management (whereas with the above method you can choose from any number of trading systems).

Through the internet, or your broker's trading platform, open a new trade in your account. When ATM downloads the transactions for that account, it will see the new trade there. But because you didn't place the order through ATM, it will not know which trading system to use to manage the trade.

In this case, ATM normally says that the trade was opened by the "Unknown" system. And because the Unknown system doesn't auto-trade, that's the end of the matter as far as ATM is concerned.

However, you can change this so that ATM does not use the Unknown system, but rather uses a trading system of your choice. And this setting can be changed by editing the account (in ATM). Each account has a default trading system setting. Change it to be the system you want to do your trade management.

Now when you open a trade through your broker's platform, ATM will assign that trading system to look after it.
 

That is, you don't enter anything in the initial take profit values, but you do use the take profit management rules and values. So when the trade is opened, it doesn't have a take profit. But then at some point later your trading system tries to move it.

Using the take profit management rules and values is always ok if you use it to exit at market. This is because you're not actually moving a take profit - you're just closing the trade.

Otherwise, what's going to happen depends on the broker. Some allow a take profit to be added at a later date even if there wasn't one when the trade was opened. Other brokers don't allow it. Try it in a demo account.
 

Once a trade is opened, a "take profit" is (optionally) set at a particular price so that if the trade goes the right way, the trade will be automatically closed by your broker at a profit.

Whereas a stop loss is mandatory, take profits are optional. The reason is that there are 3 ways to exit a trade:

1. The take profit is hit, in which case the broker will close your trade automatically at the requested price.
2. Exit the trade at market - i.e. right now, at wherever the current price is. Whether you make a profit or not on this trade is determined by where the current price is in relation to the entry price.
3. As the price goes more and more in your favour, you gradually move your stop loss to follow the price (i.e. a trailing stop). The hope is that eventually your stop loss is above your entry price. Once the price turns around and the stop loss is taken out, your broker will close your trade automatically at the requested price.

The other difference between take profits and stop losses is that a take profit can be moved up or down at any time, for both long trades and short. A stop loss may never be moved to a position where you were risking more money than before.

See also::

• stop loss

Once a trade is opened, a "stop loss" is set at a particular price so that if the trade goes the wrong way, you will only lose a set and pre-determined amount of money.

ATM requires that all orders and trades have a stop loss set, whether orders are being placed manually or automatically. As such, trading systems that do not have anything for the Initial Stop Loss settings will not place any orders.

Because this is automated trading software, and because it's designed so that you can kick it off and go and do other things, it's best that some emergency checks and balances are in place. Should ATM place a trade without a stop loss, and then your Internet connection went down for whatever reason, now your entire account balance is at risk with that trade not being managed by anybody or any thing. And you don't even know what's happening because you're at the beach drinking beers.

And so a stop loss mandatory. However, there is nothing stopping you from putting that stop loss ridiculously far away from the current price - so far away that it's essentially the same as not having a stop loss. This is not recommended, but you can if you want.

See also::

• take profit