[Mr_You]

Hello! I'm a total newb to trading. I've been a systems engineer for over 15 years now and ready for a career change. I'm mostly interested in tape reading and so that is the current path I am taking. But I am also interested in automated trading, quantitative analysis, etc. So I've been searching for which software I should invest my time and money. I did a quick search in this sub-forum and didn't find an answer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the latest versions of Ninja Trader and MultiCharts do not appear to offer automated trading with enough flexibility/tick detail to "read the tape". Or maybe MultiCharts comes close but their PowerLanguage is not flexible enough?

I'm also very interested in Python, R+RStudio, but the libraries available do not appear to be as complete as most trading-specific software packages. It would essentially require me to write my own functions which may not be a huge problem but it requires more initial effort to get up and running.

I understand Matlab is the dominant tool for quantitative analyst but R seems to have a lot of momentum. Its also free which greatly reduces your cost if your using multiple machines.

I realize I may end up using different software packages for different situations/requirements, but I would like to get started with automating tape reading first. So can anyone offer any direction? Thanks!

[Tams]

First, don't mean to pour cold water over your enthusiasm... trading is not a career. Don't expect this to be your career change.


About tape reading...
1. you have to quantify "What is tape reading"?

2. Ninjatrader (C++) and MultiCharts (EasyLanguage) have been around for a long time, pretty well anything a newb wants to do has been asked and tried before.

If you can imagine it,
if you can visualize it,
if you can quantify it,
if you can articulate it,
you can code it.

[Mr_You]

Originally Posted by Tams »

First, don't mean to pour cold water over your enthusiasm... trading is not a career. Don't expect this to be your career change.

Can you be more specific? Do most day traders who make a living in this field not have a "career" in this field? I realize it takes years.

About tape reading...
1. you have to quantify "What is tape reading"?

Not sure what you mean by this. Tape Reading is the oldest known method of watching the action.

2. Ninjatrader (C++) and MultiCharts (EasyLanguage) have been around for a long time, pretty well anything a newb wants to do has been asked and tried before.

From what I understand, and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, NinjaTrader and MultiCharts do not offer as much detail in their automation APIs as say something like interactive brokers API + Matlab or R or Python.

FYI, NinjaTrader uses C#.

I'll try to post an update soon.

[daVinciLite]

The only automated tape reading I've seen is at Schooloftrade.com | Learn How to Day Trade Futures, Crude Oil, Gold, E-mini. He has something called the “speed of tape”.

I use a footprint chart and cumulative delta to "read the tape."

Good luck,
dVL

[SIUYA]

Originally Posted by Mr_You »

Not sure what you mean by this. Tape Reading is the oldest known method of watching the action.
.

Dont get too hung up of definitions as that is an endless argument about the differences between tape reading and price action, I think Tams in his unique way is saying ---- spell out precisely what you are looking for the system/platform/program to do and then.... dont just give it a name that has different meanings to many different folks. there are threads here somewhere discussing this.

Sierra Chart is another - uses C++ - it has a version using TPO (i think - might be worth a look)
Ultimately each system is different and each has their advantages and disadvantages depending on what you wish to achieve....and you need to trial each and see what you like....often many people start with one and switch.

[BlowFish]

Originally Posted by Tams »

First, don't mean to pour cold water over your enthusiasm... trading is not a career. Don't expect this to be your career change.


About tape reading...
1. you have to quantify "What is tape reading"?

2. Ninjatrader (C++) and MultiCharts (EasyLanguage) have been around for a long time, pretty well anything a newb wants to do has been asked and tried before.

If you can imagine it,
if you can visualize it,
if you can quantify it,
if you can articulate it,
you can code it.

OK maybe I am being pedantic whilst for all intents and purposes what Tams says is true but there are things that you just can not do for example analysing multiple data streams (like order book analysis for example). Having said that TSSuport have made some changes in version 7.0 of MC to allow bid ask last analysis though to do this with historical data you will need IQfeed from what I understand, I am a bot sketchy on the details and am still talking to them about it. Ninja has some third party stuff written by a user called Gomi). This maintains a completely separate database of tick data with the required precision to do this sort of analysis.

Tams is correct though, I am just being 'picky' but there are some things (albeit pretty rare) that you will not be able to do due to the architecture of the products. 'Tape reading' (depending on what exactly you want to do) might be one of those things.

[bobcollett]

Mr-You
You are obviously clued up with all these programs you mention but as Tams asks "what is tape reading ?
Are you referring to the olded days ( Tams days) when you stood in front of a telex and you read the trades? And you made a decision on Union Steel at good volume.
Or are you referring to modern price action which relies on pullbacks.Where Oil pulls back to $105 in an uptrend.
You dont even need volume according to Al Brooks!
Whichever you choose,there is a subjective part in the trade,"is this the high/ low of the day?'
When your computer program can tell you that,I'd be very keen to buy a copy
bobc

[Mr_You]

I appreciate Tams and everyones posts. Really enjoying learning all I can about trading. Yeah I should clarify some things.. So "Tape Reading" vs "tape reading" (to me hehe)....

Tape Reading is: manually or algorithmically analyzing the tick-by-tick data for a given stock: bid, bidsize, ask, asksize, last, lastsize. This could be done in real-time or replaying "recorded"/saved data (for backtesting or manually observing) and/or relying on a data provider with near tick-by-tick data (one second or less snapshots).

So...

First I want to observe and study the market manually (literally "read the tape" for discretionary trading) while also learning my tick-by-tick capable tools. I'm sure I will probably end up porting some EasyLanguage based strategies later on. I've paid, not much really, a mentor for manual Tape Reading training for discretionary trading.

Regarding the tick-by-tick tools...

I have installed the MultiCharts v7 trial and visited it off and on. I'll check again tonight regarding its tick-by-tick analysis capabilities.

I found it VERY easy to install, connect, and demo: interactive brokers Trader Workstation, R, RStudio, and the IBrokers R package which connects R to IB via the TWS API. This setup is very appealing! It beats any opensource trading platform I've come across, but I need to further investigate IBrokers maturity. Who knows maybe I can contribute to the project.

I wasn't able to get the ibPy Python package (connects Python to IB TWS API) installed on this Windows XP installation. I will try it on Linux when time allows. But unfortunately the project looks abandoned (last release was Dec 2008). I may only use Python for utility purposes, not trading strategies.

I've toyed with Matlab in the past, but found it a little overwhelming. I like the simplicity and price of R and RStudio (a desktop OR browser based R IDE!!). Matlab will probably be a last resort.