The Smart Stock Automation Engine automates your trading execution from start to finish. After configuring it for each of your systems, the automation will schedule tasks on your computer (or VPS) to update your Norgate data, open Amibroker, Run Maintenance, backtest your systems, generate the signal files, check your Interactive Brokers account balance, check your system’s number of positions and total exposure against the capital allocation specified, size your trades, place your trades, exit any closed trades and record the results in the log files… It will then send you an email summarising the automation run and any associated executions.

If you follow the instructions precisely the setup will be done for your first system in less than an hour. However, please do not expect to have your entire portfolio automated in your live account on day 1. You should aim to transition gradually over several weeks first into your paper trader account with a single system and then multiple systems, and then into your live account.

Some coding is required to be added to your trading systems to allow them to work with The Smart Stock Automation Engine. Depending on the system there may be some configuration requirements that we will need to help you with initially. We will have regular group automation workshops to get this up and running for everyone smoothly and for members of The Trader Success System we will be rolling out ‘automation ready’ versions of the system code gradually over the coming weeks. You do not need to be an AFL coding genius to use the automation.

Yes. We will have regular (weekly initially, then monthly) automation workshops to address any issues and provide support. We will also provide a private Slack channel for ongoing support should it be required. For members of The Trader Success System, we will also be providing automation code for the TSS systems so they will run ‘out of the box’. This code will be developed and rolled out over the coming weeks.

Yes. Instructions are provided on how to add and stop strategies in your automated portfolio.

No you do not need to exit existing trades. The first time the automation is ran, it will collect any unassigned positions and put them into the Open Position Record with the strategy name of UNKNOWN and note that on the report. The user can then just go in and edit the record to assign the correct strategy name and/or split the holding between strategies. As long as you assign the existing holding to the strategy name in the Open Position Record, then if a sell signal is subsequently produced by the strategy, the automation will apply it to that holding.

The automation is similar in concept to The Crypto Automation Engine although it is built specifically for Interactive Brokers. The automation will run multiple strategies, long and short across one or more Interactive Brokers accounts. It will correctly manage multiple positions in the same instrument from different systems and it will record all transactions it makes for use in your trade log and trade analysis as well as track your daily account equity value.

If you are just starting your trading journey and are not yet comfortable with manual trade execution then we would recommend you trade manually first so that you understand exactly what you are automating. This does not mean, however, that you cannot take advantage of our launch special – we would suggest you subscribe to the Automation and set it up in your Interactive Brokers Paper Trader account and monitor it while you trade manually in your live account. Once you are comfortable you can switch it over to your live account when you are ready.

The automation does not start up TWS and so has no need (and no access to) your login details. The startup of TWS must be done manually or with the help of a third-party tool called IBC Helper. The automation itself, therefore, presents no threat to the security of your login details. If you choose to use the IBC Helper tool (which is not provided by us) then you should familiarise yourself with the risks and considerations of that tool and make your own decision about the safety of the tool. 

Yes. We recommend you first set up your system(s) in the paper trader account to ensure everything is working correctly before switching over to your live account.

The automation will not know anything about the trade other than whether it is a buy / hold / sell. If you want to remove takeovers from your portfolio the best way to do this is to ensure your trading systems have rules to avoid purchasing takeover stocks and also regularly check your account (weekly) to ensure you are tracking the stocks in your portfolio for potential takeover candidates and exit these manually if appropriate.

The automation interrogates Interactive Brokers to identify any minimum lot size requirements such as those found in Hong Kong stocks. Where a calculated position size does not result in an even number of lots the automation will round the position size down to the nearest even lot size. For example, if the position size calculation is 3750 shares and the minimum lot size is 2000 shares, then the automation will round the position down to 2000 shares. If the calculated position size was 450 shares and the minimum lot size was 600 shares the trade would be skipped because it would be rounded down to zero lots. This is the lowest-risk approach to managing your trades.

Yes you can operate it via any interactive brokers account. You can also use multiple accounts should you wish. 

The automation can handle all of the typical order types MKT, LMT, STP, MOC, ALGO and OCA. Should there be a more exotic order type required it can easily be added.

In this situation your trade would likely be rejected the same as it would if you placed it manually. You should see this in your monitoring and you can redo that order manually as a limit order (the same as you likely do now). You could also adjust the system in question to submit limit orders rather than market orders to eliminate the problem, although this may have implications for the profitability of the system and you would need to backtest that yourself.

This is up to the individual to choose. Any order type can be specified for entry and exit. This means you can run the automation with the same order types that you currently use for your manual trading.

The automation will run a standard backtest to generate the signals followed by an explore to format the signals for submission to Interactive Brokers. The backtest is available in the Report Log in Amibroker and the explore results are stored in the Automation log. However, the automation also produces trade order and execution reports which likely negate the need for the above.

The Stock Automation Engine is designed to be operated in fully automated mode without manually checking of orders before they are placed into Trader Workstation (TWS). In the situation where you need / want to review your orders before they are executed we recommend you schedule your automation run sufficiently in advance of the market open to allow you to review the orders in TWS prior to execution. This will allow you to cancel any orders manually should you require.

As for the previous question this will need to be done in Trader Workstation after the automation has run. You can select the time your automation runs to give yourself enough time to cancel any orders you do not want submitted before the market opens.

Yes.

Yes. You can automate as many systems as you like with the one subscription.

No. The Smart Stock Automation Engine is automation software that connects Amibroker to Interactive Brokers and allows you to automate the execution of your end of day trading strategies. You must provide the complete trading systems in the format specified in the setup instructions and the automation will run those systems for you. No trading strategies are supplied with the Smart Stock Automation Engine.

No. The returns are entirely dependant on the trading systems that you choose to automate and future market conditions. The automation simply takes your current manual signal generation process and automates it from start to finish.

You can trade any markets available on the Interactive Brokers platform. In particular it is designed to work with any stocks globally that are on the IB platform as well as ETFs.

Yes, the Stock Automation Engine handles Amibroker systems natively and Realtest systems can be handled by outputting a signal file from Realtest in a particular format that the Automation Engine can read. Note that if you are only a Realtest User (ie. not Amibroker) this is probably not for you initially as we are focusing our support primarily on Amibroker users to begin with.

No. The Stock Automation Engine is the program that automates the process from generating the signals to placing and managing the trades in Interactive Brokers. It does not include the systems themselves. All of the systems in The Trader Success System can be automated and most other systems can be automated with the right configuration. 

We don’t think so – everything we have tried so far has been easily automatable. Note that we are automating directional trading strategies and we do not support options or stock spreads at this time. Trend Following, Mean Reversion, Rotational Trading systems all work fine both long and short with The Smart Stock Automation Engine.

Think of The Smart Stock Automation Engine as your trading helper – it places the trades so that you can be freed up for more important and high value things. You must obviously still monitor your trading systems, the fills, your open trades and your system performance to ensure you are happy with the signals you are generating that the automation will to place for you. You will provide all of the risk management settings and position sizing exactly as you do now in your manual trading.

No! Automated trading is not Unattended Trading. Unattended trading is reckless and is not recommended. You should treat your trading like a business and monitor regularly and manage it accordingly. 

Like any technology, there are a range of things that could potentially go wrong. Internet connection, power outage, software compatibility problems, user configuration error, data errors amongst others. The most important message we can give you here is AUTOMATED TRADING IS NOT, AND SHOULD NOT BE UNATTENDED TRADING. Should you decide to automate your trading you must monitor it closely for errors just like you would when trading manually.

We have a Slack group for support should something go wrong, however you will always have the ability to generate your signals and place your trades manually if something goes wrong. Our recommendation is to ensure your automation runs well ahead of the market open to ensure you have adequate time to check all the orders before they are executed. This will also give you sufficient time to take manual action should something go wrong for any reason.

You should be monitoring your automated trading closely every day if at all possible to check for quality of fills / executions and any errors. You will need to intervene if you observe any errors or trades that are not placed correctly. In our experience this is rare, but it can happen. If your automation takes a trade in a ticker that you do not want to hold for some reason (eg. A stock that is under takeover offer), you will need to manually cancel that order if it has not been executed or close the trade if it has been executed.

You can implement the automation on your current computer, however to maximise the benefits of stability, and uptime, we would recommend you consider moving to a VPS. This drastically reduces the risk of power failure or internet access disruption from impacting your trading. Setting up on a VPS is easy and we will provide instructions on request.

The Smart Stock Automation Engine regular price will be $413 USD + $14 per month, however because you are a member of the Early Bird waitlist, you will receive a 20% discount. The Early Bird pricing is:

• USD 333 + 14 per month
• EUR 392 + 13 per month
• AUD 479 + 20 per month