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DAS TRADER PRO ADVANCED HOTKEYS – A PRIMER [2024-04-15: Production v.5.7.9.3] − Speed and efficiency are paramount in the fast-paced world of stock trading, particularly day trading. As traders, we are constantly seeking tools to gain an edge in the market. One such tool that has gained popularity among day traders is DAS Trader Pro, renowned for its robust platform and advanced hotkey scripting capabilities. − As I share insights about DAS’s Advanced Hotkeys, I want to underscore that most of the knowledge I’ve acquired about this craft—like many others in the trading community—was generously shared. I must acknowledge that I have no official affiliation with DAS Trader Pro software and that my present information is based solely on personal experience. − This presentation serves as my way of giving back—a small contribution to the community that has provided me with so much. Everything discussed here is intended for educational purposes only. It's crucial always to conduct your due diligence and independently verify any details, as this responsibility ultimately lies with you. The concept − The purpose of this exercise was to create a set of hotkeys for my trading. My hotkeys came from various good Samaritans willing to share; not all are equally effective. Understanding the complexity of the script itself was challenging at first. It's essential to test your hotkeys before trading, as you may realize they are not working as intended or don't meet your specific needs. − I set out to create a single hotkey script to fulfill most of my trading requirements, from buying options calls and puts to trading shares of stocks, long or short, while managing risk. The accompanying Excel spreadsheet allows you to input your specific settings. Want to trade stocks, long or short? Options, buying Calls, or Puts? Adjust risk levels? It’s all there. You create a script that aligns precisely with your trading style by customizing these parameters. Script Flow In this section, I will summarize the key steps in the script, from initializing variables to setting up the trigger order based on the defined trading strategy. 1. Initialize trading variables using the accompanying Excel spreadsheet (risk per trade, position size, price offsets, etc.). 2. Check trade bias: a. If LONG: Calculate the buy price and set up a SELL stop-loss order. b. If SHORT: Calculate the selling price and set up a BUY stop-loss order. 3. Compute position sizing: a. Account-based sizing uses percent position size, buying power, and risk percentage. b. Risk-based sizing using fixed dollar risk or percentage risk. 1. Dollar Risk : 2. Percent Risk 4. Adjust position sizing for options/stocks trading and ensure sufficient funds. 5. Determine minimum position size based on the lesser of account-based or risk-based sizing. 6. Prepare order details (price, route, time in force). 7. Execute or load the appropriate BUY or SELL order based on trade bias and order status. 8. Set up trigger order with stop type, price, action, and quantity. How to use the Script (please see prerequisite section) Using the script is straightforward if the script is linked to a hotkey: Double-click on your chart at your desired stop-loss price. Fire the hotkey linked to the script Conclusion In the exhilarating world of stock trading, where split-second decisions can either make or break fortunes, speed and efficiency serve as our trusted allies. Time saved is not merely a commodity but the defining factor between seizing an opportunity and watching it disappear. Cross-verifying information remains wise, just as one inspects a parachute before taking the plunge. This presentation humbly supports the trading community by fostering growth through education. Connect with me on X (@ItoThetrader), where I will do my best to address some of your questions/bugs and suggestions and try to improve. Happy trading! Despite my best efforts, there may be some errors in this document. I apologize if you come across any. After all, making mistakes is human, and I am only a mortal armed with a keyboard and a spellchecker. Download the accompanying Excel file Ito DAS Advanced HotKeys Primer v0.16.6.pdf

Updated: 8/8/2019 @ 12:44pm (PST) Finally out of the alpha stage and releasing this to the community, I've been using it with success. Because I had to do some musical chairs with memory I made a configuration utility as the script itself is very ugly. This is more of a BETA release for this, so if anyone wants to try this out in SIM and let me know if you have any issues with the configuration sheet or the hotkeys themselves. It's based on the work started by @fjmocke here: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/469-das-calculate-shares-based-on-account-risk/ . What it is: It's a hotkey command script that can be used to dynamically alter the share total based on: Available Buying Power (capital) Stop Location (Risk) % Account Risk OR Fixed Dollar Amount The script includes purchase power protection and won't send an order that you can not afford, it does this by calculating two factors: A - Shares You Can Afford B - Shares at Risk Parameter (e.g. $25,000 account equity, 1% risk = $250 risk, $250 * a stop distance of .10 = 2500 shares) min{A,B} = 0.5(A + B - | A - B | ) But, why male models? I just told you. /Zoolander reference You'd use this to calculate your share total based on what you're willing to risk. So instead of blindly throwing 500 shares at every setup, you can dynamically alter risked amount based on the per-trade setup. I use it on my StreamDeck (will also release the icon packs soon) with modifiers of 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. 100% is the A-Plus setups I see, those I have HIGH confidence in. Alternatively, if a stock has a large spread or is low-float, I may only use the 25% modifier key for those. Instructions for Configuration: Go to this link: V2.1: DOWNLOAD ^^ Recommend latest DAS version of 5.4.3.0. Requires DAS version 5.2.0.34 or above (current BETA branch as of 11/19/2018) for the physical stop portion to work. If you don't use the physical stop, you don't have to worry about it. NOTE: Thoroughly test in SIM to make sure it's doing what you expect it to do. Choose: Download the ZIP file and unzip to where you want. On "Setup & Instructions" configure your settings. Account Leverage (default for DAS is 4), this is the margin your broker gives you. Some off-shores give 6. It needs to match what is configured in DAS for proper calculations. Max Account Risk %. This is the maximum percent of equity you're willing to risk on every trade (default is 1%). You can always risk lower (more on that later). % of Total Buying Power. If you don't want to calculate based on the total buying power of 100%, you can set this to a lower percentage (example: 100,000 buying power with 60% here equals $60,000 maximum position size) Route. LIMIT, MARKET, SMRTL. Default is LIMIT. Order Bid/Ask Offset. This is the offset you use when you send the price for order, e.g. "Ask + 0.05" (meaning fill me up to 5 cents above ask) Time in Force. Default: Day+ Default Shares. This is the amount of shares you want to set as the DEFAULT SHARES for all trades (e.g. when you click a Symbol and it loads, this is the share total). You can see why this is here in the technical breakdown section below. Minimum Stop Buffer. This is an offset to the stop distance. If you set this to 0.05, it'll add 5 cents to the stop distance calculation (so if your stop distance is 0.05, it'll be calculated on 0.10). Switch to the "Hotkeys" tab. Choose your preferred style. % Risk of Equity (Dynamic) or Fixed Price (e.g. $150 risk). %Equity Risk: Use the drop down to select what you want the value to be % equity. NOTE: This is a modifier AFTER your account risk maximum %. So if you have 1% account risk, and set this to 50%, your effective account risk is 0.005 --> 0.5%. $ Fixed: Use the drop down to select what you want the value to be for dollar risk. Select "long" or "short" to flip the script's direction. Click the cell that contains the start of the command (E column) and Ctrl + C (copy). Paste it into DAS. It should look like a sample command below. Instructions for Usage: First, you must have "Double Click to Trade" turned on in Chart, Right-Click --> Configure --> Settings --> Double-click to trade. Double click the chart where you want to set a mental stop (it does not place a stop order, you can always put one in after). Hit your configured hotkey. Sample Scripts: LONG: DefShare=BP*0.98; Share=DefShare*0.25* Price * 0.01; Price = Ask - Price + 0.02;SShare = Share / Price; Share = DefShare - SShare; DefShare = DefShare + SShare; SShare = Share; SShare = DefShare - SShare; Share = 0.5 * SShare; TogSShare; ROUTE =LIMIT; Price = Ask + 0.05; TIF=DAY+; BUY=Send; DefShare = 500; SHORT: DefShare=BP*0.98; Share=DefShare*0.25* Price * 0.01; Price = Price - Bid + 0.02;SShare = Share / Price; Share = DefShare - SShare; DefShare = DefShare + SShare; SShare = Share; SShare = DefShare - SShare; Share = 0.5 * SShare; TogSShare; ROUTE =LIMIT; Price = Bid - 0.05; TIF=DAY+; SELL=Send; DefShare = 500; Technical Breakdown: DAS has basic scripting. Montage commands have access to very few read/write variables, basic operations, and only operators of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. To do this calculation we need additional operators (min function, and absolute function) and more memory for storage of variables. This command gets around these limitations by using user-writeable areas of memory in the program. Since DAS is written in the C++ language (from what I can tell), it's strict on what can be done in these existing memory locations. The hotkey uses the following items (plus the usual Price -- FLOAT): (Assumptions on Datatypes) DefShare -- INT (Used as a temporary variable for storage) SShare -- Unsigned INT (Behaves like an Unsigned INT in certain situations. Used as a temporary variable for storage) Share -- INT (Used as a temporary variable for storage) With the 3 INT variables, objects are moved around in memory so that we can calculate and compare with our variable limitation (be much easier if we could assign our own). To facilitate the ABS() function, we use a trick --> When a negative value is placed into an Unsigned INT it loses it's sign (thus, it becomes a POSITIVE value in memory). A more detailed technical breakdown (step by step) is located in the Configuration spreadsheet up above. Future Enhancements: If need be, I can make a step-by-step video of this entire process. I have a version that uses an AutoHotKey macro to drop a line at the stop location, I can upload that as well if people want it. ^^ Update, I discontinued this as it was too cumbersome. You had to have two sets of hotkeys for each command. I may someday revisit it if I can build out a configuration tool for it. TLDR: It does the math for you so you can risk a known amount (% or $) based on your per-trade risk position (stop distance). And yes, I'm a bit of a tech nerd. Also, longest post .. ever. Would not read again, 0/5 stars. --- KNOWN ISSUES: %Account Risk gets smaller and smaller when subsequent open positions Reason: No Equity variable, we reverse calculate equity using Buying Power. On subsequent positions, the % (e.g. 1%) calculation will be based on the available buying power and NOT the account equity. Workaround: Precalculate the %risk and use it for the $risk versions. So 1% of $25,000 equity equals $250. SSR rejection on LONG position when scaling out; rejection message (e.g. "Short marketable limit order disable due to SSR!") if using the automatic STOP trigger. Reason: DAS calculates that the position will drop below the open stop order position and reject as this can cause the position to "flip" if it was triggered. Workaround: Have a hotkey to clear the open orders (CXL ALLSYMB), clear it, scale the position (e.g. 25%). Either replace the stop or switch to a mental stop. Alternatively, you can add "CXL ALLSYMB;" to the front of the scale-out hotkeys. You just have to be cognizant to replace the stop order. Equated position size if very small (e.g. 4 or 5 shares when expected is hundreds). Reason: Wrong side was used for the order. E.g. a long hotkey is used when trying to go short. -or- Stop Distance was calculated to be a negative value (clicked too close to current price). Workaround: Be cognizant of the hotkeys used and the stop distance clicked. Clicking too close (a really tight stop) can be very dangerous if you do it inadvertently. TriggerOrder for automatic STOP placement not being sent (no stop order placed). Reason: Montage is not set to a style that doesn't allow TriggerOrder input. Styles not compatible are: Default [DAS's, if you changed it], Basic, OCO, Option, Full Fix: Use a style that is compatible, they are: Stop Order, Detail, Trigger -- I recommended using the "Stop Order" montage style. To change this, right click the montage area around where you'd enter a price and select Style --> Your Choice. --- UPDATES: 10/17/2018 - Added v.1.1 link, you'd need to use the new version to change anything. - General cleanup of the script. Added instructions for the IB issue (discussed in this thread) - NEW FEATURE: Added a new section to the Hotkeys sheet, it will now create a set up for Dynamic Scale-In hotkey commands. You'd use these by setting a scale value (say you want an additional 50% of your current position size). The hotkey will calculate the maximum share you can afford (how much you can afford at the moment) and the scale value, choosing to take the least amount. So if your current position is 1500 shares (@ $50.00) and you want to scale in at 50% your current position, it'd check if you can afford an additional 750 shares, if you can't, it'll buy the maximum you can afford. For this example, you can't afford it (if Buying Power is 100k), so it'd buy roughly $25k worth (500 shares). - CLEANUP: Cleaned up the $Dollar Risk version and removed unnecessary steps. Don't really need to replace yours if they exist, but worth noting. 10/30/2018 - Added @Michael P's suggested fixes for Excel. Configuration tool should now work in both Sheets and Excel. - NOTICE: This was a configuration tool change, no changes were made to the hotkey scripts, so no need to change any existing hotkeys. 11/19/2018 - Shortened some of the commands so we don't hit any hotkey character limit, makes them less readable, but shorter. Couldn't get them low enough to fit the montage buttons though (although removing the portions for the buying power rejection protection would likely do it). - Added a section for SELL/COVER buttons for people who just need to create those. E.g. "Sell 25% position" or "Sell 33% position". - Added @Robert H's stop suggestion. New fields on the setup page for enabling physical stops. If enabled, it'll place a MARKET or LIMIT (settings included) trigger order to go into the market once the initial order is fulfilled, these are placed at the location you double-clicked on the chart. 11/20/2018 - Added a stop-order setting to set an additional buffer for the stop price (for those that want to include or exclude the double-clicked price). - Added conditional formatting to subdue the stop settings that aren't required if you disable sending a physical stop into the market. 12/10/2018 - Added a known issues section to this post and the spreadsheet (for when a new version goes up). 12/12/2018 - Updated known issues section to include the "Montage Style" issue for TriggerOrders. 12/13/2018 - Updated to new version 1.46. Fixed a bug in the Trigger Order script which could cause it to not be interpreted by DAS's command parser on certain user settings. - Added "modifier" extra hotkeys. See instructions next to these on how to use them. - - - Set Stop to Breakeven - Long or Short - Stop Limit or Stop Market (cancels any pending orders for SYMB) - - - Set Stop to Breakeven - Bidirectional - Stop Market (cancels any pending orders for SYMB) - - - Stop - Update Price - Long or Short - Stop Limit or Stop Market (cancels pending orders, double click chart where you want stop before firing hotkey) - - - Stop - Update Price - Bidirectional - Stop Market (cancels pending orders, double click chart where you want stop before firing hotkey) - - - Stop - Update Position - Long or Short - Stop Limit or Stop Market - Replace (requires you double-click the original stop in the Orders window) - - - Stop - Update Position - Bidirectional - Stop Market Orders Only - Replace (requires you double-click the original stop in the Orders window). 8/8/2019 - New version 2.0, download the .zip file and unzip it. - Fixed an issue with some hotkey configurations that may have caused them to be inaccurate in vary rare situations. Recommend recreating your hotkeys in this new version, just to be sure. - Added Profit Target hotkeys. - Added % Scale-In Hotkeys - Added $ Risk Scale-In Hotkeys - Added Short-SSR to Long/Short dropdown for SSR hotkeys (DAS Simulator) - Added Range Order hotkeys - Added Y-Margin Scale Increase hotkey, Y-Margin Decrease, and Y-Margin Reset - Added new sheet "Example - Equity%" and "Example - $Risk" to give a more workflow outlook on what is happening. - Included a ScaleOut worksheet to manually simulate what different scale percentages / scenarios look like (instructions will be in the video). ALSO: Video is done and rendering, I think it comes in at 45minutes with 3.4gigs (4k), so it'll need to be optimized before I upload it to YouTube. Will try to do it today and will update this when done. 9/10/2019 - New version 2.1 released. Just general clean up (UI) and bug fixes. - FIXED: Issue with the Scale-In $Risk hotkeys. - FIXED: Issue with the Stop Update Price long and short hotkeys> ^^ If you use either of those, please regenerate them and replace in your DAS to avoid issues. UPDATES: The majority of this side project is completed and besides a few requests I have in with DAS developers to optimize a few things, out of any major bugs or improved scripting features, I'd say this is about done. I'll provide any edge-case support as need, but I want to move on to other BBT-community projects. So what do I have cookin' for you guys, gals, and cat? You'll see a glimpse in the video of an early prototype (buggy! I programmed that in a few hours, so bugs are expected) of a DAS calculator side program. The newer version (need to finish the UI) will incorporate a lot more in ways of tools for you, including automatically calculating changes without a hotkey intervention. It also allows you to mass-process trade log .csv files you may have exported and compile it into Excel or .CSV for import into other programs. Configuration is drag/drop friendly, so rearranging your columns is as easy as click and holding. I'm also going to shift my attention to finishing my ORB-strategy research. Right now, my datapool encompasses 15000 news article, gaplists for 2011-2019, and 1second data for stocks in that range. It's a data store of roughly 80 gigs. The idea is to test for hidden signals we may not see that can indicate a potential direction of an ORB strategy (if no rare outside influence occurs, like a terrorist attack) by leveraging a consortium of machine learning algorithms to give us a higher probability of success for each day. Depending how the research works out, the end product would likely be a probability predictor for each day. I'll share the research results with the community and may incorporate some other tests as well. VIDEO: Ok, so I may have gone down an editing rabbit hole and that took longer than expected. The videos are up, came in quite long so I chunked it down. Sorry it's a tad scattered and not one-linear cohesive unit, but I tried to mark it up as best as possible. Part 1 - Config / Math - https://youtu.be/YrRrydwGyRY Part 2 - Setup, Quick Examples, Tips - https://youtu.be/pXLlWF7T6hw Part 3 - Sim Trade Example - https://youtu.be/SO9UhJh4dTc Bonus 1 - Scale/Price Excel Calc - https://youtu.be/KTr_iJ2p0TU Bonus Tips - https://youtu.be/sNHXFMoia7A

Hello Everyone, My name is Maitri and I live in Saanich, Vancouver island . I am newbie in trading and have been interested in it after reading Andrew's book. I am a Business Analyst by profession and would like to learn about day trading and practice it . I have registered with the intro membership to immerse myself with fellow traders and see if this is good fit for my next career.

For free backtesting, you have to know how to code. Quantconnect and Quantopian offer free access to their data packages if you use their cloud to program your script and test (they can see the results, btw). There's a few standalone programs that do it, but they're expensive, and don't include the data (I think one is called Arbiter or something like that). Quality data for a lot of stocks is expensive (I think 10 years of S&P500 symbols at 1 second resolution is like $20k). If you have the data, can program, and want to set up something local there's a few great Backtesting programs written in Python on GIThub. I wouldn't bother with TradeIdeas, their backtesting only goes back to 90days last I checked. It's way too easy to overfit and the small sample size of only 90days will make the algorithm very susceptible for erratic performance. You generally want to optimize for years of data and then test for another set of years the algorithm/strategy has never seen. DAS Replay is a great mode for visually / manually backtesting a strategy, but you can easily introduce various biases in doing so. They have data going back to Oct/Nov 2018 if I recall.