wklodge

When I first started testing the Stream Deck, I started with Ctrl+1 and it didn't work. Haven't tried any of the others yet.

Hey peterB, thanks for the response. I'm using Windows 10 Pro w/ no adware installed. I use Ctrl+ for buying long (50 to 2,000 shares) Shift+ for selling (50 to 2,000 shares) Alt+Shift+ for selling short (50 to 2,000 shares) Ctrl+Alt+ for buying to cover (50 shares to 2,000 shares) Shift+Q to SellAllBidMinus2cents Shift+B to SellAllBidiMinus4cents (Bailout) Shift+A to SellAllAskMinus3cents Shift+L to SellAllLastPrice F4 to cancel the last order entered Shift+F4 to cancel All Open Orders Ctrl+F12 to close all positions at Market Shortcuts for scaling in/out: F5 to sell 50 shares AskMinus5cents F6 to sell 100 shares AskMinus5cents F7 to buy to cover 50 shares AskPlus5cents F8 to buy to cover 100 shares AskPlus5cents I have a couple more miscellaneous ones but they don't interfere w/ typing I still don't know how I'm setting up Stream Deck incorrectly. I guess I'll keep googling to find the answer.

I hate to be stupid again, but where did u find all this? I had to create separate hotkeys for each Buy, Sell, etc. I have no separate hotkeys for changing Route or Order Type. These are all part of the developed hotkey per TradeStation. What does ur Stream Deck look like? Thanks. Hey peterB, Didn't expect someone to be up so early. But doesn't all this beg the question -- why don't my TS keyboard hotkeys work w/ the Stream Deck if they work via keyboard w/ TradeStation? I guess it doesn't really matter which keys I use as long as I can understand the Stream Deck keys. Another dumb question -- How do I find a combination that works w/ TradeStation? I was looking at Marek's setup and can't figure out how he did it.

It does not work.

peterB, I have my hotkeys set up exactly as you've shown. Seems pretty easy to me, but they don't work. Robohound (elsewhere in this thread) said he couldn't get Stream Deck to work with TradeStation v9.5 either. Supposedly it works with v10 but neither of us want to upgrade to v10 at this point. It has too many problems. Barely beta IMO. I don't know what else I can do at this point. William

peterB, I hate to be a pain about this, but I've done as you suggested -- assign hotkeys to the Stream Deck default profile. The only buttons that work for me in TradeStation v9.5 are (1) folder button that switches between Long and Short, (2) CPU % usage, (3) google.com, and (4) a button that goes to the BBT Login page. None of the buy and sell hotkeys work. Robohound has apparently upgraded to TS v10 and says that the Stream Deck works for that version. I'm very reluctant to upgrade to TS v10...my son uses it and absolutely hates it. He has all sorts of problems that I don't have in v9.5. He's not using the Stream Deck however. They changed the user interface in TS v10 along w/ some of the terminology used in the program (e.g., they use the word "study" instead of "indicator", which, of course, is not a big deal). They also have v9.5 commands now hidden in dropdown menus. I looked at the interface and find it rather confusing. I think it'll be a while before I upgrade to v10. I can't afford the time now to learn an entirely new interface, or deal with v10's own set of bugs. Anyway, I must be doing *something* right since I got a few of the keys to work. If you have any more suggestions, please let me know. And thank you for your help so far. William

peterB, I have my hotkeys set up exactly as you've shown. Seems pretty easy to me, but they don't work. Robohound (elsewhere in this thread) said he couldn't get Stream Deck to work with TradeStation v9.5 either. Supposedly it works with v10 but neither of us want to upgrade to v10 at this point. It has too many problems. Barely beta IMO. I don't know what else I can do at this point. William

Hey ALG, I'm having a similar problem. Seems easy to set up but mine isn't working. I was able to hotkey websites, but not my trading hotkeys. The title and Action for each is filled in, but none work. The "user manual" doesn't help either. Apparently others have gotten it to work. I'm using TradeStation instead of DAS so I have more restrictions on my hotkeys...need a separate one for each Buy, each Sell,etc. I bought the larger XL box b/c of this. Let me know if you get the problem solved. I will do in turn. Thanks. William

Yes, it's true that TTS and MTM are not the same thing, but you still have to elect TTS via letter to the IRS. The deadline for 2020 was when 2019's return was due in April 2020. If you make a timely filing, you can then elect MTM. Mr Green will give you the wording for the TTS election letter to file w/ your return. You need TTS in order to elect MTM, but it's worth it b/c MTM allows you to avoid those pesky wash sale rules. TTS alone I believe allows you to claim expenses on Schedule C. I would recommend buying his Trader Tax Guide on his website greentradertax.com for more details. You can skip the chapters on Entities if you're filing as a sole proprietor. I file as a sole proprietor and elected TTS and MTM so I don't know much about filing as an entity. But, what I do know is if you miss the TTS election deadline, you can still claim TTS by forming an entity and filing for TTS within 75 days of the forming. Mr Green is probably the better person to consult on all the ins and outs of this. None of your trading income can be reported as capital gains since trading income is considered to be ordinary income.

Sorry for the late response but I don't visit the forums very often. My broker and trade platform is TradeStation.

Hi Johns Paul, Did you ever find a solution to the problem of drawing lines across several screen/charts? The only solution I've found is on the markplex.com site, but he uses the GlobalDictionary in EasyLanguage. Do you use or know EasyLanguage? I know some but not how to use the GlobalDictionary. I've seen it in action however. And it's pretty good. Exactly what we need. And it wouldn't cost anything except the time required to learn enough EasyLanguage to implement it. Let me know if you make any progress. It's very frustrating replotting lines from the Daily onto intraday charts.

The only way to elect TTS for this year is to file as an entity and make the election within 75 days of filing. As to when the TTS would take effect, I'm not entirely sure. You'd have to ask GreenTraderTax about that or buy their Trader Tax Guide. But before doing that, I'd sit down and figure out whether you can meet the Golden Rules first. If you can't, there's no point in electing TTS or even talking to GTT in the first place. Regarding differences between filing as a sole proprietor or entity, as a sole proprietor I can't contribute to any kind of IRA or tax-deferred account. As an entity, you can if it's set up for that. Similarly for healthcare costs. An entity can pay for these costs but a sole proprietor cannot. A sole proprietor set up is much simpler than one for an entity, but an entity will likely cost you in State fees, some of which as Mr Green mentioned in his presentation, can be substantial. A disadvantage of filing as a sole proprietor is all your expenses go on Schedule C. The IRS sees none of your gains there (b/c the gains are on other forms). It is different for an entity. The IRS can readily see its gains and losses. Of course, whether you post gains or losses is of no concern for qualifying for TTS and deducting business expenses on Schedule C. I beg to differ about being rejected TTS as being subjective. If you meet the objective Golden Rules, you can certainly qualify. It may be a matter of convincing the IRS that your trading is a supplemental income (if you ever get to the stage of interacting w/ the IRS; I haven't yet). There are other benefits to filing as an entity but you'll have to read about them in the Tax Guide. I'm not concerned about them as a sole proprietor. Under TTS you would not be able to treat trader gains under capital tax gains rates. Trader income and losses are treated as Ordinary income (i.e., short-term income). You can certainly have a separate account in which you keep your long-term investments, but it has to be segregated from your trading account. Don't mix the two. Day trading transactions and swing trading transactions can, however, be in the same trading account. Just keep your average holding period below 31 days (sometimes difficult to do w/ swing trading). And, don't forget, it's your "average" holding period. Some instruments may be held longer, some less. Just as long as the average is less than 31 days. I would first figure out whether you can realistically meet the Golden Rules, then buy and read the Tax Guide, come up with questions, then consult with GreenTraderTax. Just have a list of questions so you can best utilize the 45-minute consult session. Don't worry, Mr Green will ask you a lot of questions to try and determine whether you'll qualify for TTS. If he says you can, then you're good to go. Hope this extra info helps.

If you're filing as a sole proprietor, the deadline for the TTS election has passed. It was when you filed your 2019 tax return. However, you could for an entity and file for TTS within 75 days of the forming. But, since it's rather complicated, I'd refer to GreenTraderTax about that. You can either consult with them ($270 for 45 minute consult), or buy their Trader's Guide for $60. You can get a lot of info out of the Trader's Guide, but for setting up an entity, I'd consult with them. After the entity is set up, your TTS status would be effective from that point on (but, again, I'd consult w/ GTT for the particulars).

It will be posted on Youtube too so non-Lifetime members can access it.

It would seem that EasyLanguage connected to a hotkey would do the job. But tech supp and various developers in the TS forums said that EasyLanguage cannot be connected to a hotkey. So much for that solution.

Hi Johns Paul, I've been looking into this very problem. It would be nice to have drawings and S&R lines drawn across charts. Currently, I have a program that plots S&R lines/levels on a Daily chart, and have to constantly refer to the Daily for those levels. The best I've found is a website called markplex.com. The developer there has lots of free tutorials, etc on using EasyLanguage for just such a problem. He also teaches EasyLanguage on the site. From what I've gathered, you have to use one of the GlobalAccess Dictionary files to replicate lines from one chart to another chart or charts. With that, lines (or drawings even) plotted on one chart are almost instantaneously plotted on another chart (or charts). I use his Program55 to plot S&R lines on a Daily chart based on swing highs and swing lows. This program (as with all his programs) can be modified w/ EasyLanguage to plot specific levels also, like Previous Day Close, yesterday's High and Low, and the day before's high and low. I just haven't figured out how to do it in EasyLanguage yet. As a partial workaround, TS has an indicator called OHLC that plots the Open, High, Low, and Close of the previous day. I have this indicator inserted on a 5min chart, but it can't be modified like most of the Markplex programs. I hope I've helped clarify what TS can and cannot do in this regard. If you find out more, let me know please. Also, how do you have TradeStation set up? I have 5 monitors (including the laptop monitor) and having a hard time optimizing a setup for trading. I use the matrix for trading, not Level 2. At one point I had Time&Sales displayed on a monitor, but found it didn't help very much (maybe I'm not interpreting it properly) so deleted it. On my laptop, I have 4 workspaces containing various charts and indicators. One of the workspaces, "Stocks Trading" has a RadarScreen, Matrix, and 1min and 5min charts. Almost all charts throughout my setup are linked globally to the RadarScreen. I've found, however, that the Matrix gets bogged down near market open and close. This is especially true for high-priced stocks like TSLA, etc. It bogs down so much that it's unresponsive for up to several minutes. Ever experience this? I've lost lots of money b/c of this. William

Hi Josephine, I'll try to answer your questions based on my experience as a full-time equities trader and someone who had GreenTraderTax do my tax returns for the last two years. 1. It depends. If you plan on trading as a sole proprietor, then, yes, you missed the filing deadline, which was when you filed your 2019 tax return (including extensions, if any). However, you could form an entity and file the TTS election statement within 75 days of forming the entity. In this case, I would recommend that you consult with Green Trader Tax on how to set up the entity. I currently file as a sole proprietor. 2. Again, it depends. If you plan on trading stocks, it will be very difficult to qualify for TTS with a 9-5 day job. If, on the other hand, you plan on trading futures, options, or forex, then you could possibly qualify for TTS if you satisfy what GreenTraderTax referred to as their "Golden Rules." Specifically, the Rules focus on volume, frequency, holding period, hours, sporadic lapses in trading, intention, overall operations, and account size. The most important requirements are volume, frequency, and holding period. Volume: 720 trades per year, or 60 trades per month. Each buy and sell is considered a trade, so a roundtrip buy/sell trade would be considered as 2 trades.. Frequency: Trade close to 4 days per week, for a 75% frequency rate. A reasonable amount of time for vacation, sick time, and holidays is permitted. These would not count toward "available" days to trade. Holding Period: The "average" holding period must be 31 days or less. Hours: Spends more than 4 hours per day, almost every day, working on the trading business. Their Trader Tax Guide says that most active business traders spend more than 40 hours per week, while part-time traders spend more than 4 hours per day. Sporadic Lapses: You need to have few or no sporadic lapses during the trading year. For example, you couldn't take several months off during the year and still qualify for TTS. Intention: You must have the intention to run a business and make "a" living. Your trading business does not have to be the exclusive or primary means of making a living. Operations: The IRS wants to see a "serious trading business operation." This means possibly having multiple monitors, computers, mobile devices, cloud services, high speed broadband wireless, trading services, and education expenses. Account Size: Pattern Day Trader (PDT) status requires a $25,000 account. If you're trading futures or forex, $15,000 should be sufficient. Now you can see why I said "it depends" above. If you intend on trading stocks, you would have to meet the above requirements during pre-market and after-market hours (unless your employer allows you to trade during regular market hours). For more detail, I would recommend buying Green Trader Tax's Trader Guide on their website. It has much more than I've discussed here, especially about entities. Good luck!

@Yardley, TradeStation Securities is my broker; TradeStation is my platform.

@Robohound, No, never did get the Stream Deck to work with TradeStation ver 9.5. I haven't tried ver 10, but between you and me I've read in TS's forums NOT to upgrade b/c ver 10 still has lots of problems. My son uses ver 10 and complains all the time about it. I don't have a saved keyboard layout file. I just use the default layout and install my hotkeys on it. My hotkeys definitely work in ver 9.5, just not in the Stream Deck. Don't know what I'm doing wrong. I know this doesn't help, but that's all I can say. Actually, one of the techs recommended going back to ver 9.1 since it's supposedly more stable than 9.5 or 10. Only problem is, that advice came from one of the techs from the company that made my trading laptop, not TS techs.

I set up the hotkey for Ctrl+2 and nothing happens. It doesn't buy 200 shares. If I press Ctrl+2 on my keyboard, it buys 200 shares. I don't know what's wrong.

Not sure I understand. For example, my hotkey to Buy 200 shares at Ask +.05 is Ctrl+2. StreamDeck can't do that??? What other software would I need?

I thought I had done that but apparently not. I chose the Hotkey key under System on the Stream Deck, and entered the corresponding TS hotkey. I also was able to enter only one line on the key. I wanted two. One for the action (e.g., Buy 50) and another for the Price (e.g., Ask + .05). Couldn't do that though. The Stream Deck User Manual doesn't help either. I've searched Youtube too, but nobody gets down to the nitty gritty of setting up just a single key that I could repeat for other keys on the Stream Deck. The folder works though! The Hotkey key is in the System menu of the Stream Deck; the Folder key is in the Stream Deck menu. The CPU Usage key works.

Because the TradeStation platform was free, including zero commissions. Less reliance on the Level 2 montage since TS has the Matrix (which also has Level 2 data on it). I wasn't willing to pay the DAS platform fee, data fees, etc. I'm sure there were other reasons but can't think of them now.

TradeStation doesn't have a function or indicator that plots S & R lines across multiple charts like DAS does. TS does have an OHLC indicator based on the previous day's Open, High, Low, and Close, but it has to be set on each chart. There is nothing that plots S & R lines from a Daily chart. I have OHLC set up on a 1min chart along with a HotList, Matrix, and 5min chart. I have a Daily chart with some S & R lines plotted but have to manually refer to it on a different monitor. I do plot premarket Highs and Lows. How do others who use TradeStation address this problem? Thanks, William L