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Vinay
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In OT help file at "Trading with OmniTrader/Trade Plans/Adding Shares to an Existing Order" it is mentioned that:
"While in trade, it is possible to increase the amount of shares on a position."
But I am unable to do it because "Add Order" button is greyed out. Moreover various Tabs shown in the help file like Pending Orders, Open Orders etc. are not visible in my installation. (OT2013 Pro PR-2M)
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Barry Cohen
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It looks like a bug when using the Trade Plan interface. I'll report it. If you're using the Trade Manager or Quick Trade interface it will allow you access to the Order Editor & increase the shares. I tried using the Trade Plan interface & switching to the Trade Manager to increase shares, but it didn't work either.
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Barry Cohen
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I found out that this is by design. You cannot add more shares to an existing position if it was opened with a trade plan. The trade plan has to be removed first.
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Vinay
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Originally written by 291234 on 6/8/2013 1:36 AM
I found out that this is by design. You cannot add more shares to an existing position if it was opened with a trade plan. The trade plan has to be removed first.
Can you enlighten me about the reasoning behind this behavior? What about the OT help file topic "Trading with OmniTrader/Trade Plans/Adding Shares to an Existing Order" which states that:
"While in trade, it is possible to increase the amount of shares on a position."
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Barry Cohen
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It is possible, just not while you have a trade plan attached. You can remove the trade plan on an open position, add more shares, then reattach the trade plan, & it should work fine.
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Jim Dean
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Hi Barry
Wow that is interesting! Key question - if you do that (remove change reapply), how does the newly-reattached TP know what step is currently in place? If the TP involves scaling in or out, how can it know what events have already transpired?
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Barry Cohen
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It's applying a new trade plan at the current point in time. It doesn't know what happened previously in the trade plan. Removed trade plans are not saved.
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Jim Dean
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OK then this is NOT as simple as it sounds. Let's say I want to add 400 shares to an existing 600-share Long position.
1. Position was already taken using initial Trade Plan with 600 shares entered but not yet exited.
2. Init TP is cancelled but position remains, and new TP replaces it. I presume that the NEW plan will ENTER an additional 400 shares, so now the broker sees 1000 shares Long.
3. The new TP does not know about the init 600 shares so those shares are UNMANAGED at this point. When the TP finally exits, there will still be 600 shares needing manual handling.
Is this correct? If so, then I suggest that you do not recommend to people to delete and replace trade plans with new ones once the trade is in progress ... many folks might miss what's going on.
OT NEEDS A FORMAL MECHANISM for increasing # shares, yet STILL MAINTAINING the management by TP of the entire position.
I hope I'm wrong about this, btw.
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Barry Cohen
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That's not correct.
1. Position was already taken using initial Trade Plan with 600 shares entered but not yet exited.
2. The TP is cancelled but position remains. 400 shares are then added to the position.
3. Attach new TP.
Now you have a trade plan managing 1000 shares with stops managing the 1000 shares (unless otherwise directed in your TP).
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Jim Dean
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How does the new TP know about the prior 600 shares? If you fill in 1000 shares, it will ADD 1000 shares, right? If you fill in 400 shares for it, then it only will manage 400 shares. Either way, 600 shares are left hanging.
Please explain in detail ... pictures if necessary. Step 3 needs elaboration.
Thanks. I hope you are right. But I just don't understand how the new TP knows to only ENTER 400 more shares, but that it has to EXIT 1000 shares. Normally that would create an error in the TP since the in's and out's would be unbalanced.
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Barry Cohen
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1. TP buys 10 shares of AAPL.
2. Right-click blue chevron & remove the TP.
3. Right-click blue chevron & add 5 more shares to the existing position.
4. Right-click & remove the TP again. Due to the how the Trade Manager & the TP work together it's necessary.
5. Right-click & apply the TP (any TP you want with wherever you want the stops placed). Now there is a TP managing 15 shares. If you want a multiple step TP that handles the 10 share order separate from the 5 share order you could have a TP that does so.
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Attached file : Untitled4.jpg (74KB - 876 downloads)
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Jim Dean
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Thanks.
Here is the point ... in your final snap, it says "Buy 15 shares of Apple"
So, once you submit it, won't that cause OT to BUY 15 SHARES?
I'm sorry but I just don't follow what is happening, when.
Does the second step, with 5 shares, fire off the buy order? if so, how does the third step know NOT to buy anything?
I have absolutely no clue how two different trade plans could manage different pieces of the 15 shares, as suggested by your final sentence.
THIS IS WHY (amongst other reasons), up till now, I've traded manually. The interface is just plain confusing to me. Sorry!
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Barry Cohen
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It applies the TP to your current position, it doesn't buy more shares. It's applying a TP to an existing position of 15 shares, not submitting a new order for 15 more shares. See what it shows in the last screenshot - it says that the order has already executed, plus it's greyed out.
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Jim Dean
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OK so the second step bought five more shares. Then that TP was deleted. Then you added a NEW TP. How does it know there are 15 shares outstanding that it needs to manage?
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Barry Cohen
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| I have absolutely no clue how two different trade plans could manage different pieces of the 15 shares, as suggested by your final sentence. |
Just have 1 stop sell 33% of the position & another sell 67%, or something like that.
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Barry Cohen
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| How does it know there are 15 shares outstanding that it needs to manage? |
It knows there's an open position for 15 shares - it's in the paper portfolio (or broker).
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Jim Dean
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Aha ... re the dual exit thing ... NOT two separate trade plans ... but two separate STEPS in the exit process of ONE final TP.
I think I'm getting it now. Thanks for your patience.
I'm so used to modifying TP's as a part of a STRATEGY that I struggle with the "dynamic mod's" possible via chevrons.
Is it true that if a trade "starts off" via a STRATEGY, that once it becomes active (automatically), the chevrons appear and these mod's you are describing can be done, without modifying the Strategy itself? Dumb question but important to me.
THanks again.
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Barry Cohen
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Not a problem, Jim. You're patient with us, so it's only fair. :)
| Is it true that if a trade "starts off" via a STRATEGY, that once it becomes active (automatically), the chevrons appear and these mod's you are describing can be done, without modifying the Strategy itself? Dumb question but important to me. |
I believe the only way that a strategy TP could become active automatically is with OmniPilot. So if that happens & there is an active position with a TP then yes it can be modified as described above. Keep in mind once the TP is actively managing a position the strategy is no longer a part of the process, save for one Pilot setting to close positions on exit signals. You can even make changes to the strategy TP & the TP that is managing the position won't be affected.
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Jim Dean
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Gotcha. It's all coming back to me now. I've just not been using it so I forget about it quickly. Yes I was assuming OPilot.
Thank you again!
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Vinay
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Thanks Barry for your details explanations. However many questions still remains unanswered.
1. What is the rational behind having to follow such a circuitous route for a simple task like adding more shares to an existing order? Why the "Trade Manager" interface comes into picture?
2. If the only way to achieve it is the steps you enumerated above then what the "Add Order" button on the "Orders" tab in the Trade Plan is meant for? I would imagine that this is the most logical and intuitive place to add shares to an existing order.
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Barry Cohen
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The Add Order button is available when there isn't an order already created. For trade plans it would only be needed when creating or editing a trade plan. If you add a new condition in a trade plan, then you need to click that button to add an order for that condition.
As far as I know, trade plans never had the ability to add shares to existing positions, it's still a feature request. The Trade Manager & Quick Trade interfaces came later & they were implemented with share adding already in mind.
I agree that the above method isn't ideal. Hopefully at some point an improvement can be made to the trade plan interface to do this with an easier method.
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Vinay
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Thanks Barry for your clarification. I will try to summarize the gist of this discussion as understood by me. Please correct me if there is any mistake:
1. It is NOT possible to add shares to an existing order using Trade Plan interface, for that we need to use Trade Manager interface. It is for this reason we need to remove Trade Plan and and attach Trade Manager to add more shares to an existing order.
2. Since we want to manage our trades through Trade Plans and not through Trade manager (which was used just to add more shares due to limitation of Trade Plans), we need to remove Trade Manager and attach Trade Plan again. This time in the Trade Plan interface the Orders items like Quantity, Buy & Sell buttons, Trade Calculator etc will be greyed out since we already have position there. However we can apply any Trade Plans and change conditions to manage our trade. The Trade Plan is "aware" of our existing positions and can manage them as we want.
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Barry Cohen
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Yes, that is all correct.
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Vinay
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1. This method works for adding quantity to the existing position but the entry price shown by the Trade Plan continues to remain at the rate the first trade was entered. It is not averaging the entry rate which should be the case.
2. I find it easier to add shares using Quick Trade interface instead of Trade Manager. Is this also a valid approach?
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Barry Cohen
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If you look in the Paper portfolio under Open Positions, each position has a + next to it. If you click it to open it up, you should see multiple orders each with its own entry price.
You can use Quick Trade to add shares instead of the Trade Manager, sure.
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Vinay
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1. In the Paper Portfolio under Open Positions multiple orders each with its own entry price is there but the problem is that the Trade Plan calculates the Stops based on the Ist Order Rate, not on the average of all the Orders of a single Stock. Is there a way out to force Trade Plan to calculate Stops on the average price? This can be important if subsequent position is entered at a significantly different rate.
2. I have noticed that if I first remove the Trade Plan, then go to Open Positions tab under Portfolio and Edit Position and making necessary changes to the quantity and rates, then reapply Trade Plan then it calculates the Stops correctly on the entire position including additional shares. So instead of the method suggested by you earlier in this post to add shares to an existing position, can this alternate method be used? Are there any downsides to this method which I am missing?
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Barry Cohen
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I see. I'm not sure that an average is the way to do that. What if your first position has 1000 shares & the 2nd has 5 shares, or vice versa? Your alternate solution by editing the position to add shares is fine, but I don't believe it calculates the stops according to an average, I believe it calculates off the price you gave it when making the edit.
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Jim Dean
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I agree with Barry. I'm not sure what you mean by "rate", but I am familiar with scaling-in and out, am very familiar with various means of setting stops. If you're referring to a simple fixed-loss stop, then if you are using a similarly-simple fixed number of points as the offset, I suppose a weighted average entry price might be appropriate.
But if you're using a stop with any degree of sophistication at all, such as ATR-based, or a dynamic stop such as trailing profit or chandelier, etc, then there's a lot more to it than just the entry price.
Further - part if the reason for scaling in is often due to initial uncertainty of the move. If you're adding to the position, then that would imply the direction had been subsequently confirmed. This usually means to me that the certainty is greater, and would allow for somewhat tighter stops.
But generalizations are nearly useless - stop logic is highly related to the kind of trade being taken. I think N's approach is a good one. It sticks with the initial plan unless you explicitly change it.
Jmho fwiw.
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Vinay
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Originally written by Barry Cohen on 9/24/2013 11:01 PM
| I see. I'm not sure that an average is the way to do that. What if your first position has 1000 shares & the 2nd has 5 shares, or vice versa? |
I want to use weighted average rate not simple average rate which you seems to be implying.
| Your alternate solution by editing the position to add shares is fine, but I don't believe it calculates the stops according to an average, I believe it calculates off the price you gave it when making the edit. |
While editing I am putting total quantity including the additional quantity bought and in the rate column I am putting weighted average rate for the entire quantity. So in effect the Trade Plan takes the weighted average rate as entry price and calculates the Stops accordingly. |
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Vinay
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Barry,
This thread is 9 years old. Has anything changed during this period from what is mentioned here?
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Barry Cohen
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Nothing has changed in regards to this thread, no.
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