Pairs trading

January 3rd, 2019, 04:12 PM

Happy new year to all traders!
I´ve been trading for a while now but I´m quite new still to automated trading and even if I read a hundred posts and manuals I can´t find the solution. A bit of help would be very much appreciated.

Goal: backtest an arbitrage strategy that trades 2 instruments at the exact same time

Strategy core : if %change tickerA +% change ticker B < -1 then buy. exit when >0

Issues:
-even if there are 2 data sources in a chart just data 1 is traded
-If I open 2 charts ( to combine the 2 performance reports manually afterwards) with tickerA as data 1 and tickerB as data2 in one of them, and tickerB as data 1 , tickerA as data2 in the other one , the resulting operations are different. ( if A +B = x; then B+A should be X as well, but it´s not)
-maybe tradestation does not plot prices if there are no trades, and there´s a false signal because ticker A does not have price and B does??(I have no clue)
I have tried using portfolio maestro with all possible combinations (using 2 separate strategies for each data, combining everything…) and same problem, entries and exits don´t match in booth instruments.

Possible solutions that I don´t know how to code:
-Strategy that enters / exits positions in ticker B just when the same happens in ticker A ( For live trading I can use macros , but I have no idea for normal backtest or portfolio maestro)
-Something that gets the exact time of positions in A and then replicates in B...

Code till now:

inputs: variable1 (100000) , variable2 (-1) , variable3 (0);

Value1 = ((open-CloseD(1))/CloseD(1)) ;
Value2 = ((open data2-(CloseD(1) data2))/CloseD(1) data2) ;
value3 = ((value1 +value2)*100);
value4 = (Round(((variable1)/closeD(1)),0));

Condition1 = marketposition = 0 and Value3<variable2 ;
Condition2 = MarketPosition = 1 and value3>variable3 or ( Time >2150);

If condition1 then buy (value4) shares next bar at market;
If condition2 then sell all shares next bar at market;

Sorry for the long post, and thank you so much in advance for any help or ideas!!!
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January 4th, 2019, 10:53 AM

Try using 2 workspaces each with 3 data sources.
First workspace your data sources are Ticker A, Ticker A (again) and Ticker B.
Second workspace your data sources are Ticker B, Ticker A and Ticker B (again).

Make all your calculations/decisions based upon data feeds 2 and 3, which are the same on both workspaces. So same code for both except when you buy on 1/A you sell on 2/B. This has worked for me in previously.

January 4th, 2019, 12:11 PM

I am not familiar with the Tradestation platform, but can you create a synthetic security with the pair, then trade it using a mean-reverting technical indicator to make it more straightforward? (e.g. stochastics, RSI, bollinger bands, etc.)

Security A = Ticker1 - Ticker 2

Buy when RSI(14) of Security A = 25, sell @ 75

You would have to balance the dollar amounts of the securities according to their relative notional value and volatility as well.

January 4th, 2019, 12:23 PM

drm7

I am not familiar with the Tradestation platform, but can you create a synthetic security

You can create an indicator that would display your synthetic security but can't trade it. In tradestation a workspace will only trade the instrument displayed in data1 and it has to be a single real security.

January 4th, 2019, 09:13 PM

SMCJB

Try using 2 workspaces each with 3 data sources.
First workspace your data sources are Ticker A, Ticker A (again) and Ticker B.
Second workspace your data sources are Ticker B, Ticker A and Ticker B (again).

Make all your calculations/decisions based upon data feeds 2 and 3, which are the same on both workspaces. So same code for both except when you buy on 1/A you sell on 2/B. This has worked for me in previously.

Good idea that could solve the problem. Thanks! I will test it on monday and update

January 4th, 2019, 09:15 PM

SMCJB

Try using 2 workspaces each with 3 data sources.
First workspace your data sources are Ticker A, Ticker A (again) and Ticker B.
Second workspace your data sources are Ticker B, Ticker A and Ticker B (again).

Make all your calculations/decisions based upon data feeds 2 and 3, which are the same on both workspaces. So same code for both except when you buy on 1/A you sell on 2/B. This has worked for me in previously.

drm7

I am not familiar with the Tradestation platform, but can you create a synthetic security with the pair, then trade it using a mean-reverting technical indicator to make it more straightforward? (e.g. stochastics, RSI, bollinger bands, etc.)

Security A = Ticker1 - Ticker 2

Buy when RSI(14) of Security A = 25, sell @ 75

You would have to balance the dollar amounts of the securities according to their relative notional value and volatility as well.

Yes I could build sinthetic data but I keep having the same. Problem. When comparing ticker A to sinthetic data X and ticker B to sinthetic data X

January 7th, 2019, 01:01 PM

SMCJB

Try using 2 workspaces each with 3 data sources.
First workspace your data sources are Ticker A, Ticker A (again) and Ticker B.
Second workspace your data sources are Ticker B, Ticker A and Ticker B (again).

Make all your calculations/decisions based upon data feeds 2 and 3, which are the same on both workspaces. So same code for both except when you buy on 1/A you sell on 2/B. This has worked for me in previously.

I tried adding the 3 datas and it works even for portfolio maestro. Thank you so much !!

Pairs trading

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Pairs trading