- in Lev-ETF-Trader by Cesar
How to Place Your Orders for Leveraged ETF Trader
Every broker has its own terminology and technology for entering and executing orders. First, we’ll describe the orders in generic terms. Then, we’ll give examples for orders placed with Interactive Brokers.
Entries
New entries require three orders:
1) Buy
Buy orders should be placed to execute at the market price on the Open of the trading day following the entry signal. These are usually called “Market on Open” orders. If your broker does not support explicit execution on the Open, then before the Open you can submit either an order to execute at the market price or a timed order defined to execute at the market price within a few seconds of the market opening.
2) Stop Loss
Stop Loss orders should be defined as Good ‘til Cancelled (GTC) Sell Stop orders to execute intraday starting immediately upon entry. Many brokers offer bracket orders that you can define to automatically enter Stop Loss and Profit Stop orders immediately upon the execution of your entry order. If one of the orders is filled, the other is automatically cancelled. If this is not available, then you must monitor each entry trade and enter the applicable Stop Loss order manually. Do this as quickly after entry as possible because the system rules anticipate that a position could be stopped out on the same day as entry.
3) Profit Stop
Profit Stops should be defined as GTC Sell Limit orders to execute intraday starting immediately upon entry. The same comments under Stop Loss with regard to bracket orders or manual orders apply to Profit Stops.
If you do not use bracket orders, be sure to cancel either the Stop Loss or the Profit Stop order if the other has been executed.
Check to see if you can define bracket orders so that the stop loss and profit stop prices are set relative to the actual entry price. Otherwise, adjust the prices after the entry fills (if the fill price differs significantly from the signal day’s Close). And, you could risk exiting immediately and unintentionally on a large opening gap, up or down.
Exits on Signals (as opposed to intraday stops)
Orders for these exits should be placed as Sell orders to execute on the Open of the trading day following the exit signal. As with Entries above, you may need to research your alternatives to trade on the Open.
Be sure to cancel any Stop Loss or Profit Stop orders when you place an order to exit on a signal.
Placing Orders in Interactive Brokers’ Trader Workstation (TWS)
We recommend strongly that you use Basket files for entry orders because they give you full control over defining orders, which is problematic with Attached Orders or Preset Orders. In particular, you can assure that your stop and profit limit prices as set relative to your actual fill price as a bracket order. Also, you can combine multiple entry/exit orders in a single basket file to organize all of your orders in one place. Once you have set this up in an Excel template, creating and submitting future orders is greatly simplified. See Trader Workstation Help regarding BasketTrader for an overview.
As an example, let’s create a basket file for three orders to buy SSO, TWM, and QID. The quantities and prices are just examples to illustrate the functionality of the basket file and aren’t based on a real signal. You would calculate your own quantities based on each signal’s % of Equity and the Close on the signal day. You would calculate the Profit Limit (LmtPrice) and Stop Price (AuxPrice) by applying each signal’s Profit and Stop % to the Close of the signal day. (Even though you will Buy on the Open, you can’t know what the Open price will be, so using Close is the best estimate.)
The basket file (a .csv file) is:
• The OrderType for the Buy on Open order is specified as LMT (Limit), temporarily. We will change this in the next step below.
• LmtPrice/AuxPrice are the profit stop/stop loss prices for this order. Specify LmtPrice as the Close of the Signal Day (this provides the order processor with an initial reference price for establishing Limit and Stop orders after the Buy order fills on the Open.)
• SaleProfitOffset and UseParentTradePrice assure that your Stop Loss and Profit Stop orders are set relative to the actual fill price that you receive. The offsets are just the differences between the Close on the signal day and the stop or limit prices. When your entry order is filled, the Stop Loss and Profit Stop orders are established at the actual execution price +/- the offsets. If there is a large opening gap, you may want to adjust these after the entry order is filled.
• For each ETF, the OrderId and ParentOrderId must all have the same value, which can be any integer that is unique to the basket file and to the ETF (i.e., 1 for SSO and 3 for QID)
• Because the basket file specifies an order on the next Open, you must submit the file through Trader Workstation/BasketTrader after the signal day’s market Close.
After you “Load” the above basket file in BasketTrader, you will see a screen such as this (details may vary depending on how you configure BasketTrader):
For each Buy on Open order, click on LMT (under Type), and choose MKT. Lmt Price will change to read “MARKET”.
Then press Transmit to submit all of the orders in one action.
If you are new to basket orders or these type of orders, it is HIGHLY recommended that you try them in the IB paper trader platform or with very small size to make sure the orders are being placed and executed correctly. It took Cesar several tries to get it all working correctly.
You can download a sample basket file by clicking here.
For more information on basket orders, see IB help section.