Trader68 Improvements

Release 3.0.4 (04/16/10):

(General)

Fixed a bug where fills were not being accepted by Trader68 for orders that were submitted from TWS after being declined due to Precautionary Settings being enabled.
Fixed a bug where an asset could not be removed if it had the status message "Broker Reconciliation Failed".
Fixed a bug with stocks orders generated from Collective2, TradingSolutions or the Custom Signal generator with units less that a 100 was being ignored.
Fixed a bug with TradingSolutions installed on 64-bit machines being flagged as "Not Installed".
Fixed a bug where old signals that required confirmation were being automatically canceled if the order was accepted, but not connected to the broker.
Fixed a bug with users unable to use the Free Trial option for certain features.

(Interactive Brokers)

Fixed a bug with Trader68 not reconnecting if the Interactive Brokers account status was "Lost Connection" caused by Interactive Brokers error code #1100.
Fixed a bug with reconciliation for an asset that is already being traded in multiple portfolios.

(PFG Best)

Fixed a bug with values displaying "infinity" for the account.
Fixed a bug where Trader68 was not converting the FOREX Lots into positions correctly.

(Collective2)

Added new system restriction controls mandated by Collective2.

(Interactive Brokers - Advisor Accounts)

Financial Advisor Accounts using Collective2 must have the Allocation Type set to use a Single Account due to new Collective2 restrictions. Other Allocation methods such as Profile and Group are currently not supported in Trader68 while trading a Collective2 system. The Allocation Types Profile and Group will be supported in a future version of Trader68. An individual Collective2 account can trade the same system across multiple accounts as long as Collective2 allows the subscription for all the of the accounts.

Release 3.0.3 (04/07/10):

(General)

Fixed an additional bug reported with the Free Trials being unaccessible.
Fixed a bug with Financial Advisor Accounts not being able to Validate.

Release 3.0.2 (04/06/10):

(General)

Fixed a bug with the Free Trial prompts not being available.
Fixed a bug in New Account Wizard not prompting the Upgrade Panel if a Financial Advisor Account is detected.
Fixed a bug with the Summary of Accounts state to notify for "Level Upgrade Required" for Financial Advisor Accounts.
Fixed a bug with Convert Limit Orders to Market converting based on minutes instead of seconds.
Added additional messages for "Storage Maintenance failure" for troubleshooting.

(Broker)

Fixed a bug with PFGBest reconciling FOREX positions on average cost.
Fixed a bug with PFGBest FOREX positions calculations for Lots not Units.

(Signal Generator)

Fixed a bug with entry signals being marked as closed if the software was shutdown mid-trade.

Release 3.0.1 (04/01/10):

(General)

Fixed registration server to resolve "Invalid Email" error when Log In dialog is prompted.
Fixed excessive 72-hour warning message regarding lost connections with the registration server.

Release 3.0.0 (03/31/10):

New Features

(Broker)

Added PFGBest (FOREX & Futures Brokerage)
Added Historical Simulation
Added Collective2 Order Writer for broadcasting signals to Collective2 to sell or trade with Collective2's third-generation brokers

(Signal Generator)

Added Custom Signal API that allows users to create custom signals through .NET applications.

(Limits & Stops)

Added option for an Additional Stop Loss rule.
Added Trailing Stop Loss
Added Stop Length from Entry
Added Trailing Stop Length
Added Parabolic Stops

(Performance)

Significantly overhauled memory and cpu usage.
Added automatic database maintenance.
Improved performance with communications between Trader68 and TradingSolutions.

(General)

Added new Allocation Settings for Position Sizing.
Added Data Access controls that allow TradingSolutions prices to be used for any broker.
Added new Asset type called "Futures Single Contract" for generating a futures asset that is only meant for a specified contract with no auto-rolling options.
Updated the SafeGuard option for "Ignore signals older than x-minutes" is now changed to prompt for confirmation versus completely ignoring.

(Brokers)

Updated PFGBest API to latest version.
Fixed a bug introduced by Interactive Brokers for Financial Advisor Accounts.

(Signal Generators)

Fixed a performance bug with if TradingSolutions is not installed from using execessive cpu usage.
Fixed a bug with Collective2 where it required all signals to be confirmed even if the SafeGuard feature was disabled.

(General)

Fixed a bug with FOREX orders being sized to zero when the conversion rate is not available and "Clip order sizes to available capital" is checked for the account.
Fixed a bug with not being able to uncheck "Clip order sizes to available capital" checkbox.
Fixed a bug with Collective2 conditional exits being ignored until the entry signal was filled due to a disconnect with Collective2
Added additional information to the error message "Could not set to locked value".
Removed excess debug messages for orders changing states.
Added additional information for error messages related to storage maintenance failing.
Fixed a bug with Manual Order dialog when creating a stop market order that caused the order to have the current price as the stop price regardless of the user-defined price.

(General)

Fixed bug in Futures symbols with one-digit year formatting not being parsed correctly.
Fixed bug with Collective2 Assets and Portfolios being automatically set to auto roll to next contract for Futures.
Added migration to fix current Assets and Portfolios that were set incorrectly.

Release 2.1.9 (11/03/09):

(Broker)

(Interactive Brokers) Fixed problem validating account number for FA accounts. This happened because IB started to send the main account number along with the list of managed accounts.
(Interactive Brokers) Added addtional handling for improving communication between Trader68 and TWS.

Release 2.1.8 (09/23/09):

(General)

Fixed bug with forex orders being sized to zero when conversion rate is not available.
Fixed bug with "Clip order sizes to available capital" option not saving the state of the checkbox.
Fixed bug with "Clip order sizes to available capital" is checked and orders not going to pending price state.
Fixed a bug with orders in pending price state not being able to resolve when price is available and asset is set to "Percent Of Size from C2" for position sizing.

(Signal Generator)

(Collective2) Conditional exits were being ignored until the entry signal was filled. This was a problem when we got disconnected with Collective2 or Collective2 no longer sent us the signals after sending it so many times. Trader68 will now generate the order as conditional exit orders before the entry signal filled. The exits orders will then be in a pending conditional state until the entry order is executed.
(Collective2) When multiple stop signals belonging to different entry signals were received from Collective2, Trader68 was only able to handle it if there were no opposing entry order to the entry order to which the stop belongs.
(Collective2) Improved the handling for validating the exits based on the matching opening signals list and condition signal info from Collective2.
(Collective2) Improved the connectivity between Trader68 and Collective2 servers.

Release 2.1.7 (03/27/09):

(General)

Fixed an issue with Trader68 crashing when an Internal Paper Account is created through the wizard.

Release 2.1.6 (02/26/09):

(General)

Fixed price scaling for order executions based on Price Unit Size that are not scaled by the broker automatically.
Fixed problems setting Safeguards while actively autotrading.
Added "Lock" to Future Details and Forex Details to allow or not allowed manual adjustment of Tick Size & Tick Size Dollar. When pip or tick size for Futures and Forex is auto updated by T68, any settings that are dependant on it are also adjusted for the new value.
Added additional displays for tick & pips when adjusting unit sizes.
Fixed error of assets being duplicated in Broker Reconciliation for no reason.
Fixed the Signal Generator option to automatically update the Base Signal Symbol when changing Signal Generators.
Fixed issue where the wrong default assets panel was being displayed after deletion of account or portfolio.
Fixed error in New System Setup Wizard that was not saving Limit/Stop, Position Sizing and Order Detail settings to "From the Signal Generator".
Fixed bug with Maximum Entry Orders per Day setting. The bug in this feature kept signals from generating orders.
Fixed an issue with the order generated from last signal of the day from TradingSolutions for an asset being canceled too early.

(Messages)

Added additional information to "Order Generated" messages for debugging purposes.
Messages relating order cancels are extended to show more descriptive reasons for canceling.

(Broker)

(Interactive Brokers) Extended wait time to 4-minutes from 3-minutes for an order's status. If "unknown" after 2-minutes, Trader68 will request all executions for that asset from broker in an effort to get any missed executions before considering the order canceled at the end of 4 minutes. (Interactive Brokers) Login information is now optional for IB account in Trader68. When no login information is provided Account# is required.

Release 2.1.5 (01/09/09):

(New Feature)

Added a new setting for the Portfolio to automatically hide assets that are inactive. Assets can be hidden globally or individually depending on your needs.

(General)

Fixed a problem where deleted assets were being re-added due to order information for the asset not being properly handled during signal and broker reconciliation.

(Signal Generator)

(Collective2) DAY orders generated are now entered as DAY instead of GTC.

(Interface)

Fixed a problem with recreating the user layout after customization.

Release 2.1.4 (12/18/08):

(General)

Fixed a problem with old contracts being created automatically for futures assets.
Fixed problem with deleting a portfolio and the assets still being registered to the signal generator.

(Broker)

Fixed a problems where Trader68 was not processing Interactive Brokers rejected orders with error code #200.

(Signal Generator)

(TradingSolutions) Fixed problem with Limit and Stop Orders generated by TradingSolutions not being canceled when a new signal arrives.
(Collective2) Fixed problem where Collective2 cancel and fill messages were never getting processed.
(Collective2) Increased timeout limit for Collective2 responses from 10 to 30 seconds.

(Interface)

Fixed a problem with the dockable panels flickering.
Fixed problem with long delay in switching between panels.
Fixed a problem with the setup wizard failing because "None" was selected for autotrade when setting up a new account.

Release 2.1.3 (12/03/08):

(General)

Fixed a problem with localization related to the inverted Decimal "," and Thousands "." separators.

(Signal Generator)

Fixed problem with the encoding of the login status from Collective2 regarding special characters.

(Database)

Fixed problem with reading null dates from database.
Fixed problem with backup of database not being made between versions 2.1.2 and 2.1.3.

Release 2.1.2 (12/02/08):

(General)

Fixed the error in how open short postions were applied to the cash blance calculation for portfolio.
Fixed the associated capital used for percent gain of round trip trade history was not taking into account position sizing.

(Broker - Internal Paper Trader)

Will start streaming and request end-of-day data without haveing to use TradingSolutions as Signal Generator.
Fixed problems with orders getting stuck because the paper trader never loaded the bars necessary to process them.
Fixed the entry orders that were getting stuck in Pending Exit state because the exit order for the previous position got canceled.

(Interface)

Fixed Order infomation that was not being displayed in the assets grid.
Signal Generator and Model Name columns are now available to be added to the assets grid.
Fixed an issue with Stop and Limit Prices not being displayed open orders grid.
Fixed an error with Manual Order screen that cause T68 to crash.
Added the ability to chose default setting for the TradingSolutions data provider when setting up a Collective2 system in the Internal Paper Trader using the wizard.

(Signal Generator)

(TradingSolutions) Fixed problem with End-Of-Day data request being done too many times.
(Collective2) Symbol translation list is updated to match the current support symbol list from Collective2 website.

Release 2.1.1 (11/12/08):

(Internal Paper Trader)

No longer waits for next bar for to process orders that should use previous bar prices.
Obtains the last bar for prices as soon as connection is made to data source.
Starts streaming and downloads non-intraday data without having to use TS as Signal Generator.
Signals will be deferred until the broker has had a chance to process bars up to the most recent signal bar.
Fixed issue where trades were not being executed going from a Enter Long to Enter Short or vice versa.

(TradingSolutions Signal Generator)

Automatically obtains the last bar available bar for signal's upon start Autotrading.

(Backend Database)

Fixed issues with Trader68 crashing on Account, Portfolio, Asset Setting dialogs for some users.
Fixed invalid Order Fees and Margin table errors.
Fixed error message "Common field 'Volume' could not be resolved" that pertained to Forex assets.
Fixed issue with "SymbolID not found in LastAvailabeBar".

(Safeguards)

Fixed an issue with "Monitor Market Hours" ignoring all signals when turned on.

Release 2.1 (10/24/08):

New Features

(Brokers)

A simulated broker called Internal Paper Trader is added for doing paper trading. This broker requires TradingSoultions. It uses TradingSolutions bars for prices.

(Broker - IB)

Friends & Family Advisor Accounts (FA) are now supported. When setting up FA accounts in Trader68, the account number must be the FA account not the managed account(s).

(Interface)

Interface is changed to show Real and Paper Trading accounts seperately.

(Interface - Grids)

Order History, Transaction History and Round Trip Trade History will initially only load the last 100 records to increase performance.

(Assets)

Same symbol can be added mulitiple time in an account as long a they are in seperate portfolios. When reconciling with broker, any orders or positions not entered from T68 will be added to a new portfolio named Broker Reconciliation. If the asset is already existing and not listening for signal and portfolio to which it belongs is not listening for signal then new position will added to that asset.

(Assets - Price Scale)

The price magnitudes for Futures Assets can differ between broker and signal provider. Three new fields are added to Futures Details tab of the Asset Detail dialog. Broker Price Scale, Sig. Gen. Price Scale and Historical Price Scale. Historical price scale is currently only used by Internal Paper Trader.

(Signal Generator - TS)

End of Day trading is added for TradingSolutions.

(General)

Imporvements have been made for speed and memory optimization.

(Email Alerts)

A new option for receiving email alerts of selected categories is added. This option is added to Tool->Options screen.

(Asset - Obtain Settings)

A new tab call "Obtain Settings" is added to Asset Detail dialog. This defaults setting for futures and symbol information from broker. You can use this tab to copy settings to the asset.

(Asset - Broker Settings)

Exchange and Currency settings are moved to a new tab call Broker Settings. This tab also contain settings for FA Accounts.

(Orders)

A new option is added to "Convert Limit To Market" feature that will allow the option to do convertion minutes before market close. The market hours settings under Safeguards for the asset must accurate for this for work correctly.

(Signal Generator)

Trader68 does not support same C2 system for multiple portfolios regardless of account. The portfolio detail screen allowed do this. This bug is now fixed.

(Signal Generator - C2)

Trader68 encoutered problems with XML responses from C2 without the proper encoding tag. A fix for this is added.
Having special characters in C2 system names caused Trader68 to not read the system names properly and skip signals. This problem is fixed.

(Broker - IB)

Order were at times considered Canceled in Trader68 immedialtely after submission to broker. Fill that came in after this were not accepted. This bug is now fixed.

(Assets - Unsupported Types)

Trader68 had issues with accounts having position in asset types not supported. Trader68 will ignore any order information for asset types not supported.
P&L from unsupported asset types is part of "Misc. Adj." column of the Account Summary grid.

(Assets - Futures Auto Rolling)

Futures auto rolling settings are redesigned for more flexiblity.

(Assets - Forex)

P & L for some for non-US base curreny pair were shown in reverse. This is now fixed.

(Assets)

Changing Stock, Futures or Forex Defaults on Account Detail and Portfolio Detail dialogs will now issue a message alerting copy defaults button should be used to copy the changes to assets.

(Asset - Safeguards)

Ignore signal older than (n)minutes feature had a bug that could've caused C2 exit short signals to be not processed if they were too old. This feature was only meant for entry signal not exit signals.

(Orders)

Subscribtion to quotes is not required for placing orders that does not require postion sizing.

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Release Notes v2.0 (07/03/08)

New Features

(Safeguards)

A new tab called "Safeguards" is added to Asset Dialog. This tab is also found under Stock, Forex and Futures Defaults tabs on Porfolio, Account and Default Trade Settings Dialog. On this tab you may setup up market hours. You can choose to process or ignore signal out side market hours. Also, you can auto exit postions before market close. Monitor Bid Ask Spread safeguard feature allows you ignore signal based on the threshold you set. Using safeguards, you can restrict the number of entry orders allowed per calendar day. You can choose to ignore Collective2 signals that are older than you specify. Order Confirmation allow you the option to confirm orders for the circumstances you choose.

(Futures Details)

A check box called "Units in cents converted to dollars" is added to the futures detail tab of the Asset Dialog. This should be checked for assets for which the price in cents are converted to dollars by the broker. This setting helps determine if the price from signal generator has to be adjusted.
Auto Rolling section of this tab is revised to add feature for using last trading day information from broker. You may you use an offest number of days from the last trading day to perform auto rolling of contracts. The exit date for instruments will be set based on the auto rolling information. You may override last trading date and exit date in the grid on the Instruments tab of the Asset Dialog.

(Broker)

Trader68 now uses Interactive Brokers API version 9.51

(64 bit)

Trader68 can now be used on 64 bit Windows Operating Systsems.

(Signal Generator)

Trader68 does not support same C2 system for multiple portfolios regardless of broker account. The portfolio detail screen allowed do this. This bug is now fixed.

(Order Entry)

Orders for futures had rounding issues, when position sizing was not set to "From Collective2". It did not round price properly to the tick sizes. Also, the manual order screen was rounding prices down to two decimal places. These issues are now fixed.

(Collective2)

In the previous version Trader68, automatically ignore signal older than 5 minutes. This is now a user setting under Safeguards. However, there was bug in how it determined the age of the signal. It did not consider time zone differences between date posted send by Collective2 and the local time zone. This is now resolved. /

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