No; this is not a science fiction drama about a robotic day trader! I just like to use tragic titles to release my frustrations from time to time!
First of all, our Currenex Trading System project might have to be scrapped. It is taking too long for the orders to travel to the Currenex server. In today’s trading session, by the time the stop price to exit a short trade was reached and the sell signal was sent, the exit price wound up being about 20 pips worse than it should have been.
To avoid issues like these going forward, we are seriously looking at Strategy Runner. It works with a Radianz connection instead of through the traditional internet where data might be lost and delayed. This should decrease our trade execution times – a big plus!
More Trade Rejections at FXLQ and Weird Executions on MT4
Today we basically couldn’t get in any trades when the currency market was really moving. The same typical one-minute-plus trade rejections were the norm. The execution of the only trade today was also really, really weird.
First, here’s the section of the trading log that corresponds to this trade:
17:00:13 ‘1002’: request was accepted by server
17:00:13 ‘1002’: request in process
17:01:25 ‘1002’: order was opened : #199304 buy 25.00 EURUSD at 1.3142 sl: 0.0000 tp: 0.0000
17:01:26 ‘1002’: modify order #199304 buy 25.00 EURUSD at 1.3142 sl: 0.0000 tp: 0.0000 -> sl: 1.3134 tp: 0.0000
17:01:26 ‘1002’: request was accepted by server
17:01:27 ‘1002’: request in process
17:01:27 ‘1002’: order #199304 buy 25.00 EURUSD at 1.3142 was modified -> sl: 1.3134 tp: 0.0000
17:03:39 ‘1002’: close order #199304 buy 25.00 EURUSD at 1.3142 sl: 1.3134 tp: 0.0000 at price 1.3144
17:03:39 ‘1002’: request was accepted by server
17:03:40 ‘1002’: request in process
17:03:57 ‘1002’: order #199304 buy 25.00 EURUSD at 1.3142 sl: 1.3134 tp: 0.0000 closed at price 1.3144
An order was sent to buy 25.00 EURUSD at 1.3142 at 17:00:13 UK time (the yellow arrow on this chart – the horizontal yellow line at 1.3141 corresponds to the bid price at that time). The order took 1 minute and 12 seconds to get filled!!! (see the log above). After the order was sent, the price of the Euro started ticking up to the high (1.3148) of the 1-minute bar at 17:00 (see the chart); there was no fill or rejected order throughout this move (like there should have been). The price then started to retrace, dropping slowly back to 1.3142 (still no fill). The price then dropped to 1.3138 and the order was filled at 1.3142! – 1 minute and 12 seconds later!
The price then started going up. It went to 1.3146 but stalled. The price ticked down two pips to 1.3144 and the sell order was sent. The price was static at 1.3144; no movement – yet no fill. The price started climbing rapidly to 1.3147 (the high of the 17:03 bar labeled on the chart). When at 1.3147, the fill took place at 1.3144; 8 seconds after the order was submitted!
Weird, isn’t it? When the Buy order was sent, it wasn’t filled as the price went up. It was instead held in “limbo” and only filled when the market price came back down and went lower than the original price. The fill occurred at a worse price (higher) than the current market price. When the Sell order was given, which would have closed out the position at a profit, the order was stalled for 8 seconds; then, when the price went higher, a fill occurred at a worse price (lower) than the current market price.
Maybe the trading platform is possessed! 🙂
We continue waiting for the new MT4 system to be ready.
