Wealth-Lab, Fidelity, and sufficient capital for trading
Author: sedelstein
Creation Date: 3/4/2014 8:10 AM
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sedelstein

#1
Not sure if anyone has encountered this but wondering if any WL users have encountered this in practice

I have a strategy that uses limit orders. For this example, assume each trade is 50k in size

When I test a strategy in WL, if I have say 100k in an account and limit orders for say, 400k worth of stock (16 orders of 50k), WL will keep filling orders (4 in a 2:1 margin account) until the capital available for trading runs out and then the message that X number of trades were not made because of insufficient capital (assuming all the limits were reached). That's ok by me.

In actual trading, Fidelity won't allow me to enter trades for more than the amount of my max buying power (taking into account margin, etc..), that is 4 trades. (Understandably, Fidelity can't take the risk that all 16 orders get executed on some massive move downward) That leaves me in a position to have to pick which of the 16 orders to take. I run the risk of not getting anything filled (because I picked poorly) whereas 4 other orders might have traded. This makes my simulated trading in WL radically different from actual trading results.

Is there any sort of workaround or compromises that others here have settled on?

Thanks
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LenMoz

#2
sedelstein,

I am an overnight trader. In my case, I use priority to show me the statistically better symbols. I place limit orders ahead of the open, in descending priority order, to the extent of available buying power (or what I am willing to have at risk, given market conditions).

I watch the orders and price movement during the day (I'm retired). Orders that didn't execute, and seem unlikely to, I may replace from the symbols I didn't originally order. All of this is manual.

Len
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Cone

#3
Please give the Active Trader guys a call and ask them about intraday margin. The account probably needs to be identified as a "pattern daytrader" and you might have to select "most aggressive" as your account's objective. (Just guessing here.)

That aside, because Wealth-Lab doesn't implement margin calls, you should take care to leave some leeway in your simulations since at full margin a small drawdown would result in a margin call.
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Cone

#4
See this: https://www.fidelity.com/trading/faqs-trading-restrictions

QUOTE:
Day trade buying power
Day trade buying power is the amount that a customer can day trade without incurring a day trade call.
The rules generally permit a pattern day trader to trade up to four times the minimum margin excess (also referred to as "exchange surplus") in the account using time and tick and as of the close of business of the previous day.

...

Example:
Your account has $20,000 more than the minimum equity requirement for the marginable equities you hold. As a result, your day trade buying power is $80,000 (four times the exchange surplus).
If you bought $80,000 of XYZ Corp. at 9:31 a.m. and bought $70,000 of JGG Ind. at 10:00 a.m., then subsequently sold XYZ and JGG, a day trade margin call would be issued the next business day. (One way to avoid the margin call in this example would be to sell XYZ Corp. before purchasing JGG Ind.).

In any case, it seems you need to call Fidelity to resolve your buying power situation.
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sedelstein

#5
Thank you Gentlemen for the suggestions.

It occurred to me that if I could implement this, it might be a possibility.

Take my list of (in this example 16) buys. Read a list of the limit prices for each symbol. Open WL in streaming mode and have it continuously scan for the prices in a (infinite? or at least during market hours) loop and execute buy orders when the limits are hit. When I run out of capital, Fidelity will reject the trade. This will mimic the WL simulation.

Is there any code on the forums that will do that?

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Cone

#6
You don't need code. You need the Quotes tool. Select all the EOD Alerts, and then "Monitor in Quotes Window".

In Quotes, configure your triggering options, Auto-Stage/Place, etc.

For all the details, see User Guide: Quotes
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sedelstein

#7
Thanks Cone, this helps!

I guess what is also means is that each day I need to ensure I am logged into Fdelity in WL, enable streaming mode, and make sure the PC doesn't "go to sleep"

This will work as long as I have a constant broadband connection. When traveling, I will need to either log in to my broadband connected PC remotely or make other provisions.



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sedelstein

#8
Ha Ha

Called Fidelity WL Support. Btw, the WL phone number I got was 800-823-0175. I wanted to get some help walking through the Quotes window. The person there was unaware of the triggering feature and promised to get back to me by the end of the day,

Specifically, at the end of the day my WL strategy generates a list of limit orders. I want to send them to the quotes window. (Easy enough by highlighting all the alerts and pressing the "Monitor in Quotes" button. My question for them is how do I set up triggering automatically somewhere near the limit price for each order.

Second question is if these orders are good for the day only, do I need to manually remove them from the Quotes window or can they "disappear" at the end of the day, I don't want to carelessly leave limit orders out there.

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