When to Trade

Here the various options for when to have trading signals are described.

Trading Conceiver can give the final trading signals at open, Threshold and close. Here we explain how to select among the various options. Some remarks about intraday and non-intraday trading are also given.

When to Trade

In general, Trading Conceiver can operate at Open, Threshold and Close. For a wide variety of reasons, though, you could prefer to operate only at the opening or only at the closing of a market. In this case, Trading Conceiver offers you options to do that.

Only for Combination among the Six Tabs

These options are active only for the final building phase, when the six Tabs are combined together. They are not considered in any way during the computations within each Tab. For instance, if the checkbox 'Considering only close' of the 'Make congruent in Tab' pane, is unselected, computations in Open and Threshold are required anyway, whatever option might be selected for When to Trade.

At Open, Threshold and Close

With this option selected, Trading Conceiver will give trading signals at Open, Threshold and Close.

Only at Close (Consider Only Close)

With this option selected, Trading Conceiver will give trading signals only at Close. When combining the six Tabs together, only the Close values of each single Tab are considered, while the values of each Tab at Open and Threshold are disregarded.

Only at Close (Shift to Close)

With this option selected, Trading Conceiver will give trading signals only at Close. However, the signals at Open and Threshold are taken into account. The rationale is to use, at Close, the most recent trading signal. The algorithm is the following, with the priority as listed:

If there is a signal at Close, that's the signal.
Else, if there is a signal at Threshold, that signal is 'shifted' to Close.
Else, if there is a signal at Open, that signal is 'shifted' to Close.

Signals at Open and Threshold are reset.

Price

Clearly, the price the trade occurs at is the closing price. On the contrary, should the signal had been given at open or Threshold, the price would have been different.

Only at (Next) Open

With this option selected, Trading Conceiver will give trading signals only at Open. However, the signals at Threshold and Close are taken into account. The rationale is to use, at Open, the most recent trading signal. The algorithm is the following, with the priority as listed:

If there is a signal at Open, that's the signal.
Else, if there is a signal at the previous Close, i.e. the Close of the previous bar, that signal is 'shifted' to Open.
Else, if there is a signal at the previous Threshold, i.e. the Threshold of the previous bar, that signal is 'shifted' to Open.

Signals at Threshold and Close are reset.

Price

Clearly, the price the trade occurs at is the opening price. On the contrary, should the signal had been given at Threshold or close, the price would have been different.

Remarks

Mix of Intraday and Non-Intraday Tabs

It is perfectly legitimate to have a mix of Tabs operating only at close and others operating intradaily. Simply, Tabs operating only at close will give signals only at close and Tabs operating intradaily will give signals at open, Threshold and close. This happens trivially, for instance, if you select any of the majority of algorithms operating only at close together with a stop loss, which operates intradaily.

Rationale

The rationale of intraday trading is to operate as soon as possible. As soon as a Tab gives a signal, that signal is considered right away.

Example

In this example, we selected non-intraday algorithms for the Long and Short Tabs, which give signals only at close, plus a stop loss, giving signals even at open and Threshold. This is clearly visible both in the 'Tab combined' and in the 'Buy and Sell' columns.

Everything at Close

While operating intradaily is certainly more powerful, it is also definitely more complicated. Beginners might want to prefer to keep things simple and operate only at close. For this, you need to do the following.

Elementary Trading Algorithms

Select only elementary trading algorithms operating only at close. They appear in black (not blue) in the Composer tree and don't have the intraday label 'i' appearing when selected.

Extend Option

Don't select it.

Stop Loss and Take Profit

They operate intradaily. The only way not to, is to combine them together with algorithms operating only at close, by selecting them in the bottom 'Trading Algorithm' section.

Considering only Close

Check the checkbox, in the 'Make congruent in Tab' pane, 'Considering only close'. If you combined the stop loss and take profit algorithms as above-mentioned, this will make the whole Tab only consider and operate at close. Note that, in the table, the data at Open and Threshold will be reported anyway though.

Trade Only at Close

Select the radio button, in the 'When to trade' pane, 'Only at close (consider only close)'.