Closing half a position

• 06/19/2020 at 4:23 PM #136576
  teapot2002

  If I’m in a trade and price moves favourably, I am trying to close half the position and set a stop so that the trade can’t lose. I’ve written this simple code to help me debug it. It does’t seem to work on my spread betting platform. Could someone please tell me whether it should be possible and I’ve done something wrong in the code, or if there’s another way to do it? If it’s not possible on a spread betting platform, is it possible with CFDs?

  My screenshot shows that the code runs; Stopmoved = 1 and Soldhalf = 1, but there is no indication that the buy is executed and COUNTOFSHARES never changes to 1.

  Code to close half a position

  IF NOT ONMARKET AND close < close[1] THEN // conditions to enter a short trade SELLSHORT 2 perpoint at market ENDIF IF SHORTONMARKET AND close < tradeprice - 10 THEN // if the price moves 10pts in my favour... breakevenLevel = tradeprice - 5 //...calculate the level for a stop 5pts below the trade open price... SELL AT breakevenLevel STOP //...and place a new stop order on market at breakevenLevel, ie 5pts below the trade open price Stopmoved = 1 if countofshortshares = 2 then buy 1 PERPOINT at market //close half of the trade SoldHalf = 1 endif ENDIF graph stopmoved graph soldhalf graph countofshortshares IF SHORTONMARKET AND CLOSE > TRADEPRICE + 2 THEN EXITSHORT AT MARKET ENDIF

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  IF NOT ONMARKET AND close < close[1] THEN    // conditions to enter a short trade SELLSHORT 2 perpoint at market ENDIF IF SHORTONMARKET AND close < tradeprice - 10 THEN // if the price moves 10pts in my favour...   breakevenLevel = tradeprice - 5 //...calculate the level for a stop 5pts below the trade open price... SELL AT breakevenLevel STOP     //...and place a new stop order on market at breakevenLevel, ie 5pts below the trade open price Stopmoved = 1 if countofshortshares = 2 then buy 1 PERPOINT at market  //close half of the trade SoldHalf = 1 endif ENDIF graph stopmoved graph soldhalf graph countofshortshares   IF SHORTONMARKET AND CLOSE > TRADEPRICE + 2 THEN EXITSHORT AT MARKET ENDIF

  Many thanks in advance.

   

   

  

  teapot2002

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  06/19/2020 at 4:40 PM #136583
  robertogozzi

  Partial closure of positions is not allowed in automated trading, as of this writing. We all hope it will be in the future.

  Still, it is allowed in backtesting.

   

  

  robertogozzi

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  06/19/2020 at 9:47 PM #136601
  Vonasi

  Partial closure is possible in backtesting even if IG don’t allow it in live trading but also your code at line 10 is

  buy 1 PERPOINT at market //close half of the trade

  1	buy 1 PERPOINT at market  //close half of the trade

  If you want to partially close a short position then you must use EXITSHORT and not BUY. BUY will reverse the position and all short positions will be closed as it is not possible to be long and short at the same time in a ProOrder strategy.

  

  Vonasi

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  06/23/2020 at 9:30 AM #136885
  teapot2002

  Thanks, robertogozzi and Vonasi, and I take the point that I should have used EXITSHORT.

  Nicolas’ post here made me think that I could close half the position: https://www.prorealcode.com/topic/bollinger-band-coding-help-please/#post-80959

   

  

  teapot2002

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