Live trading software - WBTrader

[johna]

I do a small amount of trading and always wanted a live trading application like Commsec's ProTrader or Power*Etrade. But I don't want to pay the fees they charge or be pressured to do a minimum number of trades.

As I am with Westpac and they have all the data I need but it is not updated automatically I decided to write my own software to get all the data from the Westpac site and display it in one window and refresh the data automatically.

I have been using my software every day now for many months and have gradually improved it. I have now decided to make it available to anyone as freeware hoping that others might find it useful. You do need to have an account with Westpac Broking.

It displays your Westpac watchlists together with market depth, trade history, last ten trades, indexes, charts (from bigcharts.com) and announcements (from ASX). You can create and edit your Westpac watchlists too. You can also place, review and cancel orders and view your holdings. The window display can be customised to your needs and changed data in watchlists and market depth can be highlighted to alert you. Most data can be automatically refreshed every 1 second or a user adjustable amount (subject to your connection speed).

Please visit wbtrader.com for more information or free download. (Note this is not commercial software but I welcome donations if you find it useful.)

The software works simply by retrieving the relevant pages from the Westpac Broking site then displaying the data in the applications Windows. It uses the same methods as Internet Explorer including secure access (SSL).

I welcome all feedback and new feature suggestions.

 

[professor_frink]

Hi johna,

hate to break it to you man, but quotetracker does pretty well the same job. And you can get that for free as well. It will work with most Aus. online brokers.

 

[johna]

I did try quotetracker but, although it is better in several respects, didn't suit my needs and wants.

 

[professor_frink]

ok that's cool. Good job on the software too- it looks good

 

[doctorj]

Fantastic work!

Any chance of a commsec version?

 

[RichKid]

Wow! That really is amazing John, maybe Commsec will hire you to develop their apps, reminded me of my ProTrader desktop!
Great stuff, must have taken a lot of effort, do you get the price data via Westpac for the chart or is it linked to Bigcharts (reason I ask is bc Bigchart doesn't always have clean data, they don't adjust for splits sometimes, for eg)?

Keep up the good work!

PS one suggestion is to change the colour scheme of the layout to make it look more professional- more like a shiny new app than something under dvlpt.

 

[johna]

Great stuff, must have taken a lot of effort, do you get the price data via Westpac for the chart or is it linked to Bigcharts (reason I ask is bc Bigchart doesn't always have clean data, they don't adjust for splits sometimes, for eg)?

Thanks for your comments. And yes it took a long time to create and wasnt helped by Westpac recently changing their site.

The price charts do come from BigCharts for a couple of reasons: Westpac's charts are pretty basic, and they are in a format that I can't display as easy or well as BigCharts. If their data causes problems then I will have to look at changing.

Any chance of a commsec version?

Not whilst I trade with Westpac. Sorry.

 

[SevenFX]

Fantastic work!

Any chance of a commsec version?

Well Done Johna,

I would second the Commsec version, but ask if you could go 1 better and develop a API to use Commsec's Protrader DATA FEED and use it on Metastock...now that would be really nice....

The reason were prob for Commsec version, is because of low brokerage fee, and the reason were prob against, is the unstable Protrader software they provide...

Heck I would actually pay for a API/interface...

 

[tech/a]

Big call but Instant refreshable % gains,%losses,Volume,Number of trades
Gap% on open.
Tick chart capability.OR 1 min 5 min 15,30,60 min charts.
I and a few others would pay for this I already do with Marketcast.

Great job John I admire clever people way way beyond me!
Consider a monthly lease fee for the effort.
Youd get $50 with ease from everyone I would say.
I pay $165 plus setup cost originally $390

 

[swingstar]

Hi johna

Nice work. What would be cool is if you could have an API so people could write plugins for certain brokers. I would certainly attempt writing one for E*TRADE.

What's it written in?

Cheers

Edit: I just noticed SevenFX's post.

 

[Bobby]

Hello johna,

Does it have a scan function ?

 

[bingk6]

Hi Johna,

I concur with every positive feedback you have been getting on this.

One thing that I would like to see is whether this program can be tailored to issue buys and sells on your behalf. As an example, the program would obtain the buy and sell instructions (via a spreadsheet or even just a flat ASCII file) and then submit the instructions to Westpac broking on your behalf.

The reason I am asking for this is if one uses technical indicators to generate buys and sells, instead of being a mechanical trader whereby YOU manually enter the order details once the signal is given, I am trying to change it into an AUTOMATED mechanical trader, whereby your program periodically scans for instructions (via spreadsheet or otherwise) and then submits the orders for you. That way, an entire infrastructure could be set up whereby whenever your indicators indicate a trade, your program will submit the orders for you, without manual intervention.

That way, once you have your indicators correct, and if you trust it inherently, then just set it up, go away on holidays for 6 months and periodically check your bank balance every month to see how its going. How good is that going to be ???

I suspect that there would be some people prepared to help pay for such an enhancement. I know that I would be interested.

 

[johna]

Thanks all for your suggestions.

What's it written in?

Visual Basic 6.

Does it have a scan function ?

Sorry but not sure what you mean by this.

One thing that I would like to see is whether this program can be tailored to issue buys and sells on your behalf. As an example, the program would obtain the buy and sell instructions (via a spreadsheet or even just a flat ASCII file) and then submit the instructions to Westpac broking on your behalf. (more)

It can be done. I was planning on adding an alerts feature to alert you when certain conditions are met (based on last trade, first buy/sell order price, volume and announcement) and I guess I could add an automated order option to trade on your behalf when conditions are met. Not quite what you asked about admittedly.

 

[doctorj]

Sorry but not sure what you mean by this.

I suspect by the term scan, he was referring to many of the same features that tech was after - intraday scans for gaps up on open, above normal volume etc.

 

[bingk6]

It can be done. I was planning on adding an alerts feature to alert you when certain conditions are met (based on last trade, first buy/sell order price, volume and announcement) and I guess I could add an automated order option to trade on your behalf when conditions are met. Not quite what you asked about admittedly.

I didn't think it would be too difficult for somebody who is able to code this up from scratch. After all, if webtrader can provide a facility to issue buys and calls to westpac, using manual efforts, then surely it cannot be too difficult to change the program to read the orders instructions from a file and then issue them automatically.

Keep in mind we are not talking about amending your program to decide when to buy and/or sell. That would not be practical. What I had in mind was that my program would issue any buys and/or sells that need to be undertaken (in a predefined format in a file) and your program would read the contents of the file and issue the instructions accordingly.

 

[Bobby]

I suspect by the term scan, he was referring to many of the same features that tech was after - intraday scans for gaps up on open, above normal volume etc.

Yes Doc,
Thats what I meant! Thanks.

Bob.