Trend Trader’s Trading Strategy
You’ll have seen that the Strategy level of the Trading Specification Definition dialog opens with the Strategy Activation tab showing, with a place-holder strategy activation definition displayed. This definition determines when the strategy is used.
- Click the Edit button next to the definition and the Definition Engine for Trading (DEfT) Wizard will open. You’ll be using this intuitive Wizard to create English language statements that define each definition (e.g. strategy, trading rules, list selectors and terms) in your Trading Spec. No technical skills are required because the Wizard leads you through the process and provides helpful instructions along the way. All you need to do is fill in the blanks and select options. As you do this, the English language statement you’re constructing is displayed above the input line.
Because a place-holder strategy definition had already been created, the Wizard opens in Edit mode, which is indicated by the ‘WAS:’ and ‘NOW:’ lines above the input line. The former shows the definition, as it was, while the latter shows the edited definition, as it is being created now.
- All definitions have an associated name, which is always entered in the first field shown in the Wizard. Currently the strategy selection definition has a place-holder name of ‘<strategy 1>’ (place-holder names are always indicated by <…> delimiters). Change this by entering a name in the first blank field.
How about calling it the Trendy trading strategy, for a bit of fun? After all, with RuleTrader, you’re “on trend” operating at the cutting edge of investment fashion!
NOTE: Definition names must be unique (unless they are Private Term names, in which case they only have to be unique in the area they are defined); they must not start with a number; and they can contain only alphabetic letters, numbers, spaces or the special characters _ £ % – & ‘ !
- The second field is a drop-down list with two options that specify when the trading strategy should be used (i.e. activated). Trading strategies can always be evaluated or only evaluated when a condition is met. To keep things simple, stick with the always option for now, then click Next.
- Nothing else is required to create the strategy’s activation definition, so the Wizard automatically switches out of editing mode back to its default ready mode. As you can see, you’ve now created a short English language statement that specifies that the “‘Trendy’ trading-strategy’s rules are always evaluated”. It’s simple, easy to understand, and unambiguously obvious what the definition does.
- Now the definition is done, just click Exit Wizard to return to the Trading Specification Definition dialog, so we can create the strategy’s List Selector
