RuleTrader supports multiple trading accounts, which are traded according to their Trade Priority (see Creating/Editing An Account’s Details). In RuleTrader Test, the accounts are held by RuleTrader and are created automatically for each back-test. Because of this, nothing you do in RuleTrader Test will affect your Live session accounts or trading history.

In RuleTrader Live, each trading account is linked to a ShareScope cash-account and one or more ShareScope portfolios, in the Live Dashboard’s Trading Account tab. The accounts are synchronised with ShareScope at the start of each day, to pick up any changes you make directly in ShareScope. Whenever a change is made to the account in RuleTrader it is immediately replicated in ShareScope. This synchronisation process means you can seamlessly transition your existing trading accounts into RuleTrader and use it to immediately start monitoring any open positions you already have.

Each trading account must be linked to no more than one ShareScope cash account and cash accounts may not be linked to more than one trading account. The currency of the linked cash account determines the currency of trades entered into the linked trading account in RuleTrader and these trades are stored in ShareScope in the cash account’s currency. However RuleTrader uses a common currency (sterling) across accounts to enable it to report on aggregate values across accounts. To do this, it converts each trade to sterling at the average exchange rate on the date of the transaction. 

Once a cash account and trading account are linked the link cannot be altered, without first closing then deleting the trading account. If the cash account is attached, in ShareScope, to a portfolio, then trades can only be entered into that portfolio through the linked RuleTrader trading account (see the topic Attach Cash Account in ShareScope’s Help). Otherwise multiple portfolios can be linked to the trading account and, when you enter a trade in RuleTrader’s Trade Entry dialog, you will be asked to specify the portfolio that will contain the trade. Please note that a portfolio can be linked to only one RuleTrader trading account.

In RuleTrader Test the account’s start-date is set to the first day of the back-test and its opening balance is the balance you specify on the Trading Account tab of the RuleTrader Test Dashboard.

In RuleTrader Live, the account start date can be set either manually, or automatically, in the Live Dashboard’s Trading Account tab. In the former case, the opening balance is set to the value of any cash, and the market value of any open positions, in the account at close on the day before the start-date you set. If the start-date is set automatically, then RuleTrader waits for the first share transaction that involves the expenditure or receipt of cash (i.e. a buy, sell, dividend or equalisation). The start-date is set to the date of that transaction and the opening value is set to the cumulative value of all cash deposits/withdrawals and share additions/removals (the funding transactions) on or before that date, which occur before the first monetary transaction. The purpose of this approach is to:

• avoid an opening balance of zero (which would cause infinite returns in the trading reports) by ensuring that all funding transactions, prior to the first share transaction, are included in the opening balance.
• prevent share additions/removals, which may have been used to fund the account at the beginning, showing as unearned profits/losses for the account. Instead the reports only show the growth of those shares’ value since they were added.
• start the account on the day you start trading. This ensures the trade performance reports reflect your actual investment performance and is not distorted by any initial delay, while the cash that funded the account was sitting idle.