Short Strategy Template (Basic – 3 Params, Trailing Stop & Profit Target) (Point-and-Click TradeStation® Strategy)

Trading Strategy Summary

This is the basic short strategy template for free trial users with a trailing stop and profit target that you can make a copy of and make changes to in order to create your own strategy without having to start from scratch with an entirely new, empty Quagensia T Edition Strategy.

You can easily customize its short entry criteria, short exit criteria, trailing stop amount, and profit target amount without code, and use the following pre-built strategy logic as-is:

1. The strategy’s custom exit criteria can be turned on or off by setting the “Use Exit Criteria? (1=Yes, 0=No)” input parameter to 1 to indicate True or 0 (or any number other than 1) to indicate False by entering the number 1 or 0 in its textbox in the TradeStation® user interface. Since TradeStation® allows you to optimize a strategy over a range of numeric values for each of its numeric input parameters, including every combination of 0 and 1 for all of your strategy’s Whole Number input parameters that represent a Boolean (True or False) value, this allows you to optimize your strategy based on the inclusion or exclusion of an exit based on custom exit criteria.

2. The strategy has a trailing stop and profit target built-in, and they can be turned on and off independently of each other by setting the “Use Trailing Stop? (1=Yes, 0=No)” and “Use Profit Target? (1=Yes, 0=No)” input parameters to 1 to indicate True or 0 (or any number other than 1) to indicate False by entering the number 1 or 0 in their respective textboxes in the TradeStation® user interface. For the reason described in point 1 above, this allows you to optimize your strategy based on the inclusion or exclusion of a trailing stop and/or profit target.

3. The strategy prints information to the EasyLanguage® Print Log and draws a pink or light blue vertical line on the chart when custom entry or exit criteria are True.

After you use the built-in short strategy templates as starting points for your own short strategies for a bit, we recommend that you create your own short strategy templates to be more ideal for your specific needs than this strategy template is. You can start with a copy of this strategy template (or the more feature-rich paid version of this strategy template, which is denoted by the suffix “Paid”) and add in your proprietary logic that is common to many of your short strategies to create the perfect short strategy templates for you, save them to your “My Algos” folder, and make copies of your own proprietary strategy templates as highly customized starting points for your short strategies. You may also wish to remove all the “Comment in Code” textboxes that contain commentary meant mainly for new users once you’ve learned the information so you won’t have to keep scrolling past them.

Users with a valid paid license can use the more feature-rich paid version of this short strategy template to benefit from the additional pre-built strategy logic:

1. The paid version allows you to use a stop loss instead of a trailing stop, and you can choose which type of protective stop to use by setting the value of the “Stop Type (0=StopLoss, 1=TrailStop)” input parameter to 0 or 1 in the TradeStation® user interface. Since TradeStation® allows you to optimize a strategy over numeric input parameters, this allows you to optimize the paid strategy based on the type of protective stop used. The paid version also allows you to turn off the protective stop altogether, which allows you to optimize it over the inclusion or exclusion of either a stop loss or trailing stop.

2. The optimizable input parameters of the paid version’s profit target, stop loss, and trailing stop, named “Profit Target Amount”, “Stop Loss Amount”, and “Trailing Stop Amount”, have corresponding input parameters (“Stop Amt (0.08 is 8% if Units is Pct)” and “Profit Target Amt (0.08 is 8% if Units is Pct)”) defined in the strategy’s “Input Parameters” section that can be changed and optimized over from the TradeStation® user interface.

3. The paid version allows you to specify the units to use in the calculations of the stop price of the stop loss and trailing stop and the profit target’s price using the “Stop Units (0=Ticks,1=Pct, 2=Dollars/Share)” and “Profit Target Units (0=Ticks,1=Pct, 2=Dollars/Share)” input parameters. For the reason described in point 1 in the previous section above, this allows you to optimize your strategy based on the units used to calculate the stop price of the stop loss and trailing stop and the profit target’s price.

4. All the indicator plot styling fields of both the Fast Moving Average and the Slow Moving Average of the paid version of this strategy have corresponding input parameters defined in the strategy’s “Input Parameters” section that can be changed from the TradeStation® user interface. This includes input parameters that allow you to set the plot’s color, the “Alpha Value” (1=100% transparent, 255=100% opaque) of the plot’s color, the plot’s “Plot Style” (solid or dots), and the plot’s line width.

5. The plots of both the Fast Moving Average and the Slow Moving Average of the paid version of this strategy can be hidden or shown independently of each other by entering the word “True” or “False” in textboxes in the TradeStation® user interface.

6. The “Length” input parameter of the Fast Moving Average and the Slow Moving Average of the paid version of this strategy can be changed and optimized over in the TradeStation® user interface.

7. The order quantity of the entry orders submitted by the paid version of this strategy can be changed in the TradeStation® user interface.

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