Why T-Rex Trader Indicators are not necessarily Indicators
When T-Rex Trader was just a baby several years ago (and before it became T-Rex Trader), it consisted of a single chart, a collection of indicators (like MACD, Stochastic, Chanel Commodity Index, etc.) and a very sophisticated automated trading system with an exceptionally fast analyzer (back tester).
As the application morphed into more complex incarnations, it became apparent that the indicator could be so much more.
The visual space comprising a T-Rex Trader Window is composed of horizontal bands called indicators, the term is now archaic, but we are not sure what else to call them. These indicators can be just about anything we want to design. They are managed by our graphics and rendering system.
Even the chart is a type of indicator called a MultiChart, because it can display multiple charts.
Everything is an indicator, the tabs, the charts, the title, control panel, everything. Each of these indicators can be further divided into regions that can comprise independent objects that are also managed. The beauty of this design is that it is (relatively) straight forward for us to add new things quickly to T-Rex Trader.
Even all of the real time data that streams in has been normalized. Truth is that T-Rex Trader can quickly be modified to accommodate any kind of information stream from any source – not just market data.
The importance for you is that once we release our Builder and Visual Studio SDK, you will have full access to our graphics and rendering system and will be free to design your own plug and play objects.
In fact if you don’t care about using T-Rex Trader for charting or trading, than use it for something else - we are making it that flexible!
Anyway, let’s talk about Indicators.
Trading Indicators
As explained above, T-Rex Trader ‘s collection of trading indicators are not classic indicators, rather they are trading modules that can be placed at different locations on the window. The trading indicators provide different ways to set up, control and visualize your trades. Trading indicators are covered in the “Trading” section.
Streaming Indicators
Streaming indicators provide real time information on what is happening in the market place and are different from technical indicators.
Streaming indicators don’t produce signals for market entry rather they allow you to visualize market activity to further refine your decision to enter, exit or reverse a trade.
Whale Watcher
The whale watcher shows you trade activity as it occurs and visually ranks the trades by their size. The whale watcher clearly highlights large trades, shows the size and relative rankings of all trades and the price and the direction of the trades (up or down tick).
The whale watcher is an excellent tool for showing market activity as it changes and which side of the market the big money is betting on.
Raw Tick
The raw tick plots trades as they occur. Raw tick produces a single color coded dot on a chart for each trade with trade size shown below it as a running histogram.
Bar Builder
The bar builder is intended for use by intra-bar traders. It divides a 60 second bar interval into user defined sub intervals ranging from 3 seconds to 30 seconds producing a bounded histogram for the current bar. By doing this you can clearly see the setup bar as it changes.
Running Bar
Another feature for Intra-Bar traders is the running bar. The running bar is not an indicator, but rather it is used instead of the classic setup bar that appears to the right of the chart.
A classic 60 second bar starts its formation at 0 second, when the open, high, low and close are all the same price. The bar is built each second as the high, low and close change. At the end of second 59, the bar resets and the process starts over again.
Intra bar traders use the final few seconds to decide the trade.
The running bar on the other hand shows a setup bar that always represents the last 60 seconds and changes each second. The result is that you no longer have to wait until those final few seconds to decide the trade, because you are always looking at the last second of a 60 second bar.
Price Flow
Price Flow displays a horizontal gradient showing the current price relative to the day’s high and low. The actual trades are displayed below the price flow.
Ticker
The ticker is similar to the classic ticker that you see streaming at the bottom of CNBC or Bloomberg. It shows the symbol, last trade price, trade size and color codes up/down tick.
News
The news crawler is similar to the classic news crawler that you see at the bottom of CNN. A brief headline describes the news event. Further details are displayed in the headline synopsis and full details can be viewed by selecting full view.
Miscellaneous Indicators
MiniChart
The MiniChart displays a collection of thumbnail charts. The charts can be scaled by placing the cursor on a selected MiniChart and using the mouse wheel. One can also select a minichart to become the primary chart for the Window.
Tab Set
The tab set allows you to have up to ten different views per window. Each tab shows the instrument’s symbol associated with the view, and if the instrument is being traded, it shows the profit/loss for the trade.
Technical Indicators
T-Rex Trader doesn’t have as many indicators as other products. The indicators we chose to include have shown their importance over the years.
If there is a demand for additional indicators, then they will can be quickly added (it only takes us a few hours to include a new one) just let us know what you want, we have over 100 formulas to select from.
With a couple of exceptions, all indicators can be displayed in several modes, cloud shading, solid shading and lines only. Examples of these three views are shown for the Aroon Oscillator below.
Some of the indicators included with T-Rex Trader are show below.
Aroon
Developed by Tushar Chande in 1995. The Aroon Oscillator signals an upward trend is occurring when it is above zero and a downward trend when it is below zero. The strength of the trend is determined by its distance from the center line.
Chaikin Money Flow
Developed by Marc Chaikin to show when a security is experiencing buying or selling pressure.
MACD (Moving Average Convergence / Divergence)
Developed by Gerald Appel.
Accumulation / Distribution
Developed by Marc Chaikin to determine the cumulative flow of money into and out of a security.
Elder Ray
Developed by Dr. Alexander Elder, this indicator measures buying and selling pressure.
Volume
PV Volume (Peak Valley Volume)
This unusual indicator was developed to show trade accumulation prior to a pivot point giving you a visual clue on the prior volume build up that occurred before a trend stopped, paused or reversed.
When you have large well defined saw teeth, you have well defined trends. When the saw teeth are poorly formed, it indicates the instrument is in a period of congestion.
Signals
All of the technical indicators can generate entry/exit signals that can be used to automatically start or end trading, or alert the trader. These signals can be displayed as an overlay on the chart. Signal overlay types include; Area (shown below), Box, Trend, Line and Arrow.
Overlays can be adjusted for transparency and either be placed on top or behind the chart.
