Platform Immersion

Duration: Part 1: 1 Day, Part 2: 2 Days (with Lifetime Retake Option)

Print Curriculum

Overview

Your electronic workstation is at the center of your daily trading business. Become a master user and your analysis will be more effective, accurate and complete. That's what this class is all about! It covers everything from organizing your desktop to the use of advanced charting and analysis tools. You'll get three full days of "hands on" practice-creating your own layouts and tool combinations, and getting a deeper understanding of the how to use the strategies and tactics developed in other classes.

Audience

This course is for individuals who need to learn the details of the TradeStation platform and have completed Professional Trader 1 and 2 or have 6 months of direct access trading experience.

Program Format

• Delivered through a combination of lecture and hands-on examples
• Each day is approximately 8-hours in length with morning, afternoon and lunch breaks
• Use of computers in a hands-on setting with access to live financial markets
• Delivered in a physical classroom setting

Learning Objectives

What You'll Learn:

• How to set up a working environment that matches your personal preferences and your typical daily activity.
• How to get maximum benefit from built-in charting, Trendlines, Fibonacci retracements and other analysis tools.
• Creating your own watchlists, alerts and hotlists to track the market at a glance.
• Making the most of built-in macros, hotkeys and toolbars... plus how to add your own.

Prerequisites

Suggested prerequisites: Part 1: Professional Trader Part 1 and Part 2 or 6 months direct access trading experience. NOTE: This course features TradeStation and other affiliate platforms; check with your local center to confirm which version is used in the training.

Course Outline

The following detailed outline contains the topics and subtopics covered in the Platform Immersion course:

Part 1

Day 1

• Class Introduction
• Features and Benefits of High Level Trading Access
• Class Goals
• Introduction and Description of the Online Trading Academy Stock Setup
• The Electronic Working Environment
• Preferences ("Global")
• Desktops (Menus, "Bars")
• Workspaces (Collections of Windows)
• Windows (With Toolbars)
• Windows and their toolbars
• Toolbars are window-specific
• Toolbars can be customized or created
• Charts
• Account Managers
• Depth of Market
• Time & Sales
• Market Monitoring Screens
• Charting
• Charting Basics
• Pointers - hold down button on or off the bars
• Pointer Tracking
• Chart Preferences
• Multiple ways to get access to drawing resources
• Drawing Menu
• Chart Analysis Toolbar
• Drawing Toolbar
• Support and Resistance - many choices
• Horizontal S/R - the line tool (Format, labels, alerts)
• Fibonacci Retracements (other tools later)
• Trend Lines - formatting, labels, data tip with angle indicator
• Use New Parallel to make a channel
• Use Format Calculation to make a Linear Regression line
• Use New Parallel to make a linear regression channel
• Linear Regression Tool (one-step LR channel)
• Andrews Pitchfork
• Time-Based Drawing Tools
• Gann fans - make the 1X1 line 45 degrees
• Fibonacci Cycles
• Fibonacci Speed/Resistance lines
• Other Charting Tools/Settings
• Text Tools
• Rectangles and Ellipses
• Sub-graph Margin Setting
• Space to the Right Setting
• Analysis Techniques
• Types - Indicator, Scan specifics, Graphic enhancers, Activity Bar, Standard Deviation Mapping
• Indicators
• The Standards - MA's, MACD, RSI, CCI, Stochastics
• Additional Indicators - Money Flow, Trin
• Create your own indicator - Moving Average 8-50-200
• Getting and using 3rd-party indicators
• ELD Files
• Scan specifics - [example - PivotLow]
• Graphic enhancers - [example MACD Gradient]
• Activity Bars - [example - Up vs. Down Strength]
• Standard Deviation - [example - Normal Range]

Part 2

Day 1

• Symbol Lists
• Groups of symbols to work with simultaneously
• Ways to create and use existing lists
• Market Monitoring
• Watchlist on steroids
• Unique capabilities - "Tabular charting"
• Saving and using Analysis Groups (groups of indicators)
• Alerts
• Scanner
• Scan the whole market or user-defined subsets
• Use many pre-defined scan criteria, or create your own
• Results can be put into a Symbol List
• User Defined Scans
• Fast, predefined lists of biggest gainers, gaps, etc.
• Update in real time
• Faster than a Scanner, quicker to set up than a Market Monitoring List
• Strategy Trading
• Introduction

Day 2

• Order Entry and Management
• Order Bar
• Account Manager
• Position Graph Bar
• Matrix
• OCO/OSO Orders
• Strategy Trading
• The strategy development process
• Using preloaded strategies
• Changing strategy parameters (Inputs)
• Optimizing strategies
• Back-testing strategies
• Macros, Hotkeys and Toolbars
• Standard macros and hotkeys
• Help - Command Line Reference for macro commands
• Creating a new Macro - Panic Button
• Assigning a macro to a Hotkey
• Adding a Macro to a Toolbar
• Other Features
• Backup/Restore
• Account Manager Analysis report
• Downloading Transaction Details (tax info)
• Window templates