Auto-Trading with the Tradovate API
This is part one of a three-part series showing you an example of how you could use the Tradovate AutoTrade framework to create auto-trading strategies. This article will outline broader concepts about the framework and is intended as an introduction to using the software. We will go into greater detail about the internal workings of Tradovate AutoTrade later in the series.
Developing a quality trading strategy that works for you can take years of research and trial-and-error. Once you’ve found something that works, you’ll wish that you could automate it. Now that Tradovate offers its API to everyday users, you can do just that.
Many traders take cues from indicators — depending on the complexity of the conditions behind these cues and indicators, it is usually possible to automate them. Automation can be a great way to take the emotional pressure out of day trading, especially if you already have a predetermined set of cues or ‘rules’ that you already follow. The robot also doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or take breaks, giving it a great efficiency advantage compared to a human trader.
Note: I will assume the reader has at least a working knowledge of NodeJS and JavaScript, if not I’d suggest starting with those before you continue with this guide.
To build our futures-trading robot, you will need to get access to the Tradovate API. To access the API, you will need to get a few things in order first:
- Be a registered Tradovate user with non-social credentials (meaning you didn’t sign up using Google and have a username/password credential pair).
- Have a LIVE account with at least $1,000 in equity.
- Generate an API Key.
You can get a detailed guide on how to tackle this task in our community.
Tradovate AutoTrade General Concepts
Tradovate AutoTrade is an event-driven auto trading framework. The AutoTrade application catches events sent from the Tradovate API and allows you, the developer, to decide how to process those events. It takes care of managing the real-time subscriptions so that you can focus on responding to the events. The Strategy class can catch any event that the API can produce, from DOM or Chart updates to User Data updates, order modifications, and more.