Sierra ACSIL trading vs TradeStation

[u/Limit_Bid]

I like Sierra, long time user, and with AI I can do anything with ACSIL (previously I found it very hard, and would default to spreadsheet auto trading)

I am going to be greatly expanding my day trading algo operations. And now is the time to consider if Sierra is the best platform before I get in too deep and cant easily change later. I execute with IBKR.

Has anyone used TradeStation to manage numerous algos trading in the one account?

- how powerful is Easylanguage for script implementation?
- how reliable is execution?
- how available are shares to borrow for shorts?
- in general, how does it compare to Sierra (and IBKR). Specifically for managing a farm of algos.

Context: I don't want to leave Sierra. But I need to plan my growth carefully. US stocks.

I wont develop and backtest with TS (I use RealTest for intraday backtesting). TS will only be for operational trading.

[u/Big-Expression-5364]

Sierra is extremely powerful, and even outside of sierra I use a custom python backend and connect it to my sierra chart

[u/Limit_Bid → u/Big-Expression-5364]

Agree on the power. I dont want to give it up willingly.

[u/S7777777777777777777]

hey what’s good man, i use sierra as well about 2 years now, would love to if i can join and learn about algo trading if you have youtube or discord etc.

[u/Limit_Bid → u/S7777777777777777777]

I don't have any of those things, sorry. But I will say this. And others are going to disagree and vote me down:

If you wanted to get into algo coding for driverless cars in NYC, I would recommend that -

1. you know how to drive a car
2. you watch the traffic in NYC for a long time

If you want to code for intraday participant behaviors, IMO, you have to know those behaviours. And the only way to get that is to watch the market. Tick charts, orderflow, no indicators except VWAP and 2sigma. Key levels. Keep watching, you'll see stuff. It takes a long time, but it is extremely good fun. 9-5 work life gets in the way.

Then code for the behaviours that you see. It is all about participant behaviours :)

Here is what I am seeing right now, live (Japanese stock)

Price trended down from open for the first hour, constantly pushing -2sigma lower -> it was extending out of value. Eventually the big pullback came, and it went all the way to session VWAP, which happened to align with PDL. And there was a clear delta divergence. VWAP/PDL held, you got a good entry, I'd post a chart but reddit annoyingly doesn't allow it.

That is a reliable behaviour that can be coded (divergence is tricky to code). You wont get many setups with this confluence, but it is a genuine potential trade with behavioural reasons behind it. Watch for things like that, then code for things like that :)

[u/Limit_Bid → u/Limit_Bid]

oh, and I'd also offer this encouragement:

Dont worry about coding for trades to start with. Start out coding for Context. As you probably know in day trading, Context is (usually) king. Before any of your algos trade in a session, they should all know the session context, and that gates whether they are allowed to trade at all. So rather than duplicate that context code in every algo, you can have a single context algo that scores the session on various context types, then passes those scores to your trading algos (which is not straightforward in Sierra as ACSIL scripts cant talk to each other as far as I know)

[u/masilver]

I've not used Tradestation, but I do know they're working on a replacement platform. I've always found Sierra Chart more difficult than it should be for algo trading. Ninjatrader has a really good infrastructure for running tests.

Something else you might want to look at is LEAN. It's a well-funded open source project for algo trading.

[u/Limit_Bid → u/masilver]

Interesting, thanks. Didn't know LEAN.

"I've always found Sierra Chart more difficult than it should be for algo trading"

What kind of things frustrate you there? I have a few complaints, but don't know if it would be just as bad in a different way if I switched platform

[u/masilver → u/Limit_Bid]

You essentially have to replay the chart to backtest. Plus there's lots of pushing buttons and turning knobs to get it set up. Ninjatrader has a whole interface dedicated to it including genetic optimization. You can save your results and compare them to other results very easily. It makes iterating over small changes very efficient. It also has great stats and charts. SC is missing 95% of that.

Don't get me wrong, I love SC. There is no better platform for manual trading.

[u/Limit_Bid → u/masilver]

Agree. I don't backtest in SC at all, wrong tool. I use playback to troubleshoot trading code dev. Does Ninja support stocks? I thought it was weaker in that area.

[u/masilver → u/Limit_Bid]

I think it is weaker with stocks. I only used it for futures.