How Autopost Works

The "auto-poster" automatically posts trades generated in the TradeStation strategies to the Demo Room, with exact entry prices, targets and protective stops. Here is the best part: We never announce a fill on an entry or target unless the price pierces, thus assuring everyone who placed the order is filled. You'll find this quite different from other rooms where a fill might be announced if price is touched, but where, in reality, you might not get filled, and go on to take a loss on the trade. If you get your (limit) order in as soon as the trade is announced, the price must pierce before we announce a fill, thus assuring that you get a fill also.

A Sample Trade

Let's walk through the first trade on the chart below:

Most Auto Pilot Day Trading trades use limit orders. An Auto Pilot Day Trading strategy, running here on an ER 75 tick chart, decides that the best entry is short from 738.80. It posts to the Demo Room:

! ER 75 tick Sell SHORT 738.80. Target: 7 ticks. Stop: 10 ticks.

At the time of the post, the price is below 738.80. You place your sell short limit order. The target is 7 ticks, or 738.10, and the stop is 10 ticks, or 737.80. Once price pierces 738.80 (that is, it rises to 738.90), the Auto Pilot Day Trading strategy posts:

! ER 75 tick Filled SHORT 738.80

Because the entry price was pierced, anyone with a pending order to sell short at 738.80 would be filled. Since in this example, the price continues down, once price pierces the target (falling to 738.00), the Auto Pilot Day Trading strategy posts:

! ER 75 tick Out with profit, 7 ticks.

Occasionally the strategy indicates an entry using a market order rather than a limit order. If this is the case, the post looks like this:

! ER 75 tick Surge: Sell SHORT at market

Damage control (being safe)

Sometimes an Auto Pilot Day Trading strategy enters a trade, and then price moves against the trade. In this case, we post a "damage control" target, usually a profit of 1 tick, and we move the original target to the damage control target. (Note: this is not a stop, and the original stop announced for the trade does not change.) The damage control post for a long trade looks like this:

! ER 75 tick Damage control: sell to cover 738.20

This often allows us to get out of the trade with a small profit, rather than getting stopped out with a loss. Again, we do not post a fill until price has pierced the damage control target. An example of this is shown below.