…and here we go again.

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  • 06/03/2018 at 1:29 PM #72111
    Despair

    We will see how this develops. Right now IG is (I hope) talking to PRT in this matter. Last time I heard from it was about 1 week ago. I will send a another question how this develops after the weekend.

    PRT answered earlier that the closure of the position was caused by some maintenance ongoing on the IG server at this time if I remember right (there were so many reports and mails back and forth and now several weeks have passed since the incident that I’m not 100% sure if I don’t mix up things). So this sounds for me as if this definitely can’t be blamed on my code but we will see.

    Then there have been stopped strategies on my account almost every weekend (like also this weekend). So I don’t know if just thins weekend was somehow special. But it is very hard to understand. The strategy that was stopped with a lost this day ran simultaneously on the account of a friend who I gave the strategy to. On his account the strategy was NOT stopped although it was exactly the same code! Another weekend it was the other way round. Stopped on his account but not on mine. This inconsistency is hard to understand. The same code should produce the same trades on every account.

    06/05/2018 at 10:55 AM #72345
    David

    @despair let’s hope common sense prevails. As you might be aware from one of my posts I am in a similar situation.


    @vonasi     I accept the limitations of PRT but I do not accept unreliability and more importantly a lack of response and co-operation != customer service. There is no excuse for this and I’m not the type of person to exaggerate or expect too much from a supplier. I am very calm and patient because as you say they hold the cards but I hold the money that they like in their accounts and licensing fees that is paid by my holdings and trading. Nevertheless the way they continue to treat “customers” or mistreat customer, and on top of that with deceitful statements is disgusting, insulting and very arrogant. When they start behaving like a reliable service vendor and responding reasonably I will be happy to send my praise.  What really keeps me here in the short term is the “sunk cost” but hopefully what will keep me here in the long term is a vast improvement in my customer service experience.

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar GraHal
    06/09/2018 at 12:11 PM #72700
    Despair

    I got a really weird reply in this matter  from IG this week. IG forwarded me the following reply from PRT:

    The client trades on a 1 second timeframe, so the mentioned trades were rejected by the repeat dealing rule. The client can increase the timeframe to 1 minute which will prevent this from happening. This issue was investigated for the client in INC0230509. Our technical team looked into the matter and decided that we will not cash correct the account as the repeat order rule is an intended function, not a technical error.

    I really can’t make sense of it. The strategy that we are talking about runs on a daily timeframe. I never, ever ran a strategy on 1 second timeframe! When I pointed out this to IG they answered that I have to contact PRT in this issue, that nothing went wrong on IG’s side.

    Can you believe me I’m tired of this nonsense!?

    06/09/2018 at 12:56 PM #72701
    Vonasi

    I guess the positive thing to consider is that someone does actually look into these problems.

    It would seem to me that they may have got their replies mixed up and maybe someone else who trades on the one second time frame who also is trying to get money back has maybe received your reply!

    06/09/2018 at 1:20 PM #72702
    Despair

    God knows. I will have to write to them AGAIN. It is just very tiring if you wait a week or so for a reply and then something like this. Also PRT told me (after again waiting for a reply for a week or so) first that I have to contact IG (my executing broker) to ask for a refund but IG answered now clearly that I shall contact PRT regarding the refund. Not nice to be send back and forth. 🙁

    06/09/2018 at 2:01 PM #72708
    Vonasi
    Despair wrote:

    Not nice to be send back and forth

    Unfortunately this will always happen when you are dealing with two parties and a dispute. Neither wants to be held accountable and the easiest tactic is to bat you back to the other side. Problem solved for a while until you get batted back.

    06/09/2018 at 8:12 PM #72735
    GraHal

    There was somebody on here very recently who described a similar scenario (as in https://www.prorealcode.com/topic/and-here-we-go-again/page/2/#post-72700) re trades being rejected on a 1 second Timeframe!

    I’ll put money on it that PRT have got their wires crossed!

    If I find the Topic re 1 sec TF / Rejections, I will post a link on here.

    PS I found it here …

    https://www.prorealcode.com/topic/5-strategies-stopped-this-morning/page/2/#post-72547

    06/11/2018 at 12:47 PM #72874
    Despair

    @Grahal: I also remembered this post from MaxT when I received the mail from IG that PRT answered that I was trading on second timeframe. Thanks for pointing this out. I wrote now again to PRT. Let’s see what comes back this time.

    It is getting more and more difficult to sort this out as time passes. The problem occurred 26th april (if I remember correctly) and since then there were countless mails back and forth and in-between replies to other tickets that also don’t come in the order I send them. At the end of last week for example I got a reply (saying that they will look into the matter) to a ticket I send in march! :-S

    06/11/2018 at 4:36 PM #72919
    GraHal

    @Despair I sympathise with your plight / problems. 😀

    From where we see it the PRT direct to User and / or PRT via IG to Users feedback loop / problem sorting loop needs complete overhaul.

    A massive improvements would be an online Log so we can see all messages relating to a specific Ticket? Seems so basic a Customer Service requirement that there must be a benefit to PRT to not do this?? For example, with no online Log …  difficult issues can be forgotten about / fall through cracks?  Even IG who did have an online Query Log recently ceased / abandoned it!

    06/15/2018 at 5:24 PM #73374
    random45689

    Yup it’s me using the 1 second timeframe – yes I know crazy I hear you cry! but I set the code up so that it is in fact trading 5min or 15 min or 1 hour etc. but am able to execute trades without having to wait for the 5min/15min/1hour bar to close (yes no doubt many think is crazy/just work on the relevant timeframe and be done with it/waiting for candle to close etc.)

    Over the months/years it has become a bit of a passion of mine to work on the 1 second timeframe to see what is truly going on with PRT – I even video’d a trade yesterday for the first time – should have done it ages ago – with all the relevant PRT windows open and played it back frame by frame – some very odd things going on! and I have come across many another gremlin that I can’t even be bothered to write about on here

    Perhaps the reason is that I am using the 1 second timeframe and these issues are not experienced on higher timeframes and I’m beginning to slightly panic whether my trading is in fact screwing with the PRT servers (my sincere apologies if so!) but I’ve never heard of anything about a repeat dealing rule – where is this information/what is it? but if the system can’t handle it and even more importantly if it would affect other clients using the server it shouldn’t be allowed in the first place!

    From what I am experiencing on the one second timeframe I think a lot of the strategy erroring out is down to the speed and acknowledgment of order execution between PRT and IG and that it is not quite as you would expect it to be


    @Despair     you’re making a claim and they have come back to you excusing it as being 1 sec timeframe when you say you are running daily – obviously this is an error on ITF’s part and these things happen of course we all know that and are patient blah blah blah but now you have the headache trying to battle through the ridiculous CLIENT->IG->ITF->IG->CLIENT chain trying to get it resolved – that’s not cool and I sincerely hope you have it resolved quickly

    Also seeing some other posts and the replies from PRT cust service that it is over to the programmers team dealing with it – I am the last one to put pressure on a programmer believe me I have the utmost respect for anyone who chooses to do that especially when it comes to a system like this but the thread was a few months long (but it did get fixed – very good to see!) so really it is very obvious the programmers are snowed under and things are not right especially with the IG/PRT setup

    I know it has been mentioned on here/other posts that despite all the shortcomings PRT is ‘free’ and good for quick backtests and screeners etc…. what’s everyone complaining about be happy with what you’ve got etc. errrm what makes anyone so sure about that…? is it? really? why is there faith in the backtesting/screening when we are all unearthing more and more issues on the front line – why the confidence in the backtesting/screening working correctly and not giving incorrect results/you scrap that idea start a new one etc.?

    This morning (probably about 4 or 5 UK time) the demo system was totally up the spout but was told (as I already know) less resources are devoted to the demo side of things so would take some time – was probably couple of hours before was able to do anything

    Yeh reckon I’ve spent far far too many hours on all this and the issue you are experiencing now @Despair is what I can expect should I ever manage to code a successful strategy and things go wrong with real money…? nah balls to that had just about enough of it now I reckon… ‘toys successfully thrown out of pram’

    Cheers n the very best of luck to you all

    Max

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar GraHal
    06/16/2018 at 7:15 AM #73396
    Vonasi

    Yesterday three of my demo strategies stopped for apparently no reason. I quickly shot off three problem tickets to PRT and received this reply very quickly:

    Thanks for your email.

    Please note that there is a  general issue with our Demo Environment where all dealing is affected and our technical team are working on the resolving issue although we don’t have a turnaround time of when this will be fixed but it is prioritised.

    Sorry for any inconveniences caused and thank you for your patience thus far.

    Just thought I would post it here for interest and for those who did not send in problem tickets and so would not have received the information. 🙂

    1 user thanked author for this post.
    avatar GraHal
    06/16/2018 at 7:42 AM #73398
    Vonasi

    I guess that they must be doing the switch it off and switch it back on again routine as I get this message on all my demo accounts at the moment:

    Screenshot_1-8

    06/17/2018 at 9:25 AM #73472
    Despair

    Sorry for late reply, I was traveling this week:

    @MaxT: I can imagine that one faces a lot of new problems on 1s timeframe. The problems I experienced are only on the daily timeframe (then this is in my opinion the most important timeframe of all). Strategies running on for example 1h timeframe have rarely been stopped for me.

    For your fears about “your strategies screwing with the PRT server”, I can not imagine this. And if this was the case, I would consider it a flaw in PRT’s programming. One users strategies shouldn’t affect what another user is doing.

    My problem with PRT remains unresolved. So far PRT refuses to compensate me for the misbehavior of PRT. I will write more details regarding this in a separate forum post.

    Also I share your doubt in all the results PRT delivers and if you read my thread “ATR miscalculating” you will see why. Nicolas marked the thread as resolved even though it is not and there was not a single word from PRT. He could “trick” PRT to show the same prices as IG’s platform with setting the timezone to New York (what I assume the majority of us hasn’t) but this doesn’t solve the problem. For me it still looks like that PRT is using different prices to calculate indicators  (and everything else) then IG uses to fill our orders. This will of course produce inaccurate results. For example trades will be opened/closed when the shouldn’t or indicators give different results.

    And yes, I think it is the right decision to leave PRT with any autotrading goals. I have experienced so many problems with PRT in the last 6-12 months on my live account that it is crazy. Countless times my trades were closed prematurely. Often with a small profit but the trades would have been big winners if PRT hadn’t closed them. I said 100 times to myself that one day this will happen while a trade is not in profit and exactly so it came.

    PRT is always denying its responsibility for this events. Blaming it on IG running some maintenance or whatever. Anyway win and lose are quite close together in trading. So a platform that often cuts your winners short and once in a while gives you a big loss run by a company that in spite of obvious proof refuses to refund the customers will not get you anywhere.

    And for the argument that “PRT is free”. Well this is nice but is it so free if it in the long run just loses both your time and money? I prefer to have a platform with a good customer support that is motivated to solve existing problems when they pop up instead of denying their existence and not taking responsibility. And this even if it is not free. Neither my time, nor my money is free. So it seems fair enough to pay something for a well-developed platform with good customer service.

     

     

    06/17/2018 at 9:58 AM #73473
    Vonasi
    Despair wrote:

    I prefer to have a platform with a good customer support

    Not wishing to promote what might be conceived as direct competition on a forum dedicated to ProRealTime but it would be interesting too hear from anyone who has used any of the other platforms (free or otherwise) for a reasonable length of time to hear how the platform compares for problems and customer service to PRT. Then we could all decide whether the price would justify swapping to a different platform.

    I think that for most small retail traders switching to a platform that charges high fees is difficult to justify unless the benefits give you such a winning advantage over a free platform that you can recover the costs easily.

    06/17/2018 at 10:49 AM #73480
    Despair

    @Vonasi: I have no experience with other trading platforms’ support. As you probably remember I decided to switch to matlab (a programming language more than a trading platform). With this step I take the platform out of the equation and deal directly with the broker. I have now programmed toolboxes that handle the communication with both IG and Interactive brokers (IB). While doing so I had contact with both brokers support because I had technical questions.

    Both brokers support was good and helping me to find the bugs that I had in my toolboxes by checking their servers log files and telling me what went wrong. If I make a direct comparison I’d say IB was a little bit faster in their responses to my questions because they have a chat on their website. So I was several times able to have someone from their technical support team in the chat while I was working on my toolbox and could get live feedback what was going on. In this way I was able to solve all problems pretty quickly. This was of course an advantage because I could keep on working and didn’t have to pause my work while waiting for an reply to an email. But besides this advantage of being able to get instant help, IG’s support also did a good job.

    How many problems I will encounter when finally going live I can’t tell yet since this hasn’t happened yet (I assume it’ll take me 2 more weeks) but I can tell that both brokers send quite a variety of error messages if something goes wrong, so it seems to be feasible to program an error handling that works. But it is of course possible that I will encounter problems anyway. There might happen errors that are not well documented or god knows what. Anyway I prefer to be in the position to take care of this myself instead of just sending an email to a support asking to have a look at it.

    Then this causes like I already wrote before A LOT of work and probably most PRT users will not like to put so much time/work into it. This was also the reason for me to start with PRT. It made everything so smooth that it seemed the right decision. But this convenience comes at a high prices. Choosing PRT feels a little bit like losing your keys in the darkness and deciding to search for them under the next street light (though you know you lost them somewhere else) because you know it will be hard to find them in the darkness.

    Sometimes you just have to decide to either do it right, or better abstain from doing it at all.

    Than there are several other trading platforms on the market, I never worked with. Sure all have their problems. One big advantage of the IG/PRT combo was always that the margins were significantly lower compared with others since IG is a CFD broker. When you for example look at Tradestation you are trading futures at the real stock market and have to accept much higher margins. But now with the new ESMA rules coming the difference in margin between CFD and futures is not big anymore for non-professional customers, so this advantage is melting away.

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