Frequently Asked Questions
Get answers to the most frequently asked questions about TradersPost.
TD Ameritrade does not support paper trading. Only the ThinkOrSwim platform supports paper trading and ThinkOrSwim does not provide an API for TradersPost to integrate with. If you would like to get started paper trading, you can register a free account with Alpaca or TradeStation or use the TradersPost Paper Trading functionality.
No. TradersPost does not require coding. You can easily connect strategies to TradersPost that other traders have created and published on TradingView. Or you can use a platform like TrendSpider which allows you to build strategies without code.
Yes, TradersPost supports trading both the long and short sides of a strategy.
Not yet, but it is on the roadmap for 2023.
Yes, futures support is available and can be enabled in your account settings.
Yes, options support is in beta and can be enabled in your account settings.
TradersPost currently integrates with TD Ameritrade, Alpaca, TradeStation and Robinhood.
Yes, TD Ameritrade and TradeStation both support specialty account types like IRA (retirement), business and other specialty account types.
If you connect an account with existing open positions, TradersPost will not do anything to those positions unless your strategy subscription has those tickers selected. It is up to you to be sure your manual trading does not conflict with the tickers being managed by TradersPost. It is recommended that you use an account dedicated to TradersPost but we do not strictly disallow you from trading manually in the same account.
TradersPost is free to get started. You can paper trade for free for 90 days. Once you are ready to trade live with real money, a paid subscription is required.
TradersPost comes with a free paper account that lets you test strategies and get familiar with the platform.
Yes, we support TD Ameritrade accounts with ThinkOrSwim advanced features disabled. If you have ThinkOrSwim advanced features enabled, you may experience unexpected behavior and you will not have the ability to use OCO take profit and stop loss orders. It is recommended to use TradersPost with accounts that have ThinkOrSwim advanced features disabled.
No, but it is on our 2023 roadmap. The only way currently to integrate strategies with TradersPost is via Webhooks.
No, TradersPost is a software as a service and is hosted in a cloud environment. If you'd like to discuss dedicated automated trading systems, please email [email protected].
The resulting orders will be either queued for the next market open on the TradersPost side or on the broker side. You can read more about Order Queueing here.
Unfortunately, TradersPost does not have much visibility in to the backend of the brokers we integrate with and they and the parties that execute orders may choose to reject orders for a variety of different reasons. If you are unsure why something was rejected, please contact your brokers support team. If you are still unsure, email us at [email protected].
This is caused by slippage. Slippage is caused by the spread between the bid and the ask and the price movement that occurs between when a strategy signal is generated and an order is filled. Make sure you account for enough slippage in your strategy backtests. The amount of slippage depends on the ticker and the amount of volume it has. Here is some more general information about slippage https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/slippage.asp
TradeStation simulated paper trading environment often has delays with filling simulated orders. Especially with options. When you experience these issues, you can report the problem to [email protected].