News Blue Trading Systems Blog, Events, and Highlights

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Published: 22 October 2015

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Published: 30 September 2015

New Color Theme

• This release introduces a new set of default colors. First appearing in the Sheets, and being added to other grids in future releases.
• If you want to be able to revert to previous colors you will need to open all windows containing grids before installing the update. After updating you can save or load your preferred settings from the Grid Settings window for each grid.

Market Data

• Enabled the new MDP3 market data platform for GLBX market data.
• For trading groups using Spryware for market data:
  • No longer double logs spread trades in the ticker
  • Trade volume is available for options in the ticker

Analytics

• This release includes a slight change in how straddle shifts are calculated from spx to es serial months to better align straddles. Please either rebuild or in some way zero out straddle shifts in serial months, or there will be a very slight risk / pnl impact (less than 100 dollars in vega at 1 or 2 slide handles).

Details

Published: 01 August 2015

Click Trading Settings

• Under Windows => Settings => Click Trade Settings => General, there's now a setting called "Zero Out Size After Placing Order". Checking this will cause your order size to return to zero after sending an order.
• Under Windows => Settings => Click Trade Settings => General, there's now a setting called "Allow Keyboard Strokes For Placing Order". Checking this will allow for the space bar to send orders when the click trade window has focus.

Reports

• Added VegaNoVR (RawVega) to Quick Risk, re-open report from XML file to format properly

Analytics Workspace

• Added an option to move stdvol with atm vol through the atm shift spinners that will allow the user to move straddle the specified amount while moving wings less than if this option were not enabled. Contact support to enable.
• Adjusted Straddle move implementation to use the 'master' business time to better approximate straddle moves across linked AM and PM products. Clients that use the Straddle Shift input should rebuild before installing this update

New Security Tree

• There is a new Menu Item called 'Security Tree' in the Admin menu. From here, users can add/remove strikes and expirations. Click on the question mark next to the search bar for detailed instructions.

Auto Position Marking for CBOE Products

• Enabling this feature will mark orders moving away from a zero position as Open. Similarly, orders moving towards a position of zero will be marked as Close. The open and close correlates to tag 77(OpenClose) in the FIX protocol. Please note that spreads will not be split up when crossing position boundaries.

Enabling This Feature

• Under the Windows menu in the BTS_Shell, click Settings
• In the My Settings window that opened, Expand the Click Trade Settings node
• Expand the CBOE node that's now exposed
• Now, click Default to edit the default settings or an individual symbol to edit just that symbol's settings
• On the right hand side you'll see Order Position Marking, set this to Auto to enable this feature
• In the orders window you can also open the grid settings and enable the position_effect column to see how your orders have been marked

Edge surface purging

• This release will clear out any existing edge surfaces.

New EE size/edge setting methodology

• An Electronic Eye must now be associated with an edge surface, which can be used to specify appropriate size and edges.
• Current eye users who set per-strike size/edge:
• To replicate your existing workflow you'll need to first create a blank edge surface
• Edge Surfaces -> expand New Edge Surface, check all necessary symbols you wish to be able to set via this edge surface, then type in a familiar name at the bottom of the form and click Create (other input parameters should be ignored).
• An edge surface form will now appear containing the symbols and expirations specified in the previous step. Nothing further needs to be done on the edge surface form and it may be closed at this point.
• On your eye form, right click on the Strike column to bring up the right-click menu -> Switch EE Edge Surface, and select the edge surface you created in the previous step.
• You may now set EE sizes/edges per strike.
• Note that Spread Electronic Eye Edges are still set manually and do not (YET) get their edge data from edge surfaces

New Live Electronic Eye limits

• The electronic eye shots / fills limits are now set in the electronic eye form, instead of the backend. Users must reconfigure their electronic eye limits!
• Users should right click on the center strike/exp column in the Electronic Eye form to bring up the new 'EE Risk Limits' window.
• The OUTGOING (Orders Shot) limits function as follows:
  • Max Contracts Shot Per Window: This is the largest number of contracts the eye will try to execute in a particular time window. This limit is an 'outgoing' limit; it does not know or care about fills, only about orders.
  • Window Size (ms): This is the length of the window referenced in the limit above in milliseconds. There are 1000 milliseconds in one second.
  • Reload Time (ms): This the amount of time (in milliseconds) the eye will wait before shooting at a specific contract after shooting at it once. Setting this number to 3000-5000 will have the effect of preventing the eye from 'loading up' on a particular strike or spread.
• The INCOMING (Contracts Filled) limits function as follows:
  • Max Contracts Filled Per Window: This is the threshold of fills (within a specific time window) after which the eye will shut itself off. For instance, if this limit is set at 500, the eye will begin to shut itself off after it sees a fill for it's 501st option. Because this is an 'incoming' limits, it does not know or care about orders, it only cares about fills. Therefore other previously unacknowledged orders in transit to the exchange will not be cancelled and may later fill.
  • Window Size (ms): This is the length of the window referenced in the limit above in milliseconds. There are 1000 milliseconds in one second. It is recommended this window size be set to slightly more than double the 'outgoing' window size.
• Spread orders and fills are 'decomposed' into their legs and limited as they would be if they were consecutive outrights.

Details

Published: 01 May 2015

Analytics Workspace / Curve Manager Beta Feature

• Analytics workspace and Curve Manager are now available as first-class members of the BTS shell. Settings are saved through workspaces and forms can be tabbed with sheets, etc. Please contact support if you're interested in trying this new feature.

Analytics Workspace

Expiration keyed forms now freeze the leftmost column by default

• Contact support if you want to revert back to the old behavior

Risk Units and Vol Response Forms now supports master-slave

• Ask ops for a quick way to set the yellow 0's and blue 1's to set this up

Added PW / CW Shift

• Can now move put and call wings in price terms. Target strikes are calibrated in Risk Units form as before

Added Expiration RR Shift and Global RR Shift

• Also Added RR $ move that adds cascade to shift value

Added Views

• Vol View is a pared down version of Vol Manager without the ability to change the Strike axis and without sundry diagnostics
• Strike Axis View allows the user to change the inputs that affect the X Axis of the vol curve (Delta / Stdk points, StndVol)
• Vol Diag View contains numerous volatility diagnostics: fwdvol, const vol, slope / curvature, etc
• Vol Response Results View contains inputs and information about vol response-- path response and shape response
• Vol Settings view contains various mode and override switches usually only needed for setup.
• Vol manager form is unchanged and still available

New Diagnostic:

• Added CalFwdVol diagnostic to display forward vol over calendar days

Probability Distribution now available in main graphs

• Right click->Visible Series->Select to turn it on

Sheets

• Similar to Cross Alerts, users can be (optionally) alerted in the sheets (via colors) when the Theo is "about to" cross the Option Market. The user can specify the "Proximity Alert Number of Ticks" for the driver that will cause the market to cross the Theo; the delta of the option is used to figure out if a movement in the driver price corresponding to the "Proximity Alert Number of Ticks" will result in a cross. This can be set via RightClick->Sheet Settings->Settings Window...->Alerts->"Proximity Alert Number of Ticks", and the colors can be set through "Proximity Buy Color" and "Proximity Sell Color" respectively.

• Sheet settings can now be shared across users.The settings dialog window has 2 new buttons "Load Settings" and "Save Settings". Sheet settings can be saved to a file using "Save Settings" and setting files can be loaded in the sheets through "Load Settings".

CQG Support

• BTS can now execute options and futures (only) on CQG.

Reports

• Added Theo to Settle PnL

New Icons / Shell Menu Renames

Renamed and re-iconed some utility applications to improve UI consistency

New Icons:

• Trade Entry Client now has black and white money icon
• AnalyticsWorkspace now has consistent curve manager icon
• All Admin Menu apps now have the gears icon

Admin Menu Renames:

• Renamed 'Account/Trade Management' 'Account Management'
• Renamed 'Expirations and Symbol Groups' to 'Expiration Management'
• Renamed 'Strikes' to 'Strike Management'
• Renamed 'Electronic Safeties' to 'Fuse Box'
• Renamed 'Future Prices' to 'Market Data Panel'

New Live Trading Limits

• The system can now receive new trading limits without a restart. These limits are set via our new management web UI
• ALL TRADING LIMITS WILL BE SET IN A WAY THAT WILL PREVENT TRADING UPON RECEIVING THIS RELEASE, YOUR PREVIOUS TRADING LIMITS WILL NEED TO BE MIGRATED.
• PLEASE CONTACT BTS SUPPORT TO VERIFY THAT YOUR LIMITS HAVE BEEN MIGRATED.
• Limits report in the shell is now deprecated in the favor of the web UI