Running a strategy on the server

01Where the strategy runs, and for how long

A strategy put “On the server” runs there on a demo account, as a rehearsal of a real account (every order checked and recorded, none sent), or, where the server allows it, on a real exchange account you connected, starting on the exchange’s testnet.

It runs until you stop it or until the time your subscription has there ends, whichever comes first. When the subscription ends, the strategy ends.

Every order of a real account goes through its risk firewall. Your firewall’s state, its halt and its day’s limits, is your account’s alone: no one else’s halt or loss counts for you, and yours does not count for them.

02What stopping does to what it holds: your choice

When you put a strategy on the server you choose what is done with its positions when it stops: “Close what it holds” (the default) closes them at the market; “Keep it, with a stop at the exchange” leaves them open, and gives each position that has no stop one at the exchange, 3% from the price. You can change the choice while it runs, and choose again when you stop it.

The same choice applies however it stops: by you, at the end of its time, after an error from the exchange, or when the exchange cannot be seen for too long (below).

A close is a market order: it fills at the price there is, which in a fast market can be far from the last one. A stop at the exchange is a trigger: past it the price can gap, and it fills at the price there is then.

“Halt” (the kill switch, on the desk) stops a strategy, or every strategy of your account, from opening anything new. It does not close what is held; exits and stops keep working.

03When the exchange cannot be seen

If the server cannot read your exchange account (the network, the exchange’s outage or maintenance, a rate limit), the strategy opens nothing new until it can again. Exits it sends and the stops the exchange holds keep working. It goes on by itself once the exchange answers.

If the exchange cannot be seen for 10 minutes, the strategy is stopped, doing with what it holds what you chose. When the exchange still does not answer, that close or that stop may not be possible: what protects a position then is only the stop the exchange already holds.

If the exchange says it is limiting requests, an order it did not take is sent again, with the same identity, once the limit lifts: it is never placed twice. An entry is given up after a minute (its price is gone); a close is tried for up to 10 minutes.

If an order’s answer is lost on the way, the server looks for it at the exchange by the identity it was sent with, and never sends it again blind. If after a day the exchange still cannot say what became of it, you are told to look at the exchange yourself.

04When the server stops

When the server is stopped on purpose (an update, maintenance), it stops in order: it writes down what is running, ends each real strategy doing with what it holds what you chose, and gives the exchange up to a minute to take what it was still sending.

When the server stops without warning (a crash, a power cut, a failure of the machine), nothing is closed and nothing is protected by the server at that moment: positions stay at the exchange with whatever stops the exchange already holds.

When it starts again, a demo strategy is brought back by replaying it from its start, so it stands where it would have stood. A rehearsal starts flat. A real strategy is never brought back: what it holds is at the exchange, and a replay would trade on a past signal. The desk tells you which real strategies were interrupted, and you decide.

If the server cannot write down what is running (a full disk), a real strategy that cannot be written down is stopped before it trades, and the server reports it is degraded.

05What no server can prevent

The exchange going down, freezing your account or withdrawals; a liquidation while the exchange or the server cannot be reached; prices that gap past a stop; fees and funding that differ from those the strategy assumed; a strategy that loses money by design; the server’s machine failing for longer than your strategy’s time there.

TTT emails you, at the address of your account, when a strategy on the server stops (and what was done with what it held), when its time there is about to end, and when a restart did not bring a real one back. It does not email a short pause while the exchange cannot be seen. An email can be late, filtered or lost: look at the desk in TTT, and do not rely on notifications alone.

06Your decision

You choose to run a strategy on the server, on which account, and what is done with its positions when it stops. What a demo account or a rehearsal shows is not a promise of what a real account would do, and nothing in TTT is investment advice.

The Terms of use apply to this as well, in particular “Trading carries risk, and nothing here is advice” and “No warranty, and limits on our liability”.

07Accepting, for each run

Before each run on the server, TTT shows a box: “I have read the risks of running on the server and accept them for this run”. It can be ticked only after this page has been opened from TTT, and it is cleared after every start.

The server will not take a strategy from an account that has not accepted the version in force. It records the version you accepted and when.

The version of this page is the date above. When it changes in substance, the date changes with it, and you are asked again.