Caution: built-in stops in TS6

["Jay Knepper" <jknepper@xxxxxxxxx>]

The built-in stops in TS6 do not work reliably when SetStopLoss is used with
the SetProfitTarget function. The built-in stops are great, in principle,
because they allow you to exploit tick-by-tick resolution very simply on a
chart that is based on any time interval.

If you have a profit target, implemented by SetProfitTarget, the TS sends a
limit order automatically as soon as a trade is entered. I manually enter
trades in my strategies, and use stops and profit targets to exit. The
"interface" is supposed to clear the limit order when a stop loss is hit,
and then send the stop order. I had 5 stop losses hit today, and only two of
them worked as they should. In three cases the sell stop orders were sent,
but they were rejected by the system because the limit orders had not been
cleared.

This error will only be apparent in real trading. If you look at the charts
where the strategies are applied, they show that the positions have been
closed properly.

I have reported the matter to TS, and today they responded as follows:
"The issue you reported is being addressed in the next TradeStation 6 update
to be released in a few weeks. As always, please keep a close eye on your
automated trading to make sure that it is working as expected."  Wouldn't it
be nice to work with a vendor that would automatically E-mail warnings to
their customers when a critical, fundamental error like this one shows up?

The built-in stops may work correctly if you do not use the SetProfitTarget
function, because there is no need to clear out the limit order before
submitting the sell stop order. However, do keep an eye on things before
trusting the software.

Until the issue is fixed the best approach would seem to be to implement
strategies on short time interval charts, using programming logic to
determine what, if any, order to send on each bar. One cannot trust
SetStopLoss, or any of the built-in, trailing stop functions, to clear an
existing order.

Has anyone else found a good solution to this problem?

Regards,
Jay