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PTL Trader 2.0.0

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@quantverse quantverse released this 14 Sep 15:52
v2.0.0
b49de65

PTL Trader 2.0.0 — Release Notes

PTL Trader no longer needs Pair Trading Lab.

Pair Trading Lab is shutting down. Every 1.x release got its portfolios and strategy
settings from the Pair Trading Lab website, so 1.x will stop working once the site is
gone. Version 2.0.0 keeps all of its data on your own computer and runs without the
website. Anyone still trading with PTL Trader should upgrade.

Before you upgrade — read this first

  1. Export your portfolios from Pair Trading Lab while you still can.
    Go to Portfolio Manager, click a portfolio, and press Export to JSON. Do this
    for every portfolio you want to keep. Choose JSON, not CSV: PTL Trader cannot import
    CSV, and the CSV export leaves out settings you need.

  2. Close open positions first, or plan to handle them by hand.
    When you import a portfolio into 2.0.0, it starts with no position state. The
    import skips the model state and "last opened" details from Pair Trading Lab, and
    leaves the portfolio unbound from any account. As a result, 2.0.0 does not know about
    positions that 1.x opened, and it will not manage or close them for you. The safest
    path is to close positions in 1.x, then upgrade. Otherwise, write down what is open
    and manage those positions yourself in TWS.

  3. Past trade history does not carry over.
    Earlier trade history lived on the Pair Trading Lab website and is not in the export.
    2.0.0 starts recording history locally from your first trade.

What's new

Your portfolios live on your computer

Portfolios, strategy settings, strategy runtime state (including open-position state),
and pair and leg trade history are all stored in a local database. Nothing is sent to
or loaded from a server. PTL Trader no longer has a "connect to Pair Trading Lab" step:
your portfolios are there when the window opens.

Open positions now survive a restart. State is saved as you trade. PTL Trader also
saves it on shutdown, together with any settings changes you made just before exiting.

Manage portfolios from the File menu

Menu item What it does
File › Import Portfolio… Loads a portfolio JSON file, either from Pair Trading Lab or from PTL Trader's own export. Import always creates a new portfolio, starts it unbound from any account, and never overwrites anything.
File › Export Portfolio… Saves the selected portfolio's settings to a JSON file, for backups or for moving to another computer. Open-position state is not included.
File › New Portfolio… Creates an empty portfolio.
File › Delete Portfolio Deletes the selected portfolio after asking you to confirm. The portfolio must be unbound from its account first, and none of its pairs can have an open position.
File › Add Pair… Adds a pair to the selected portfolio. New pairs start inactive, so adding one never starts trading by surprise.

Imports are checked before anything is saved

PTL Trader checks the whole file first. If anything is wrong — a missing field, an
unknown model, an unsupported exchange, an invalid time zone, or text where a number
belongs — nothing is imported. The error message names the portfolio or pair and
the field with the problem. A file that imports cleanly will also load cleanly on every
later startup.

The file format is fully documented in IMPORT.md, so you can write or
generate portfolio files without Pair Trading Lab.

Where your data is kept

The database and the log file sit together in a per-user folder:

Platform Folder
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\PTLTrader
Linux ~/.local/share/ptltrader
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/PTLTrader

Each profile has its own <profile>.db and <profile>.log.

Include this folder in your backups. The database is now the only copy of your
portfolios and trade history.

The log has moved. 1.x wrote the log to Application Data/PTLTrader inside your
home folder on every platform, including Linux and macOS. Look for new logs in the
folder above instead. Old logs stay where they were.

Removed

These features only existed to connect to Pair Trading Lab, so they are gone:

  • Pair Trading Lab Authentication settings (Access Key, Secret Key, Store secret key,
    Connect) and the PairTradingLab Status indicator.
  • File › Update Portfolios From PTL. Use Import instead.
  • Enable Confidential Mode. PTL Trader no longer sends trade statistics anywhere, so
    the option has no purpose.
  • Online reports and statistics on the Pair Trading Lab website.

Connecting to Interactive Brokers, the trading models, and all trading rules are
unchanged.

Messages you might see

Message Meaning
Local Database Error at startup The database could not be opened: for example, a permissions problem or an unreadable file. Details are in the log. No portfolios are loaded.
Portfolios Not Loaded at startup One or more saved portfolios could not be read (for example, after the database was edited outside PTL Trader) and were skipped. The others loaded normally. Skipped portfolios stay in the database but are not shown or traded. The log names each one and gives the reason.
"database … was written by a newer version of PTL Trader" The database was created by a newer PTL Trader. Run that newer version, or use a different profile.

Other changes

  • Updated bundled libraries: SWT 3.123.0, Joda-Time 2.14.3 (newer time-zone data), and
    PicoContainer 2.16.
  • Requirements are unchanged: 64-bit Java 11 or newer, and a running IB Trader
    Workstation or IB Gateway.
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