Sterling Trader Pro. User Guide v

Transcription

1 1 Sterling Trader Pro User Guide v

2 Greetings, From Sterling Trader, Inc! Welcome to Sterling Trader Pro, an industry leading, state-of-the-art, global order routing and order management platform. Sterling Trader Pro has delivered direct access, real-time trading and market data to professional traders since 2001, with unmatched standards for speed and reliability. This fully customizable platform will provide you with the tools you need to successfully manage your trading strategies and portfolios, while allowing you adjust to ever-changing market conditions as they happen. We are excited that you have chosen our platform to fulfill your trading needs. We hope you will use this guide as an additional tool to help you construct your trading experience on Sterling Trader Pro to your own personal style. We believe you will find the possibilities with Sterling Trader Pro virtually limitless! 1 Thank you, Sterling Trader, Inc. Chicago, Illinois April Okay, technically, everything has a limit, but not our boundless admiration for you, the trader. 2

3 Sterling Trader Pro TABLE OF CONTENTS Log-on to Sterling Trader pro... 5 CHAPTER 1 STERLING TRADER PRO MAIN MENU... 6 Main Menu... 6 Actions... 6 View... 7 Windows... 7 CHAPTER 2 GLOBAL ORDER ENTRY SETTINGS... 8 General Folder... 9 General... 9 Quotes... 9 Notifications Global order Entry Folder Equities Listing Exchanges Destinations Level I OE Level II OE Futures OE Options OE Basket Quick OE Keyboard Liquidity Messages Miscellaneous CHAPTER 3 HOT KEYS Preset Hot Keys Custom Hot keys CHAPTER 4 MARKET DATA Stock Watch Level II OE Time and Sales Top Ten Fundamental Data News Alerts Exchange Alerts Spreads Options Chain CHAPTER 5 CHART

4 Creating a New Chart Toolbar Trend Lines Studies Spreads Symbol Overlay Settings CHAPTER 6 ORDER ENTRY Level I Order Entry Stop Orders Order Attributes Window Local Order Entry Settings Level II Order Entry Local Order Entry Settings Single Clicking Hot Button Bar Basket Basket Add On Options Order Entry Futures Order Entry Order Entry From Stock Watch and Position Summary CHAPTER 7 TRADING MONITORS CHAPTER 8 LOCATE MONITOR CHAPTER 9 POSITION SUMMARY Columns Viewing Positions CHAPTER 10 LINKING WINDOWS CHAPTER 11 ALLOCATION TOOL CHAPTER 12 ORDER DESK MANAGER CHAPTER 13 EVERYTHING ELSE Activity Log Notification Log Messenger Clock The End EXHIBIT A Smart SWIPE EXHIBIT B Best Hot Key EXHIBIT C Creating a Text File to Import to Basket Index

5 STERLING TRADER PRO Logging on To log on to Sterling Trader Pro, click on the desktop shortcut to bring up the log in screen. Simply type in your Trader name and password, click on the login button and you are in! Please note, the Trader name can be set to populate automatically. Contact Support for details. Passwords are case sensitive. Check your Caps Lock key before logging in. EXITING THE PLATFORM From the Main Menu (see Chapter 1) left-click the Actions menu and select Exit. Or, click the X button on the top right in the Main Menu. 5

6 CHAPTER 1 STERLING TRADER PRO MAIN MENU INTRODUCTION All windows in Sterling Trader Pro are floating windows. The Main Menu is no exception. From this window you open new instances of all the other windows in the platform. Do this from the Windows menu or by left-clicking the appropriate icon on the task bar. For example, the green pig icon opens the Position Summary window. 2 You also manage layouts and system settings from this window. The following is a rundown of the Menu options available in the Main Menu. ACTIONS MENU MANAGING LAYOUTS Left-click on the Actions menu and you will find the following options to manage layouts: Load Layout Click Load Layout to select from your list of saved layouts Save Layout To save updates to your current layout Save Layout As To save your current layout under a new name or to save a new layout There is also a setting to automatically load a layout upon login that is discussed in chapter 2. Restore All windows in your layout from their minimized position Minimize All open windows Close All windows CREATE BACKUP of Sterling Trader Pro. From the above menu you can create a backup of all your Sterling Trader Pro files. 1- In the Actions menu click on Create Backup 2- A menu will pop up requesting you select a folder to save the backup to. 3- Select the folder and click OK. A backup of all your Sterling Trader Pro files will be added to that folder. 2 Would Orwell find that funny? 6

7 SWITCH TO FOCUS WINDOW In Sterling Trader Pro, a window, such as Level II Order Entry, can be designated the Focus window. In certain windows, such as Stock Watch, a trader can set the action of double-clicking to automatically switch to the focus window. See Chapter 4 Stock watch. VIEW MENU MANAGING SETTINGS Left-clicking on the View menu will give you the option to adjust your Global Order Entry settings for the various order entry windows (see Chapter 2). From the View menu you can also check your server information and create your own equity and option spreads to view in a Stock Watch window (Chapter 4). Global order entry settings Server Info is generally used if you experience data problems and need to call tech support. WINDOWS MENU OPENING NEW DATA WINDOWS Left-clicking on the Windows menu brings up all your options for data and trading windows within Sterling Trader Pro. Clicking on any link will open that window. The windows are all discussed in detail in later chapters. 7

8 CHAPTER 2 GLOBAL ORDER ENTRY SETTINGS INTRODUCTION Global Order Entry settings control the default settings for your order entry windows (Level I Order Entry, Level II Order Entry, etc.). You will also configure hot keys and trade notification settings from this window. There are a lot of options to choose from, so this will be a large chapter. 3 You should familiarize yourself with these settings because they control many aspects of the platform and you will come back to them often. To access the Global settings, in the Main Menu click on View and Settings. This screen will pop up. In the left panel, you will see two folders, General and Global Order Entry, and the list of categories under each folder that you can affect settings for. We ll go through them in order, except for Hot Keys, which will have its own chapter. The right panel shows the settings you can adjust for each category. Some Global Order Entry settings affect specific order windows that also have local order entry settings (Level I OE, Level II OE, Options OE, etc.). The local order entry settings will be discussed in chapter 6 for each order entry window. 3 And we spent a long time writing it. Don t disrespect us by not reading it. 8

9 GENERAL FOLDER Under the General folder in the Global Settings, you will see the global settings General, Quotes, and Notifications. GENERAL These are the main settings to choose from in the General category: Load layout to load upon logging in. Lets you choose which of your saved layouts to load up first after logging in. Load the settings in place at your last shutdown. If your system goes down unexpectedly, this setting will reload the layout as it was when you lost connection. It does not save the layout, but reloads the previous settings. Save layout on exit Check Save settings to current layout file to automatically save the layout upon exiting. Display a confirmation box when exiting the platform. You can confirm open orders, open positions, both, or simply request a confirmation every time you exit. Unrealized Profit/Loss Calculate Unrealized P/L for stocks and options. For Stocks (Non-options), calculate unrealized P/L using Last Price or current Bid/Ask Price. If you select Last Price, you can opt to use the previous day s closing price. For Options, select the current Bid/Ask or the Mid-point of the current Bid/Ask Options Daily P/L price For overnight options positions, select which price to use for calculating intraday P/L. Click/drag behavior This setting affects only the Stock Watch and Position Summary windows. When leftclicking and dragging, select to either drag the selected symbol or to highlight the selected row. Set decimal places to see for average price fields. Click and drag behavior Confirm open orders and/or positions on exit Unrealized P/L Set decimal places for average prices 9

10 QUOTES This category controls basic quote settings such as the following: Displaying quote size in hundreds, negative prices in parentheses, and other visual choices. Setting your pricing model for Greeks on options (choices are between Black Scholes and Binomial). Setting how many decimal places you will see in your quote windows. Quote view choices Greeks pricing Nothing NOTIFICATIONS From this screen you will set up which order entry notifications you want to see, if any. For example, you can elect to display a message when an order is executed or an order is rejected, or you can play a sound. These are general notifications. More detailed notifications are available in the Messages screen in the Global Order Entry settings. Select customized sound files for notifications DESK applies to staged orders only 10

11 GLOBAL ORDER ENTRY FOLDER The Global Order Entry folder has fourteen categories (including Hot Keys). Level I OE, Level II OE, Futures OE, Options OE, and Basket settings affect only those order entry windows. The remaining categories affect all the order entry windows EQUITIES Set your defaults to pre-fill order entry screens with a specified quantity, or set to pre-fill your current position quantity. You can also set your default price (Bid, Ask, MKT, etc.). To default the order entry screens to 100 shares for new positions, fill in 100 in the Qty to open position. Or fill in whatever size you would like To default quantity to your current position: 1. Enter 100% in Qty if closing position AND 2. In the When pre-filling use box, select Qty if closing pos To set your price defaults for regular and pre-market: 1- Check the Price box. 2- For If buying and If selling, select from the pull down box. Choices include Bid, Ask, Mkt, and Last. 3- If desired, select STP in the second pull-down box to pre-fill orders as stop orders. 4- Repeat for Pre-market settings. PREFILL QUANTITY BASED ON SYMBOL Checking this box will prefill the quantity field with the quantity used in the last order. For example, a trader holds 1700 IBM long. Their last order in IBM was to buy 200. If they bring up IBM in an order entry window, the quantity will prefill 200. MULTI DESTINATION In Sterling Trader Pro, you can configure the destination MULTI to send an order simultaneously to multiple exchanges. MULTI is configured in the Equities Global Order Entry settings screen. To configure MULTI: 1- Click on the Configure button. The [Multi] Configuration window will pop up. 2- Click on Destination to get a pull down list of available destinations 3- Select the destination of your choice by clicking on it. 4- Click on the Add button and the destination will fill in. Do this for each destination you want added. 11

12 5- Click OK and your [Multi] route is now configured (please see illustrations below). LISTING EXCHANGES This window can be confusing. It gives you the option of specifying a default exchange by security type equities, options, or futures. When you bring the window up, you will see some of the available boxes are gray. The gray boxes can t be updated, but Dest (destination) and CoverDest can be. To set a default destination for security type Equity: 1. Double click in the Dest box. You will get a pull-down menu of available routes 2. Select your route 3. Repeat for Futures and Options if necessary (Forex is not tradable on Sterling Trader Pro) 4. You can follow the same process for CoverDest. CoverDest is a default for closing existing positions from the Position Summary window (see page 63) 12

13 You can set further defaults for equities by dividing by listing exchange (NYSE, NASDAQ, or OTC-BB). That means you can default a different destination for NYSE, a different destination for NASDAQ, etc. 1- Click the Add button. A new line for Equity will appear. 2- In the ListExch column, double click to get a cursor and type in the letter N (NYSE), or Q (NASDAQ), or T (OTC- BB). 3- Following the model above, double-click in the Dest column to select an exchange. If you set a Local Order Entry setting in an order entry window (such as Level II Order Entry) to default that window to a specific exchange, it will override the Global setting in the Listing Exchanges above. DESTINATIONS At first glance, this can be a confusing screen. Keep in mind that these screens are all about setting order entry defaults and pre-filling the order entry windows. 4 Destinations lets you pre-fill the order entry windows based on which route you select. You also set pegging defaults from this screen. Set defaults to pre-fill based on route selection in an order entry window In the example above, the Destination ARCA is defaulted to Account JETEST1, Tif (Time-In-Force) DAY, and Display Quantity of 100 (if it s a reserve order). So, if I select ARCA in an order entry window, the order entry fields will update to these defaults. The MinQty column should be left as Any, since it is no longer a supported function by the exchanges. You can go down the list of exchanges and set these for each one. If you do not want route selection to pre-fill other defaults, there is no need to fill these defaults out. ALLDisc and KeepOnBook columns these are the last columns in the Destinations window and they have special functions should you check the boxes. ALLDisc Checking this will cause all orders to be sent with the Discretion field set to the value in the PriceDisc column. KeepOnBook Adds an order instruction to the order that is defined as Participate, Don t Initiate. Keeps the order on the book of the selected destination. 4 At least, that s what the voices tell us... 13

14 To set Peg defaults: If you use the scroll bar at the bottom of the window, you can scroll to the pegging columns. PegType choices are: Primary Pegs same side of NBBO Market Pegs the opposite side of the NBBO Mid-market Pegs the midpoint of the NBBO Best Pegs same side of NBBO You can set Peg Difference, Peg Limit, as well as Price Discretion. Simply double click each field you want to update for that destination, or use the pull-down arrow if one is present. LEVEL I OE Level I Order Entry in the Global Order Entry settings provides some additional options to the defaults selected in the Equities category of the Global Order Entry settings screen. These settings dictate what will happen when you manually update fields in the Level I OE window or after you send orders. Here are your options: You can initialize or clear some or all fields in the order entry screen, or leave fields unchanged Tab Order button you can select in what order your cursor will tab through the order entry fields when using the Tab key on your keyboard 14

15 If you check the Open a Time And Sales window box shown on previous page, a Time and Sales window and a Chart will open automatically any time you open a new Level I OE window. You can also select to auto-link those windows. LEVEL II OE This category affects only the Level II OE window. This screen has the same defaults as Level I OE above, but also introduces additional settings for the level II data screen. Same as Level I OE You can initialize or clear some or all fields in the order entry screen, or leave fields unchanged when manually updating fields Disable selections for left clicking Options for viewing data Level II OE windows are automatically set up to populate the order entry screen with whichever price and destination you left-click on in the Level II bid/ask data panel. To disable the left-clicking features, simply check the appropriate boxes shown above To disable left-click update of the destination, UN-CHECK Enable single-click routing. To set up default destinations for specific MMIDs: 1- In the Level II OE settings screen above, check Enable Single-click routing and select Custom routing. 2- Click the button to pop up the Custom Routing screen (see following page). 3- Click the Add button to pop up the Add Route screen. 4- Type in an MMID and select a destination to route to. 5- Click OK. You will see the MMID and associated route in the Customer Routing screen. 6- Repeat for each desired MMID. Or, you can click Pre-fill ECNs, which will populate all the destinations as MMID with routing to that same destination. From there you can edit them individually. The boxes to check or un-check for how you see data, such as Left align volume field and Display sizes in hundreds, are mostly self-explanatory. The exception is the Use Level II BBO for Bid and Ask when using default prices. If you set default prices in the Equities settings category to Bid or Ask, you can further decide which Bid and Ask to use. For example, if you check Use Level II BBO and you check the two boxes just below it, the default Bid or Ask price that populates will be the BBO of the default destination. If BATS is your default destination, the Bid or Ask will populate with BATS BBO, even if it s worse than the current inside market. 15

16 Custom Routing. In this example we set up clicking on CHX to populate the route BATS FUTURES OE This settings category has only two defaults available: 5 You can default a quantity You can choose to refill that default after sending an order. OPTIONS OE This screen has a number of order entry and viewing defaults, including a MULTI route for options (see page to set up MULTI). From this screen you can set you default quantity, configure MULTI, set your left-click behavior (prefill Price, Destination, and Quantity if clicked on), highlight open orders, and select visual options such as sorting by exchange or highlighting row border when you click on a row. Like Level I and Level II OE, you can also choose to automatically open Time and Sales and a Chart when you open a new Options OE window. 5 And they are relatively pointless. 16

17 BASKET This screen allows you to set defaults to help expedite setting up your basket orders. Please note there is an additional Basket setting in the Messages setting screen shown on page 19. All stock in your basket will default to these pre-filled fields unless overwritten in the Basket window. QUICK OE In this screen you will see preset keystrokes to assist in quickly filling in your order entry screen. These are automatically in effect as-is if you have Quick OE enabled Auto-enable Quick OE here, or in the KEYBOARD category (discussed next) 17

18 There are a handful of configurable settings on this page, but most are fixed. You can opt to use CTRL, SHIFT, and/or ALT + a number on your keypad to fill in your quantity. For example, if you check the ALT + [number] box, pressing ALT + 5 will set 500 shares as the desired quantity on the order entry screen. With SHIFT + 5 you would see 5000 shares. CTRL + 5 would pre-fill 5 shares exactly. You can create quick keystrokes to select a destination. 1- In the Destination section, click the Add button. 2- The Add Destination Key screen will pop up. 3- Select a Key and a corresponding destination and click OK. Select a Key and Destination. 4- The key and destination are now listed in the Destination section. Order entry screens already default destinations selection by the first letter in the destination name. Use these destination keys only if you want to change which letter corresponds to which destination. KEYBOARD This screen allows you to set your increments when using the arrows right of the quantity or price selection box in the order entry screens, and also when using the arrows on your keyboard. You also enable Quick OE from here. Enable Quick OE Send order using Enter key. In the Other section of the Keyboard screen there are options to enable transmitting an order by hitting the enter key and/or the enter key on the number pad. Be alert when using these. 18

19 LIQUIDITY The Liquidity screen allows you to reject orders that would remove liquidity. This is only available on a handful of destinations. You can choose to automatically cancel orders, or display a message that gives you the opportunity to send the order anyway if you choose. Please see below: These destinations will allow an order reject for removing liquidity Allow Sterling Trader Pro to reject orders that remove liquidity from the ARCA book Check here to be given the option to send an order that removes liquidity MESSAGES Messages offers options for order notifications in addition to those offered in the Notifications screen. These Basket confirmations available in the Messages screen. Selecting these will cause the Basket window to generate a confirmation message before sending a basket if the Multiplier or Delta are greater than the selected number The last item, displaying a message when Sending a Sell Long order would result in multiple open Sell Long orders, can be an effective tool to guard against accidentally taking on short positions. 19

20 You can also elect to receive a warning message if your order is a certain amount above or below the Bid/Ask or the last price by dollar amount or percentage. You can do this for equities (non-options) and options. Price differential warnings for Equities NYSE rule violation warnings Price differential warnings for Options MISCELLANEOUS This category lives up to its name. 6 In this screen you can set up automatic Trailing Stops, Smart SWIPE destinations, and have fun with various other unrelated items (see next page for screenshot). AUTOMATIC TRAILING STOPS from the Miscellaneous screen Available for equities only. Trailing Stops are a serverside function. Sterling Trader, Inc. takes no financial responsibility for a malfunction of the system. Use at your own risk. To set up a Trailing Stop that will automatically be sent after an order to open a stock position is executed: 1- Select the Trailing Amount you want 2- Select the Trailing Increment. 3- Check the Attach auto T-STP order to very order A trailing stop will now be sent out with the preset specifications for every opening order. The Trailing Increment is how far the stock has to move before your trail amount will adjust itself. For example, if XYZ stock is trading at and you enter a trailing stop with a trail amount of 1.00 and a trailing increment of 0.25, the stop out price would be to begin (1.00 below 35.00). If the stock goes up to 35.20, the stop out price is still If the stock goes to 35.25, the stop out price now becomes If you don t want to include a stop order on every order, or, if you want to adjust the specifications for an individual order, you can press ALT+R in an order entry window (Level I or Level II) to bring up the Order Attributes window (see page 51). Check or uncheck the Auto T-STP Order and adjust your trail amount and increment. 6 Miscellaneous in the ancient Alanic language means Where the heck does this go? Though scholars are quick to point out it could also mean Who programmed this? 20

21 This Display account setting affects the Level II OE window only Trailing Stop settings Smart Swipe destinations Linking when two windows of the same type (such as two Level II windows) are in the same link group, changing the symbol in one will NOT change it in the other. This can be beneficial if both windows are also linked to the same Chart or Stock Watch. SMART SWIPE destinations Smart SWIPE allows you to spray markets that you select for the best price. See page 58 for using SWIPE from Level II. See Exhibit A at the end of this guide for additional details on SWIPE functionality. To set up Smart SWIPE: 1- In the Smart SWIPE section, click on the Destination Lists button. The Destination lists will pop up. 2- In the Destinations list click the Add button to create a SWIPE list. 21

22 Name Swipe list Select Destinations 3- Name your SWIPE list. 4- To add a destination, click the Destination button and select one. 5- Click the Add button. Do this for each destination you want in the SWIPE list. 6- Click OK. 7- Back in the Destination list, right click under the Def column, to the left of the SWIPE list name and set it as the default. This will now be the destination list used when you use the SWIPE order feature. 22

23 CHAPTER 3 HOT KEYS INTRODUCTION Sterling Trader Pro includes the ability to send orders via customized hot keys. There are also a number of preset hot keys available for order entry actions as well as some non-order entry actions. To access the hot keys screen go to the Global Order Entry settings (Main Menu View Settings) and select Hot Keys. PRESET HOT KEYS These are hot keys already in the system. They are shown in blue. You can edit them to change the keystroke used to activate the hot key, but you can t change any other preset parameters. In the screenshot, there is a scroll bar on the right, meaning that there are many more preset hot keys. Double click a hot key to get a more detailed description. In general, these are the types of preset hot keys: Cancelling Orders (Cxl All, Cxl All Buy, etc.) Covering Orders (Cvr All, Cvr All short, etc.) Miscellaneous, such as Minimize All windows, Restore All, and Toggle filter. To change or add a key for a preset hotkey: 1- Double left click on the action you want to update (or highlight it and click the Edit... button). The Edit Special Hot Key box will pop up (see following page). 2- To set the new hot key, press the desired combination on your keyboard and the window will fill in the new hot key for you. 3- You can, instead, press delete if you want to disable that hot key action. 4- Once done, press OK. 23

24 Keystroke selected will show here CUSTOM HOT KEYS To create a custom hot key from Hot Keys Global Order Entry screen: 1- Click on the Add button located at the top right of the screen. The Add Hot Key window pops up. 2- Click on each desired field to select the data you want in the hot key. For Quantity, you can type in a specific amount. For example, to buy 500 MKT on ARCA, with DAY as the Time-In-Force: 3- Click in the Hot Key field and press the desired combination on your keyboard. 4- Name your hot key (this is important when using the Hot Button Bar, see page 54). 5- Click the Add button. Your new hot key will now show up on the Hot Key list. In the above example, we filled in Side, Quantity, Price, Account, Destination, and Time in force. The Account field reads Current. If you have multiple accounts, selecting Current means the hot key will affect the account currently listed in the order entry screen. 24

25 Below, the new hot key is highlighted in Blue. Make sure you check the Enable box at the top of the window to enable the hot keys. Please note: The Mode setting in the screenshot below. There is Load and Load and Go. Load pre-fills the order entry screen. Load and Go sends orders. So, if you want hot keys to send orders, select Load and Go. Check Enable to use Hot Keys New Hot Key Buy MKT Print your hot key list 25

26 CHAPTER 4 MARKET DATA INTRODUCTION Real-time market data can be accessed from most of the windows in Sterling Trader Pro in one form or another. In this chapter we ll take you through Stock Watch, Level II, Time and Sales, Top 10, Fundamental Data, News, Alerts, and Exchange Alerts. We ll also show you how to create spreads to compare the price difference between two stock or option symbols. STOCK WATCH Stock Watch is the list of stocks you are actively watching. Stock Watch provides level I quotes for stocks, options, and futures, with 50 possible columns of data available. To open a Stock Watch window, go to the main menu. In the Windows menu select Stock Watch. You will get a blank Stock Watch window with default columns. CREATING A WATCH LIST To begin creating your list: 1. Click on the Actions menu and select New List from the pull down. 2. The first line of the Stock Watch will now be available. Type in your symbol and hit the Enter key. 3. The next line will be available. Type in your next symbol and hit Enter. 4. Repeat for all the desired symbols. 5. If you choose to add additional symbols later on, you can do so by right clicking in the next available space. From the pop-up menu select Edit Symbol. You will be able to type in the new symbol. 26

27 INSTERTING LABELS AND BLANK ROWS You can organize your watch list by adding labels or blank spaces to separate groups of symbols. To add labels or blank spaces: 1. Right click on the symbol you want to place your label or blank space ABOVE. 2. In the pop-up menu select Insert Label (or Blank Row). 3. If you selected Blank Row, a blank row will be added above the symbol. 4. If you selected Label, a new row will appear above the symbol, with a cursor for typing the label name. 5. Type in the desired label name and hit enter. The label will be in yellow text. 27

28 You can sort columns by left clicking on the column header. Any labels and blank rows will be sorted as well, which can undo the organization of your list. If you have saved your list, you can easily recall it. To save your Stock Watch list: 1- Click on the Actions menu. 2- Click on Save List. 3- If it s a brand new list, name the list and save it. To load a saved list: 1. Click on the Actions menu. 2. Click on Load List. 3. Select the list you want from the save items and click Open. To delete a row, simply highlight the desired row and hit the Delete key on your keyboard. MANAGING THE DATA COLUMNS You will find the available columns in the View menu under Settings. To add or remove a column, simply check or uncheck the box next to the column name. If you are unsure what data a column provides, please contact Sterling Trader support or visit the support page of our website, Add and remove columns Preset colors Customize colors for your Stock Watch window Update all open Stock Watches with your new settings Once your columns are selected, you can set their order on the screen from the Stock Watch window. To change the order of your columns: 1- Left click and hold the column heading. 2- Drag the column heading to the desired spot in the order. 28

29 3- Release the mouse button to drop the column into place. You can also move individual rows up and down. 1- Right click on the row you want to move. 2- In the pop-up menu, select Move Row Up or Move Row Down. 3- That s it. The row will move one space up or down, depending on what you chose. LAST TREND / QUOTE TREND A special note on the columns Last Trend and Quote Trend: Last Trend shows the direction of the last ten trades in a stock, either up, down, or no change from previous trade price. Up is green, down is red, and no change is the same color as the preceding trend box. Quote Trend shows the direction of the last ten Bids and the last ten Offers. The indicator boxes are split in two with the top half representing bids and the bottom representing offers. Up price is green, down is red, and no change is the same color as the preceding trend box. Bid Offer ALERTS COLUMN If you use the Alerts column, there is an Alert Legend explaining the alerts symbols. Go to the View menu in the Stock Watch window and select Alert Legend. The alert symbols populate in the Stock Watch window under the alerts column. To access the alert messages, double click on an alerts symbol when it appears in the Stock Watch will bring up an Exchange Alerts window with the information corresponding to the alert. Highlighting begins on the next page... 29

30 HIGHLIGHTING There are a number of row highlighting options within the Stock Watch window. To access the choices, click the View menu Settings, then click the Miscellaneous tab of the settings window. Basic highlighting options select Type (row or column), Style, Duration, and whether you want to apply to all symbols Check these boxes to highlight rows when Market-on- Close, Intraday, and Opening buy/sell imbalances occur Check this box to highlight a row where a symbol reaches its high or low for the day To configure highlighting: 1- In the Stock Watch Settings window, Miscellaneous tab, select to highlight row or column. 2- Select a duration for the highlight to last (duration in seconds, or you can choose infinite). 3- Select if you want highlighting for all symbols or specific symbols. 4- Finally, select if you want the symbols to highlight based on Last price, Change, or Change from open. If you selected to highlight only specific symbols, there are extra steps. 1- In the Stock Watch window, right click on a symbol you want to highlight (or use the Symbols menu). 2- In the pop-up menu, select Specific Highlighting. 3- The symbol will now highlight when updates occur. Do this for each symbol you want to have highlight. Please note: Order entry is possible from a Stock Watch window. This is discussed in Chapter 6. DOUBLE CLICK SETTINGS Double clicking on a symbol in the Stock Watch can have one of several effects that you set up in the Settings window, under the Miscellaneous tab. Edit Symbol Double clicking will let you type in a new symbol Set Link Symbol Double clicking on a symbol in the Stock Watch window will populate that symbol into the other windows in your group of linked windows (linking discussed in a later chapter) 30

31 Switch to Focus Window Double clicking will switch the current window to the designated focus window. For example, if Level II OE was the focus window, double clicking on a symbol would switch to Level II OE and populate the Level II OE window with the symbol that was clicked on, making placing an order from Level II OE faster. Open Level I, Open Level II, Open Mini, Open Chart, Open Exchange Alerts Double clicking opens those windows. Double Click Options LEVEL II OE This window is called Level II Order Entry, but order entry functions will be discussed in chapter 7. Level I quote bar Bid depth with price, size, and time Ask depth with price, size, and time The Level II window shows you the depth of the market bids and offers in an easy to follow format with market makers and ECN identifiers on the left, followed by price, volume, and time. In the Settings window you will be able to choose what data you see. 31

32 To access Settings: 1- Left-click the View menu. 2- Select Settings. 3- Select either the General or Level II tab. The General tab controls colors and columns. Here are the major functions: To change colors for the price tiers in Level II, you can select a preset styles, or select a color for each level. To change what columns you see in Level II, simply check or uncheck the appropriate box. You can also configure which, if any, of the Level 1 quote bar boxes you want to highlight on update. Preset styles Checking these will cause the Level 1 quote bar to highlight on updates Customizable levels Check these boxes to see columns The Level II tab of the settings window will let you control what data you see in the Level II window (see next page). You can: Select which books to see. De-select Level II and see only books. Filter out odd-lots. Highlight market makers. Show your open orders in Level II. Display time in seconds. Price Level can be set to Top of Book to show only the top of each ECN book. 32

33 Books to view Display orders and highlighting choices Price Level can be set to top only Market Maker viewing options To highlight specific market makers: 1- Check the Highlight specific market makers box. 2- Click the Makers... button. The Highlighted Makers screen pops up. 3- Type in a symbol, or symbols, and the market makers you would like highlighted. 4- Click the Add button to populate the list. 5- Click OK when done. 33

34 6- In the Level II window, you will now see the maker highlighted: To view only or hide a specific market maker: 1- In Settings, Level II tab, check the View/hide specific market makers box. 2- Click the Filters... button. Market Maker Filters pops up. 3- Click Add. Add Market Maker Filter pops up. [see right] 4- Name the filter, select if you want to view or hide the market makers. 5- Enter a market maker ID and click Add. Do this for each maker. 6- Click OK. 7- Highlight the filter you created. Click Activate. 8- Click OK in the Level II Settings and your filter is now applied TIME AND SALES Follow each trade for a specific stock. Time and Sales shows you each trade as it is reported, what price, time, size, and market. You can also expand you selection to see Bid/Ask data. HISTORICAL DATA Intraday To query intraday historical data prior to the time the Time and Sales window was opened, check the box to the right of the symbol field and enter a time. Historical data from prior days is not available. Check box for historical intraday data 34

35 To select what data to view in your Time and Sales Window, click on View Settings. Display multiple symbols Filters From the General tab, you can do the following: Select columns to display. Choose to display only trades, only quotes, or both (if you display quotes, you can see bid/ask). Filter out trades by size Choose to display only trades in certain markets. From the Colors tab, you can customize the colors in Time and Sales: 35

36 TOP TEN Top Ten is a market scanning tool that closely resembles a Stock Watch. Press space bar or go to the Actions menu to select the desired scans. You can view the following scans by exchange: In the Settings menu (click on View Settings) you can select data columns to view as well as customize your colors and highlighting options. FUNDAMENTAL DATA This window will give you a quick snapshot of a company s fundamental data. Simply type in the symbol and hit enter. The only customization available is colors. Data fields are fixed. 36

37 NEWS Like Time and Sales and Top Ten, News is a simple window with a specific function. You watch headlines as they come in and you can expand them to read the stories. To view stories for a specific symbol type in the symbol in the symbol box. To view all stories regardless of symbol leave the symbol box blank. To read a story, double left click on the headline, or right click the headline and select open story. To go back to the headlines, double click in the story window. The Settings window, found under View-Settings, is where you can select your columns and colors. 37

38 ALERTS You can set up custom alerts in Sterling Trader Pro from the Alerts window. There are a number of options that allow you to monitor the market by watching where a stock or index prices go. This is an Alerts window. Customized alerts are in the top pane. Executed alters populate the lower pane. To set up new alerts: 1- Click on the Alerts menu and select Add. The Add Alert screen pops up. Uncheck this to allow an alert to recur without needing to re-enable it 2- Type in a symbol you want to set an alert for. The Comment line below symbol is strictly a text line for whatever notes you want to add. 38

39 3- In the Conditions section, select whether you want the alert based off of Last Price, Bid, or Ask. 4- In the next box, select what has to happen with that price (Less than or equal to, Greater than or equal to, Gain, Loses, Hits a New ). 5- In the next box select High. Low, 52wk High, 52wk Low, or type in a number of your choosing. Using these boxes you could come up with a number of combinations. For example, Last Price >= 52wk High. 6- If you choose, you can check the AND box and select additional price criteria for your alert. 7- Choose how to receive notification of the alert by select Play a sound, Beep, or Display Notification Message. 8- Click on the Add button. You can now set up another alter or close the Add Alert screen. If you close the screen, you will see your new alert in the Alerts window. Check or uncheck E to enable or disable the alert. EXCHANGE ALERTS The Exchange Alerts window shows you if a specific stock has an opening or closing imbalance, if there is a halt or delayed opening, or what the opening indication is. You can view messages for all stocks or for specific exchanges. To select a specific stock, type the symbol in the symbol box. To see all stocks, leave the symbol box blank. You may also select a specific time range to view messages in by checking the boxes and selecting the times. There is limited customization of columns and colors available in the View Settings menu. 39

40 SPREADS You can create spreads between two symbols using the Spreads tool. The spreads calculate the difference between the current price of two symbols. You can set up spreads for equity or for options. These spreads can be viewed in a stock watch window or a chart. To create a spread: 1- In the Main Menu, click on View Spreads. The following screen pops up with a handful of preset spreads: 2- Click the Add button to bring up the Add Spread window: Select to Subtract, Add, Multiply, or Divide the two symbol prices 40

41 3- Type in the desired symbols. 4- Select Data 1, which is Last, Bid, Ask, High, Low, Open, or Close. 5- Select Operator 1, which is to Minus, Plus, Times, or Divide by the next field. 6- Type in a number for the next field, Constant 1. If you don t want the prices to be modified, leave Operator 1 as Times and Constant 1 as In the Operator filed between the two symbols, select if you want to Minus, Add, Multiply, or Divide the chosen prices. 8- In the Symbol 2 section, repeat the steps you did for Symbol To modify the results further, you can select Take the result and: field and combine it with the Constant field next to it. For example, you could Add 4 to the result Click OK. Your new spread will now show up in the Spreads window and be available to add to Stock Watch or Chart. To create a spread for two option symbols, the steps are the same, but you must add.o to the end of each option symbol for the spread to return data in the Stock Watch. You can t chart options or option spreads at this time. OPTIONS CHAIN The Options Chain window provides a listing of the put and call option contracts available on a particular stock. The chain provides level I quote data on each of the contracts and is customizable. Market depth for options can be found in the Options OE window discussed in Chapter 7. Here is a sample options chain for symbol WMT: Calls Puts Call options are on the left and Put options on the right. The strike prices are listed in the middle by month and can expand or collapse. You can decide how many strikes to see for each month, or see all strikes. There is a level 1 quote bar on top and a box to enter your symbol. A quick note on options symbology. Our system uses the following: the underlying symbol followed by a space, followed by the expiration date (yymmdd), C or P (for Call or Put), and the strike (there are always three characters after the decimal place. So a strike of 130 is shown as is shown as 12500). Example: IBM Jan Calls = IBM C Previously viewed symbols for easy review 7 Did you know that in bowling lingo, the split is called the Big Four? Did we just ruin our street cred? 41

42 To add Greeks or other data columns: 1- Click on the View menu, select Settings. 2- The options chain settings screen pops up with your column choices. You can select different columns for puts and calls. Both puts and calls have Greeks available. These include Gamma, Theta, and Vega. You can also select Rho, Theoretical Price, and Implied Volatility. In the Miscellaneous tab of the Options Chain Settings, you set up number of contracts to view and highlighting. There is a special function to highlight In-The-Money Options. Highlighting choices Double-click choices Number of strikes to view Highlight ITM Option contracts In the above screenshot, there is setting to trigger Greeks calculations based on underlying price movement. In addition to this setting, you can force a calculation by clicking on the Update Greeks button in the Options Chain main window. 42

43 CHAPTER 5 CHART INTRODUCTION Sterling Trader Pro features a comprehensive charting package that includes major studies, customizable trend lines, candlestick charting, and tick charting. CREATING A NEW CHART To open a chart, click Windows Chart in the Main Menu. A Create New Chart screen pops up. You will see three tabs to choose from, depending on what chart type you want: Tick, Bar, or Day chart. The Axis Type is available on all charts and is either the Absolute value or the Percentage Change of the symbol you are charting. TICK CHART Shows each tick of the selected symbol in realtime. You have the choice to view ticks going back 5, 10, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, or Full Day. You can also see a previous day s ticks. BAR CHART Charts symbol like the tick chart, but bars are in intervals ranging from 1 minute to 1 hour and going back as far as three days. Bar types are Open High Low Close (OHLC), Candlestick, Open Close, and Line. You can also chart specific date ranges. 43

44 DAY CHART A bar chart where each bar interval is a full day, full week, or full month Bar types are OHLC, Candlestick, Open Close, and Line You can chart up to the last 5 years or you can select a specific date range Once you have selected your chart settings and typed in the symbol, click Ok to view your chart. In this example we have selected IBM on a 3 minute candlestick chart with Axis Type as absolute, going back a full day. This is the basic candlestick chart that is created. You can change these settings in the Actions menu by selecting Edit Chart. Last price in Axis Time period The candles are every 3 minutes, with red for ending down, green for up. You ll be able to adjust the look in settings. But first, we ll go over the tool bar on the top of the chart. 44

45 TOOLBAR Quickly change the chart type, add trend lines, select studies, or zoom in on data. Please note, these options are available through the View and Charting menu as well. Tool Bar To change the chart type: 1- Click the pull-down menu that currently shows Bar Chart in the example above. 2- Select the new chart type, Tick or Day. 3- Enjoy. To add a horizontal line: 1- Click on the Insert Horizontal Line button,. 2- The mouse cursor will now drag a horizontal line that you can drop anywhere in the chart. 3- Repeat for additional horizontal lines. To draw a trend line: 1- Click on the Insert Drawing Line button,. 2- The mouse cursor will change to a pen. 3- Left click and hold to draw in your line with the mouse. 4- Repeat for additional lines. To zoom in or out of the chart data, click on the magnifying glasses, To zoom in on a specific range of data: 1- Click on the left-hand magnifying glass (it has a dotted line around it), 2- The mouse cursor will now show Select Zoom underneath it. 3- Left click on the chart and hold to drag across the section you wish to zoom in on. 4- Release. The chart will zoom in on the selection. To scroll through the chart data without zooming out, click the left of right arrow buttons, The button with a line on the right,, will skip to the front of the chart (the current updating data). 45

46 To add a study to the chart: 1- Click the Insert Study button, 2- The Chart Studies screen pops up. 3- Click Add to add a new study. The Add Study screen pops up. Available studies from the Studies pull-down list 4- Select the Data Source for the study. 5- Select the Chart Section. You can overlay the data source (the main chart panel) or open a panel beneath the chart with the study data. 6- If you select Overlay Custom in the Chart Section pull-down, you can choose to overlay a panel other than the main chart (if you opened one for another study). 7- Click OK to see your study listed in the Chart Studies window. 8- Click Close to view your study in the chart. 9- See next page for sample study of MACD in a new panel. 46

47 MACD with histogram To view a spreadsheet of chart data details: 1- Click the Select Chart Data button,. 2- Left click and drag across the chart for the data range you want to view. 3- Click in the data range selected to pop up the details screen: You can view a spreadsheet of all chart data at once by clicking the Charting menu and All Chart Data. SAVING and LOADING CHARTS Once you have your chart set up the way you want, you can save it by clicking the Actions menu and Save Chart. You can load a saved chart from the Actions menu. SAVING CHART AS DEFAULT To save your chart as a default for new charts you may open, click in the View menu and select Save Current As Default. SPREADS You can chart spreads you have created. 47

48 1- Click the Charting menu. 2- Select Spreads The spreads list will pop up. 3- Double click the spread you want to chart. 4- The chart will automatically begin charting the spread. SYMBOL OVERLAY In Sterling Trader Pro, you can chart two symbols at once. 1- Click the Charting menu. 2- Select Symbol Overlay... The Symbol Overlay set up pops up. 3- Type in the symbol you wish to add to the chart. 4- Select which access to view the price from. 5- Click OK. Your chart now shows both symbols. MSFT IBM 48

49 SETTINGS COLORS TAB Under the View menu Settings, you can change your chart and study colors (select the Colors tab). Preset color schemes Custom colors Colors for studies GENERAL TAB The General tab controls what you see on the chart besides the symbol data, such as gridlines and font size. 49

50 CHAPTER 6 ORDER ENTRY INTRODUCTION Sterling Trader Pro features several order entry windows for equities, options, and futures. For equities: Level I Order Entry Level II Order Entry Basket Order Entry For options and futures: Options Order Entry Futures Order Entry The windows feature a point and click interface. However, as previously discussed, Hot Keys are available to trade out of these windows and pre-filled defaults of the order entry fields can be set up in the Global Order Entry settings (Chapter 2). You can also trade out of Stock Watch and Position Summary windows. They will be discussed at the end of this chapter. LEVEL I ORDER ENTRY Open a Level I Order Entry window from the Sterling Trader Pro Main Menu by clicking Windows Level I Order Entry. If you open a Level I Order Entry from the Main Menu, all fields are blank. This is because there is no symbol. However, if you open a Level I Order Entry window from the Stock Watch or Position Summary window, any Global Order Entry defaults will be filled in because there is symbol to reference. Once you enter a symbol in the blank order entry window, the level I quote bar at the top will be activated so you can see the level I data, Last, Change, Bid/Ask, etc. To place an order from Level I Order Entry: 1- Select the side (Buy, Sell, Sell Short), quantity, symbol, price, account, destination, etc. 2- When you have the necessary fields filled in, click on the send button to send the order. A brief description of the necessary fields is on the next page. If you have a position already in the symbol you entered, you position will show on the bottom right of the window. 50

51 Level I quote bar Current position Here is a rundown of the order entry fields. Side, Quantity, and Symbol are exactly what they say. Price offers several options, including Bid, Ask, MKT, and Last. You can always manually type in a price. If you select Bid, Ask, or Last, you can offset by clicking the up or down arrows next to the price field. For example: Account If you have multiple accounts you can select from them here. Destination Sterling Trader Pro offers direct access trading. Consult your broker for routes available. Price Type You can select stop orders or market close orders. Time In Force Select Day orders, GTC, Opening, Extended hours, etc. STOP ORDERS Stop orders are available as an order type. You select stop orders in the Price Type field. There are five types: STP (Stop Market) STP LMT (Stop Limit) S-STP (Server-side Stop) S-STP LMT (Server-side Stop Limit) T-STP (Trailing Stop) Offset last price by +.4 When selecting a stop order, the Price field becomes your stop price. On a Stop Market order, you fill in your stop price in the Price field, then, select STP. For Stop Limits, enter your stop out price in the Price field and enter the limit price for the limit order in the Stop Limit Price field. S-STP and S-STP LMT are Server-side stops, meaning Sterling Trader systems manage the stops, not the exchange. Not all exchanges support stops. That s where these come in. The server-side stops function exactly as STP and STP LMT. Please note that Sterling Trader, Inc. bears no financial responsibility for a system malfunction in the management of server-side stops. Use at your own risk. 51

52 For Traling Stops, the Price field changes to Trail Amount and the Stop Limit Price field changes to Trail Increment. (See Page 20 for additional information) Auto-Trailing Stops You can set up an auto-trailing stop from a Level I window by pressing Alt+R. That brings up the Order Attributes window where you can check the Auto T-STP Order box and select parameters for the T-STP. (See page 20 for additional information) ORDER ATTRIBUTES WINDOW (Alt + R) From the Level I OE window, as well as the Level II OE window, you can bring up the Order Attributes window. This window will let you further modify your order and override defaults you set up in the Global Order Entry screens. This includes modifying PEG settings and adding an automatic Trailing Stop. PEG order selected. After pressing the keys Alt+R, the PEG order can be modified in the Order Attributes window. A trader can select a different PEG type and set a PEG difference Auto T-Stop can be added to the order 52

53 LOCAL ORDER ENTRY SETTINGS In the View menu, select Local Order Entry Settings to specify defaults for this specific window. If you keep open multiple Level I Order Entry windows, you can set different local order entry settings for each one. These settings override the Global Order Entry settings. Please note that you can set a default account and destination locally in this settings window. These are similar to the Equities category in Global Order Entry settings. In fact, you can auto-default these to the Global settings by clicking the button below Default to Global Order Entry Settings 53

54 LEVEL II ORDER ENTRY Level II Order Entry is attached to the top of the Level II data window discussed in Chapter 4. Smaller than Level I Order Entry, but with the same functionality Like Level I Order Entry, you can point and click to enter orders or use hot keys. Unlike Level I, you don t have a Side button. When you place an order, you will click the actual Buy, Sell, or SHRT (Sell Short) button. LOCAL ORDER ENTRY SETTINGS The local order entry settings for Level II are similar to Level I, with one notable exception: You can configure a MULTI route specific to that Level II window. Using these local settings you can configure multiple Level II windows to each default to a different account, route, quantity, and/or price. Configure defaults specific to this Level II Order Entry window for Account, Destination, and MULTI SINGLE-CLICKING IN LEVEL II In the Level II depth, you can configure the window to update the price and/or destination in the order entry screen when you click on a price or destination. 54

55 Clicking on ARB (ARCA book) will populate the destination The Level II window is automatically set up to update for prices on single-click. You can, however, disable that functionality in the Global Order Entry settings for Level II OE. You also can enable updating the destination by singleclick in the Global Order Entry settings. This screenshot is a partial from the Global Order Entry settings for Level II OE: Enable single-click routing Disable single click updates for price and side STOP ORDERS IN LEVEL II OE A special note on stop orders from the Level II OE window. To place a stop limit, you must select STP or S-STP as the Time-In-Force. If you want a stop market, place the stop out price in the price field. If you want a stop-limit, place the stop out price in the price field and your limit price in the field to the right of the Time-In- Force field. HOT BUTTON BAR In the View menu in Level II, you can open the Hot Button Bar. The Hot Button Bar space in Level II order Entry where you can add your hot keys as buttons to click on instead of using the keyboard. Hot Button Bar with two Hot Keys To configure your hot button bar: 1- Click the View menu again and select Hot Button Bar Setup. 55

56 In Global Order Entry Hot Key settings, you must name your hot keys to use the Hot Button Bar feature. 2- Highlight the hot key you want to add to the bar and click the >> button to move it over. 3- Repeat for all desired keys. 4- In the list of chosen hot keys, select your colors for those keys. 5- Click OK when finished. ORDER BUTTON DEFINITIONS Level II OE includes some order entry buttons that require explanation. Using this screenshot as a template, here is review of the buttons and other fields - The Account the trade is taking place in. (If multiple accounts are being traded) - Clear. Resets to your order entry defaults. (It can also be set to clear all fields in Global Order Entry settings) - Price field. The up/down arrows will change the price or add a price delta. - Time-In-Force. What session or how long the order should be good for. - Cancel most recent order in the selected symbol. - Total order quantity - If you select a stop order as the Time-In-Force, Enter your stop out price in this field. - Changes quantity to match your current position. (If your defaults do not do so already) - Short sell, Sell, and Buy - For NYSE stocks, locks destination in place so it doesn t change when clicking in market depth. - Destination to route order to. - Amount to show for a Reserve Order. (Not to be confused with total order quantity above) - We have no idea what this does. - Trader ID. (Only valid for administrators) 56

57 EXPANDED ORDER ENTRY BAR In the View menu you can select Expanded Order Entry Bar to add an additional function to the Level II Order Entry window: Reserve Orders. In the Expanded bar there is a field that defaults to Ordr Qty (Order Quantity). Reserve Amount (total quantity) Shares to show To place a Reserve Order, in the regular quantity field, type in the total quantity you want to trade (Reserve Amount), in the Ordr qty field, overwrite Ordr qty with the total shares you want to SHOW. CANCELLING OPEN ORDERS IN LEVEL II If you checked Include Open Orders in Level II Display in the Level II settings (View Settings Level II tab), you will see your open orders in the market depth pane. Cancel most recent order for this symbol Cancel specific order The open order has a red X next to it. To cancel that order, click on the X. You can also cancel you most recent order showing in Level II with the other X button shown above. 57

58 OPEN ORDERS BAR Level II OE comes with an additional bar called the open orders bar. You open the bar from the View menu (View Open Orders Bar). While the bar will show all your open orders in a particular symbol, you can only view one order at a time. There is a scroll bar to cycle through open orders. The open orders bar will default to your last sent order. You can cancel it by click the red X button. If you right-click on the open order in the bar, you can select the history of the order or you can utilize the Quick Change feature. Open Orders Bar QUICK CHANGE After selecting the Quick Change function, a small window pops up below your open order. Use the Up/Down arrows on your keyboard to change the price and the Left/Right arrows to change the quantity. Hit ENTER to send the change or ESC to cancel the change. SMART SWIPE FROM LEVEL II OE When using the SWIPE order function in Level II OE it is important to know which numbers to put where. Since SWIPE is based off the NBBO (See Exhibit A), use the Price field to enter your price tolerance. Use the box to the right of to designate a specific SWIPE list (if you have created more than one). Price Tolerance SWIPE list 58

59 BASKET and BASKET ADD ON Basket and Basket Add On have similar functionality, but there are a few differences. Both provide the ability to send a group of stocks to the market at one time. We ll discuss Basket first. BASKET The Basket window has three panes. The top pane shows the baskets you have loaded and ready to send. The middle pane shows which baskets you have sent to market. The lower pane shows the individual orders of each basket sent to market. To create a new basket: 1- Click the Actions menu and select New Basket. 2- Name your Basket. 3- Click the Add button to begin adding stocks and order parameters You can set Side, Quantity, Symbol, Account, Price, Destination, Time-In-Force, and Index Shares. 4- After you enter a stock and set up the order parameters, click Add to add the stock to your basket. 5- Repeat for each stock you want in the basket. 6- Click the Close button when done. The New Basket screen with stocks added using the Add window. 7- If you are satisfied with the basket, click OK to add the basket to the Basket window. 8- TEST23 shown on the next page is the new basket we created. 59

60 To send the basket to the market, simply click the Send button on the top right of the window. Basket loaded Basket sent. Status of each order in selected basket 60

61 Note the top bar in the Basket window with default settings: If you set up Basket defaults in Global Order Entry Settings, they will appear here. You can use these defaults in the following way: When setting up your basket, you can leave SIDE, ACCOUNT, DESTINTATION, PRICE, and TIF as Default. If you do, the basket you send to market will automatically use the values in this bar for the orders being sent to market. Cancel/Reverse Basket You can send orders to reverse completely filled legs of a basket by right clicking on the Basket in the middle pane and selecting Cancel/Reverse. In the screenshot above, the filled buy orders for IBM and DELL could be reversed with sell orders by using this feature. This does not reverse your position (for example, take you from long to short), but reverses the previous trader. BASKET ADD-ON As noted previously, this basket feature has similar functionality to the Basket. You can create a basket or load a previously created basket and send it to market. One major difference is, you won t select a side for each order in the basket. There are preset buttons to BUY BID, BUY ASK, SELL BID, SELL ASK, ETC. There are also more options on how the orders go to market. Please see following page. Available baskets are listed on the left. Highlight a basket to see the details on the right. 61

62 The buttons on the right to send orders can be changed in the View-General settings screen: In these settings you can check to display confirmations, use reserve quantities, round shares, select basket columns and order buttons, and color the buttons. To edit or create a basket, go to View Baskets: Edit baskets here by double clicking on a symbol or by clicking the Add Stock or Delete Stock buttons below 62

63 1- Click Add Basket: 2- Name your basket and basket button (if using buttons). 3- Select your symbols, quantity, and destination and click the Add button. 4- Repeat for each stock. 5- Click the Save button. 6- To edit a basket click on the individual stocks in the Right pane. 63

64 OPTIONS ORDER ENTRY INTRODUCTION Options Order Entry can be opened from the Main Menu, but it can also be opened from the Options Chain window. To open it from the options chain window, you can right click in the window or set your double click event to open the Options Order Entry window. Manually change option symbols here by selecting underlier and choosing the option specs Level I bar for underlying stock Select Open or Close Ask side with price and exchange Bid side with price and exchange Options Order Entry functions much like Level II Order Entry with quotes from the exchanges below and order entry buttons above. There is also an option for a level I bar on the underlying stock, a Greeks bar, and a hot button bar. These can all be opened from the View menu. To place an order on an option contract: 1- If you don t have an options symbol present, click the drop-down arrow left of the underlying symbol to view a history of past symbols, or type in an underlier and select the option specifications. You can also set your options chain double-click event to populate an options symbol in the Options Order Entry window. Enter option specifications 2- Fill in the QTY, PRICE, TIF, ACCOUNT, and DEST. fields. You MUST select whether opening or closing in the O/C field. 3- Click on BUY or SELL to send your order. GENERAL SETTINGS In the View-Settings menu, you can customize colors, columns, and highlighting. 64

65 To customize your Greeks Bar and your Hot Button bar, select the setup options under the View Menu: Greeks setup Hot Button setup STOP ORDERS ON OPTIONS Stop orders are available utilizing the expanded order entry screen. They are available on ISE, CBOE, AMEX, and PSEX. To place a stop order: 1- Under View, select Expanded Order Entry Bar. 2- In the new bar, under Price Type, select STP or STP LMT 3- For STP LMT, enter a stop limit price. (STP is stop market only). 4- Fill in any other normal fields to send an order and click Buy or Sell. 65

66 Stop Limit with 4.15 limit price FUTURES ORDER ENTRY INTRODUCTION The Futures Order Entry window is unique among the order entry windows. 8 Not only do you receive the quote depth in this window, but you will also find the list of available futures symbols as well as P/L, position information on the selected futures product, and quick order cancel buttons. Pull-down list of products Quick order cancel buttons and a trade out button Order Entry Position info Profit and loss 8 We re not saying it s better, just different (Though it is better). 66

67 To select a futures product to view, click on the pull down arrow on the top right bar and select from the list: To place an order on the selected futures symbol, fill in the order fields similar to Level I and Level II Order Entry and click the buy or sell button. Quick cancel / trade out buttons: Pull All Cancels all open orders for the selected symbol Pull Buys Cancels all open Buy orders for the selected symbol Pull Sells Cancels all open Sell orders for the selected symbol Trade Out Closes out of all open contracts for the selected symbol at the current market Stop Orders You can place stop orders on futures. Select STP or STP LMT as the price type. If you choose STP LMT, enter a Stop Limit Price in the next field. Settings The settings window, under the View menu, allows you to set a color scheme and simple defaults, such as playing a sound when an execution arrives. ORDER ENTRY FROM STOCK WATCH AND POSITION SUMMARY You can trade out of a Stock Watch and Position Summary window in the following way: 1- Right click on a symbol to bring up a pop-up menu. 2- In the pop-up menu you can select Buy, Sell, or Short (Stock Watch also offers Buy Basket and Sell Basket, explained next). Clicking on these order options will bring up a Level I Order Entry window pre-populated with the selected symbol. 3- Place your order as you normally would in the Level I Order Entry window. 67

68 BUY BASKET and SELL BASKET In Stock Watch, if you highlight more than one stock symbol and right click, you will have the option to select Buy Basket or Sell Basket. These functions enable you to quickly load a basket of stocks without having to type them in one by one or loading them from another source. Selecting either will automatically pop-up the New Basket window (see the Basket functionality on page 56). The New Basket window will be prefilled with the selected symbols. The Basket will be pre-named and all fields set to your defaults (which can be adjusted in Global Order Entry settings). If you are satisfied with the defaults, click OK and you can now send your basket. Otherwise, make changes first and then click OK. 68

69 OPEN POSITIONS and OPEN ORDERS If you have open positions or open orders, you can affect them from the Stock Watch and Position Summary windows in the following way: To cover open positions: 1- Right click on a symbol for the pop-up menu. 2- Select Cover Selecting these will bring up a Level I OE window These remaining orders will proceed without a Level I OE popping up. You MUST have a CoverDest selected (see page 12, Listing Exchanges) Trade out of option contracts 3- You have several options shown above on what to do with the position(s) you select to cover. 4- If you select Position or Half, a Level I OE window pops up for you to place your order. 5- Any of the other order selections will automatically process using your preset defaults. The extra step of using the Level I OE window is eliminated with those orders. Please note the blue box above regarding CoverDest. 6- Selected [or All Default Price (Equities) will cover positions at the default price you have set in the Global Order Entry settings. You must still have a CoverDest set up to use this feature. To cancel open orders for a specific symbol, follow the process above, but select Cancel All Selected in the pop-up menu. Your options are to cancel all orders, or only the Buy, Sell, or Short orders for the selected symbol. 69

70 CHAPTER 7 TRADING MONITOR INTRODUCTION Sterling Trader Pro provides trading monitors, which function as order books, to allow you to monitor your trading activity. There are three monitors, one for Equities, one for Futures, and one for Options. Because all three function exactly the same way, we will discuss the trading monitor for equities, which is simply titled Trading Monitor. To open a Trading Monitor, go to the Main Menu, click Windows select Trading Monitor. Order details Tabbed filters Your order details will show up automatically in the window in real-time. You can filter the orders by using the tabs at the bottom of the window: All Orders Shows all orders on the day, whether open, filled, canceled, etc. Open Orders Shows only your current open orders. Executions Shows only your fills for the day. Previous date executions You can call up executions from the previous day under the fourth tab. You can further filter the data you are viewing by Right clicking on a column heading and selecting Filter Add/Edit Filter. In the below example, we have selected to filter the window for Partial Fills only. Once checked, click the Filter button on the top right to enable the filter. 70

71 Now you can see the Status column shows the filter and only Partial Fills are shown. Please note, left clicking a column will auto-sort the data by that column. EXPORTING DATA To export your daily trading data, click the Actions menu and select Export. Under Export you can select ALL or SELECTED. Selected will only export the rows you have highlighted. To Export to Basket, click the Actions menu and select Export to Basket. This will create a basket file that you can load into your Basket window. Once loaded, you can manipulate that order data in the Basket window to quickly create a basket to exit or add on to positions. Above are the orders loaded into the Basket window. From this edit screen and I can create my basket. SETTINGS In the Trading Monitor Settings screen (found in View-Settings), you will be able to select which data columns you want to see. Notice you select columns for each tab in the Trading Monitor. 71

72 There is also a General settings tab in the Settings window: Display options help you quickly recognize order status Color themes Notifications Sort and filter options Please take note of the display options. You can select specific colors for orders to show their status. For example, partially filled orders can have their own color. OCO Orders OCO, One Cancels the Other (or Order Cancels Order) is an order feature available only from the Trading Monitor, Options Monitor, and Futures Monitor. OCO in Sterling Trader Pro involves grouping two or more orders that are already live. For example, if you have an open order to buy 100 XYZ and an open order to buy 100 ABCD, you could group them together as OCO. If you manually cancel one of the orders in the group, all orders in the group will be cancelled. To create an OCO group: 1- Highlight two or more live orders in the Trading Monitor. 2- Right click. A menu will pop up. 3- Select OCO. The sub-menu will have two options a. Create Group b. Remove Group 4- Select Create Group. 5- The orders you selected are now grouped. Once one order fills, the others will be cancelled. There is a column available in Trading Monitor called OCO ID. This column will allow you to see which, if any, orders are grouped together. You can un-group the orders by selecting Remove Group in the pop-up menu. 72

73 CHANGING ORDERS From the Trading Monitor, you can change the attributes of your open orders. This feature is not available in any other window. To change an order: 1- Highlight an open order in Trading Monitor. 2- Right click to get a pop-up menu. There are two change choices, Change and Change Selected: 3- Select Change... The Order Change window pops up: 4- You can now change almost any aspect of your order, including adding an Auto Trailing Stop. The Side (BUY or SELL), Account, and Destination cannot be changed. 5- When you have completed the changes to the order, click the Send button. The order is now changed. Change Selected is a quick price change window. You can select a price such as Bid or Ask, or increase/decrease the current limit price by a specific increment (or a combination of the two). If you highlight multiple open orders, you can use this window to change the price on all the open orders at the same time. 73

74 CHAPTER 8 LOCATE MONITOR INTRODUCTION Sterling Trader Pro features a stock locate tool for those trader who need to immediately find hard to borrow stocks without losing time calling a trade desk. Access to this feature requires broker approval. There are also fees involved as locate requests are handled by a third party, Locatestock.com. Please contact your broker for further information. The Locate Monitor sports a simple, streamlined interface. The top boxes, Quantity, Symbol, and Account are used to request a stock locate. The lower section is the monitor and it records your requests, whether you accepted or declined the returned offer, how many shares were located, and the pershare cost of the locate. To send a locate request: 1- Bring up the Locate Monitor from the Main Menu Windows menu or by using the preset hot key Locate Mon (you must first define the keys to use to open the window in the Global Order Entry settings for Hot Keys). 2- Enter a Quantity to locate, the Symbol, and the Account you are locating for (if you trade multiple accounts). 3- The destination is prefilled. The destination is for sending locate request messages to Locatestock.com. 4- Click the Send button. 5- The Locate Offer window pops up. 6- The window reiterates your request and presents an offering. The offer shows the quantity of shares located and the charge per share for the locate. 7- If you accept the terms, click the Accept button. If you don t, click Decline. 8- The accept or decline message will post in the Locate Monitor. 9- Accepted shares are immediately available to sell short. 74

75 CHAPTER 9 POSITION SUMMARY INTRODUCTION Position Summary in Sterling Trader Pro has a similar look and feel as Stock Watch. However, in Position Summary you will see data on your open positions, including unrealized Profit and Loss. You can also see daily realized P/L on closed positions. Should you trade for more than one account, you can view positions for all accounts at once. COLUMNS Columns for Position Summary are similar Stock Watch, with a few notable exceptions. In Position Summary, you can access column choices from View Settings. Please note these columns specific to Position Summary that will help you see the details of your positions: Acct The account the positions are held in (if you trade multiple accounts). Qty Bot Quantity Bought, will show total shares purchased INTRADAY. Qty Sld Quantity Sold, will show total shares sold intraday. $Bot Dollar value of intraday buys. $Sld Dollar value of intraday sells. Opg Pos Opening Position, the total number of shares carried over from the previous day. PosAvgPrc Position Average Price, the average price of your current open shares. You can add a Totals row in the Miscellaneous tab of the Settings window by checking the box Display a Totals row at and then select either the top of bottom of the window. Click the Cols button to select columns to total. Select which columns to total 75

76 VIEWING POSITIONS There are several ways to manipulate what you see on Position Summary window besides adding or removing columns. SORTING Sort the list by left-clicking once on a column heading. This will sort the list by that column. In the Miscellaneous tab of the Settings window, you can select how often to resort by that column to account for updated data. Hide closed positions. (see below) Sort interval HIDING ROWS Should there be a symbol, or group of symbols, you don t want to see in Position Summary, you can hide them by right clicking on the symbol and selecting Hide Rows from the pop-up menu. This will remove the row until your right click again and select Restore Hidden Rows. You can further manage hidden rows in the Settings Miscellaneous tab by checking the Only show entries which have a position box. This will automatically hide closed positions. However, if you want to include hidden rows in totals calculations (for example, Realized P/L), check the box Include hidden rows in the Totals row calculations. FILTERS You can filter out certain rows based on criteria you set. To add a filter to the Position Summary window: 1- Right click on a column heading and select Filter from the pop-up menu, then select Add/Edit Filter. 2- In the Add/Edit Filter window, select your filter criteria (in this example, we chose the Pos (position) column where we will filter by position size. 3- We selected the filter condition to be greater than or equal to 500 shares. 4- Click Filter on the top right and the filter removes any stock with less than 500 shares in my portfolio. 76

77 5- The Pos column now shows the filter criteria (>= 500). 6- Now that you have a filter in place, you can save that filter, load it, or remove it, by clicking the Filter menu and selecting from the pull-down menu. BUYING POWER From Position Summary you can view your current buying power. Click View Buying Power. D/N means Day (intraday) / Night (overnight) buying power. No Limit is a demo setting only Open orders are not factored in FEES Sterling Trader Pro offers the ability to calculate fees in your trading costs (commission and pass-through) intraday. The fees window is found in View Fees. By default it is blank. Please consult with your broker for the correct data to enter into the Fees window. EXERCISE OPTIONS Traders have the ability to exercise option contracts from the trading platform. The options exercise function will remove the selected contracts from position summary and add or subtract the correlating shares of stock. However, please note that they are not clearable transactions. If you have the options exercise function, you must still notify your broker of any exercises you wish to process. To exercise options: 1- Right click on an open long option position symbol and select Exercise from the pop-up menu. 2- The Exercise Option screen pops up requesting the number of contracts to exercise. 3- Enter a number if different than the default and click OK. 4- The option position will automatically decrement the option position by the number of contracts exercised and will add a stock position according to the number of contracts exercised. So if you exercised one call in IBM, you will get 100 shares of IBM added to your position. 77

78 CHAPTER 10 LINKING WINDOWS INTRODUCTION Many of the windows in Sterling Trader Pro feature linking capability, allowing those windows to be linked to other open windows in the platform. 9 To see if a window has linking, click the Actions menu in the window. To link windows together: 1- Select the first window to begin your linking and click on the Actions menu, then, Link Windows. In this example we ll use the Level II window as our starting window. 2- You will be given the option to START, STOP, ADD TO GROUP, or REMOVE FROM GROUP. 3- Select Start. Your mouse cursor will now include a small 3-link chain. 4- Click on the title bar of any window you want to link together. 5- When you are done linking windows, go back to the Actions menu in Level II (where we started) and click Link Windows Stop. The windows are now linked. You will notice a number now on the title bar of each window. The linked windows form a Group. You can add or remove windows from groups. You can have as many linked groups as you want (but a window may only be in one group at a time). Please see following the following page for an example. The advantage of linking windows together is the ability to bring up information in each window for a symbol you enter or click on into any of the windows. If we link a Level II OE, Chart, and Time and Sales, any symbol entered into Level II OE would populate automatically in the chart and time and sales windows, giving a quick look at that data without having to enter the symbol into each window separately. If you link a Stock Watch window and you want to populate other windows by clicking on a symbol in Stock Watch, you must set your Double-Click Event in Stock Watch to Set Link Symbol. 9 Just looking for an excuse for a footnote. 78

79 These windows are all in Group (1). Clicking symbol WMT in Stock Watch has populated Level II and Chart. Group (1) Group (1) 79

80 CHAPTER 11 - ALLOCATION TOOL INTRODUCTION Sterling Trader Pro offers an allocation tool that allows a user to allocate orders placed throughout the day to multiple accounts at an average price. The Allocation tool can be accessed from the Trading Monitor, Options Monitor, or the Position Summary. For this example, we ll use the Trading Monitor. Here we have three completed orders. Bought and Sold 800 WMT, and Bought 800 AMD. All trades were executed in account JETEST1. To allocate trades: 1- Highlight each trade you wish to allocate (use the CTRL key to highlight more than one trade). 2- Right click and select Allocate... The Allocation window will pop up: Orders that were selected in the Trading Monitor 3- The window is broken up into Original Positions and the New Trades that will result from allocations. 80

81 4- If you have a template already created, you can click the load template button, select a template, and automatically fill in the New Trades section based on the template. If you need to add a new template, the instructions to do so are below. No trades will be allocated until the OK button is clicked. Clicking OK allocates the trades and also closes the Allocations window. 5- If you don t want to use a template, you can manually allocate using the Add... button. Manual allocations are discussed below, after templates. 6- When your allocations are complete, check to make sure they are correct. You can use the Edit button to make changes by highlighting an allocation line and clicking Edit. Or you can delete an allocation, or all allocations, and start again. 7- Click the OK button to send the allocations and close the allocation window. To add a Template: 1- In the Allocation window, click the Add/Edit Template... button. The Add/Edit window pops up: 2- Click Add... The Add/Edit Allocation Template Entry window pops up. 3- Select an account to allocate to. 4- Select the quantity to allocate (quantity is only available by percentage. Allocations must total 100%). 5- You can select a back office account and commission schedule, or leave as default. 6- Click the Add button to add the allocation to the template. The Add/Edit Allocation Template Entry will stay up. 7- Select another account, percentage, back office account, and commission. Repeat to 100%. 8- Click Close to see your template in the Add/Edit Allocation Template window (see next page). 9- Click OK to save the template and go back to the Allocation screen. If you checked Apply template upon exiting, the Allocation screen will show the allocations in the New trades section. 81

82 Load an existing template to edit. Apply template. Total quantity % Here are the allocations based on the template shown above: For each original position, account JETEST2 gets 25%, JETEST3 gets 75% Clicking OK will send these allocations. Or they can be edited first, or deleted. 82

83 To place manual allocations trades using the Add... button: 1- In the Allocation window click Add to pop up the Add Allocation window. Calc for Quantity will automatically calculate remaining shares left to allocate for that position. Calc for Price will input the average price, or the new average price if you allocated some shares at a different price. 2- The window will be blank. So you will have to fill in each field the first time. When you click the Add button at the bottom of the window, the fields will NOT clear out. The info will stay, which will allow you to quickly add the next allocation. 3- When you have filled in the fields, click Add. 4- Repeat for each allocation. 5- Click Close. Your allocations will show in the New Trades section just as they did with the template. The allocations will show in the Trading Monitor. The Allocation ID shows that the trades are from allocations. 83

84 CHAPTER 12 - ORDER DESK MANAGER INTRODUCTION Order Desk Manager is a feature used by account managers and brokers that allows traders to stage orders to the manager using the DESK destination. Orders a trader sends to the DESK destination will populate in the Order Desk Manager. The manager can then decide how to best process the order. To open Order Desk Manager, go to the Main Menu and select Windows Order Desk Manager. Once a trader sends an order to the DESK destination, the order will appear in the Order Desk Manager. In this example, the trader is sending an order to buy 3000 WMT at the Ask via DESK in the Level I OE window. The DESK destination only routes the order to the Order Desk Manager. The order does not go live to any exchange at that time: 84

85 The submitted order populates the Order Desk Manager: The manager now has several options on how to process the order request. By right clicking on the order, they will find the following options: Route/Split Quick Fill Level I Level II History Route / Split If the manager selects this option, the Route/Split window will pop up: Number of Splits will split the order into equal amounts. % of Original Quantity will create ONE order using a quantity that is the selected percentage of the original order. Please see the following screen-shots for examples. Please note, after these settings are selected, the orders still need to be sent to the market by clicking the send button in the following screen-shots. 85

86 Split Order. Three splits were selected, resulting in three orders for 1000 shares each. The orders are not sent until the SEND button is clicked. Only each order that is highlighted will be sent when SEND is clicked. The destination is defaulted to ARCA, but that can be changed by clicking in the Dest. box for each order and selecting a new destination. Percent Order. For this order, we selected 40%, resulting in a quantity of 1200 shares to send to the market. If this order is filled, the remaining quantity in the upper pane (Lvs Qty column) will adjust by the number of shares filled. Leaves Quantity. In this case, 3000 shares minus the 1200 filled = 1800 left. 86

87 Quick Fill Selecting Quick Fill brings up the Quick Fill window: Select a quantity, price, and destination. Clicking Send will send the order to market. LEVEL I and LEVEL II Selecting these will bring up Level I and Level II Order Entry windows. You can process the orders from there. Please see the user guide for Level I and II order entry functionality. History Selecting this will bring up an Order History window which shows the entire order history for the selected DESK order. SETTINGS In the View Settings window you can select which columns to see in the Order Desk Manager as well as defaults for Route/Split. Defaults for Time-In-Force and Price can be set for processing received DESK orders. For example, if a manager processes DESK orders from a Level II OE window, setting a default price of (Last) will pre-fill the Level II OE window with (Last) when it is brought up, even if the DESK order the trader submitted had MKT as the original price. Prevents manager from trading more than the requested share amount Displays DESK orders in the manager s Trading Monitor and Level II OE 87

88 CHAPTER 13 EVERYTHING ELSE INTRODUCTION Everything Else consists of these remaining windows: Activity Log Notification Log Messenger Clock Each window serves a specific function not directly related to daily trading (except perhaps the clock). We ll go over them in order. ACTIVITY LOG This window shows you a chronological list of activity in the account. This can include order entry as well as changes made by a manager to your account. NOTIFICATION LOG Should you experience any order issues, this window will show you a log of order entry errors encountered during the trading day (you would also see these errors pop up at the time an order is placed. For example, a reject message for an invalid parameter in the order). MESSENGER This window is an instant messenger window used to communicate trader to trader or manager to trader. It is not intended as a means to process trades. It is only a chat window. CLOCK Just that, a market clock. There are a few settings you can choose from, noted below. THE END The End 88

89 EXHIBIT A Smart SWIPE Hotkey Uses and Features Clients can set up a Smart SWIPE hotkey for use in the Level I or Level II order entry windows, but please note, much of this functionality is the same even if using SWIPE as a destination directly from an order entry window. A Smart SWIPE hotkey allows traders, with the push of a button, to send orders to selected destinations for quick execution within a specified price tolerance, called a Thru-Price Delta. This hotkey is created by selecting SWIPE for the Destination field and a Thru-Price Delta for the Price field. The hotkey then loads a smart SWIPE order based off of the NBBO against the Thru-Price Delta (e.g. 0.01, 0.02), to execute as IOC orders within that price tolerance. Here is how such as hotkey setup would look: 1- The Thru-Price is the highest price tolerance point at which you re willing to buy or sell the stock. The general formula for the Thru-Price is: Current Best Bid less Thru-Price Delta if you are selling; or, Current Best Offer plus Thru-Price Delta if you are buying. 2- The SWIPE Execution Destinations list is a list of execution destinations to which you want to send SWIPE orders. In order for one or more of the destinations on the SWIPE list to be considered suitable for swiping, it needs to be quoted or present in the Level-2 market-maker display. 3- The Smart SWIPE function scans the entire SWIPE Execution Destinations list, until the complete order size is filled. 4- All SWIPE orders are sent to the execution destinations as IOC (Immediate-or-Cancel). 5- If two or more destinations have the same best available price, then the destination order assigned by the trader to the SWIPE Executions Destinations list comes into play; between the different destinations sharing the same best price, the destination located higher up on the SWIPE list (as assigned by the trader) is used. 6- It is important to note that, when the Smart SWIPE hotkey is using a Thru-Price Delta (e.g. 0.01, 0.02), the price variance will be based on the NBBO price. 7- It is also possible to use a Price setting called <No Delta>. This setting means that SWIPE will use dynamic Thru- Price settings, using the best available price taken from the SWIPE list itself, and not the NBBO price. 8- There is a designated hotkey labeled Cxl Smart SWIPE (Cancel Smart SWIPE) that is hard-coded specifically for canceling Smart SWIPE orders. By default, the Cxl Smart SWIPE hotkey is set at Shift + S but it can be changed to something else if desired. 89

90 EXHIBIT B Best Hotkey in Sterling Trader Pro Uses and Features Clients can set up a Best hotkey for use in the Level II order entry window. A Best hotkey is created by selecting [Best] for both Price and Destination fields when setting up a new hotkey. This hotkey then loads the best price currently on display in the Level II Market Maker section, with the price taken from its associated destination. It then uses this best Bid or Ask price depending on the Take/Join option selected by the trader. Please note, if your hot keys are set to load and go than orders will be sent and not just populated in the order entry screen. 1- For listed symbols, if the trader is not enabled for that Best listed destination, then the destination selected will be that trader s default destination for listed stocks. 2- For OTC symbols, the Best hotkey sends orders to the destination highlighted, unless the trader is not enabled for that highlighted destination; in that case, the order will be sent to the trader s default destination for OTC stocks. 3- The row currently being displayed as Best (including the MMID) will be highlighted with an alternate color scheme; the default is a navy-blue background with white text. 4- Pressing the Best hotkey again (and again) will pre-fill the Level II order entry window with a new Best price, based upon the next row (MMID) down. 5- There is also a Hotkey to get out of the Best mode; it is called Cxl Mode. 6- The Best hotkey mode is also canceled by: switching symbols; by sending an order; by using a different hotkey; by using the Clear Wind hotkey; or by clicking on the Clr button located just to the right of the account field in the top of the Level II order entry window. 7- Three subsidiary hotkeys have been added to the Cxl Mode hotkey: Cxl Best Buys, Cxl Best Sells, and Cxl All Best. These will work from any of the order entry windows and will cancel all the open orders that were sent using the Best hotkey. Note 1: When there are multiple best Buys to be canceled, they are canceled starting from the highest-priced to the lower-priced orders; the best Sells are canceled starting from the lowest-priced to the higher-priced orders. Note 2: Open MKT orders will be canceled first; then straight Limit orders will be canceled. 90

91 EXHIBIT C Creating a Text File to Import to Basket The file is delimited by the tilde (~) symbol. The first line in the text file gives you the values circled below in the picture. 10=Index Type (can be one of three values Price Weighted, Mkt Cap Weighted, Eql Dlr Weighted or you can remove the tag for a <none> value) 11=Index (Value is an number) 12=Mult (Value is number) 13=Delta (Value is a number) 14=IdxDivisor (Value is a number) Sample1 Sample line (values that are circled above): 10=Price Weighted~11=2~12=1.00~13=95~14=1.5~ 91