This adaptable trade monitoring, analysis and reporting tool allows you to interact with trading platforms by displaying and analyzing account and price data in real-time, using your Excel skills rather than having to learn complex programming languages. You can also build a single spreadsheet which compares data across multiple accounts.
The tool enables you to:
- Put real-time account, ticket and price data into Excel using only the program’s built-in RealTimeData(RTD) function without macros or programming – just your standard Excel knowledge.
- Send simple trading commands from VBA code in Excel (or from any other language which supports COM).
For example, once the Excel RTD tool is running, the formula for displaying the equity on account number 123789 - updating in real time - is as follows.
=RTD("FXBlueLabs.ExcelRTD", , "123789", "equity")
Other examples of formulas include:
Current bid price on GBPUSD=RTD("FXBlueLabs.ExcelRTD", , "123789", "bidGBPUSD")Number of open positions on the account
=RTD("FXBlueLabs.ExcelRTD", , "123789", "tickets")Floating PL of first open position on the account
=RTD("FXBlueLabs.ExcelRTD", , "123789", "t1pl")High of current H1 candle on USDJPY
=RTD("FXBlueLabs.ExcelRTD", , "123789", "@bh,USDJPY,H1,high,0")21-bar EMA of median price on EURUSD M3 candles
=RTD("FXBlueLabs.ExcelRTD", , "123789", "@ema,EURUSD,M3,median,21,0")
Like any cells in Excel, RTD can be linked to a chart, or to conditional formatting, for example, highlight losing trades or accounts in red. Therefore, sophisticated traders who have built market models in Excel can use the tool to combine the model with real-time prices (and open-position data), using standard Excel features to notify themselves when positions should be opened or closed.
The Excel RTD tool is supplied with a user guide and also an example spreadsheet. Using nothing other than the RTD function described above, this example spreadsheet demonstrates how to implement a complete trader dashboard with charts showing the floating PL on multiple accounts, price comparisons, and a combined ticket list for multiple accounts.
VBA programming
Traders with minimal knowledge of VBA programming can also use Excel to send simple trading commands (or to read data) using code such as the following, which could be linked to a button on a spreadsheet:
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Set cmd = CreateObject("FXBlueLabs.ExcelCommand")
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strResult = cmd.SendCommand("123789", "BUY", "s=EURUSD|v=10000", 5)
In other words, traders with basic programming skills can use Excel for anything from constructing their own customized deal ticket, through to automated trading based on a financial model in Excel.
The ability to send commands and read data can in fact be used from any programming environment which supports COM, not just Excel VBA. For example, a trader could create anything from a simple .vbs script which closes all positions through to a complex trading algorithm written in C#, both of which place trades by sending commands to the Excel RTD app.