Getting started with the Zignals Trading System

The Zignals Trading System application is a comprehensive tool for building mechanical trading systems. If you prefer to make your own calls as to the performance of individual stocks you will find our market call application an opportunity to expand your revenue earning potential.

1. First step for the Trading System is to create a new strategy; opening My Strategies offers a full list of trading system settings. Give a strategy a name and decide whether it is a long or short strategy; strategies use target and stops for exits so defining what action to take when a signal is given is important.
   
   
   

   Build the backbone to your
   trading system

   In money management enter the starting portfolio, amount to invest per trade, the cost per trade, a slippage percentage and the number of days between trades before a signal is considered 'true'. For US wash-rule considerations this figure should be at least 23 days.
   
   In risk management, the exit conditions can be broken into two possibilities; a fixed target and stop price or a trailing stop with rollover target prices.
   
   
2. 

   Adding stocks to a stocklist

   After the backbone conditions are created next comes choosing the stocks to use.
   
   Stocks can be manually entered or drawn in from a stocklist available from the dropdown menu.
   
   Created trading systems are not limited to just stocks, forex currency pairs, indices and energy & precious metal commodites can be used too. The only restriction is stocks (or forex pairs) have to be of the same currency.
   

   Creating a new rule for the
   Trading System

   
   
3. There is a great range of flexibility when it comes to adding rules.
   
   Rules can either be created or chosen from the premade rules (highlighted with the Zignals icon). To create a new trading system rule choose either a Technical or Candlestick rule. Existing rules - including Zignals rules - can be edited; editing Zignals rules requiring saving under a new name. All self-made rules can be deleted; Zignals rules cannot be deleted.
   
   A new Technical Rule is built around the base indicator and the trigger for that indicator. Creating a Technical rule can be broken into four steps:
   
   

   [i] Give the rule a name
   [ii] Define the base indicator for the rule. The first drop-down offers the choice of Trend, Momentum, Volume or Price. The second drop-down gives the list of technical indicators associated with the first drop-down menu. The Price rule is based on the asset price.
   [iii] The operator can be set at crosses above, crosses below, smaller, equal or smaller, equal, equal or greater, greater, or between.
   [iv] The trigger is either a constant or an associated technical rule (such as a second moving average).

   
   
   

   Building a Technical Trading System

   To add a candlestick, select the candlestick type and the timeframe for a candlestick to relate to a technical trigger; e.g. a timeframe value of three for a bullish doji star means for a trading system using a MACD trigger and bullish doji star the MACD trigger will be taken as true if in the prior 3 days there was a bullish doji star.
   
   
   

   Adding a candlestick rule

   Created rules are then added to the workspace via the sidepool of rules.
   
   Unwanted rules can be dropped into the trashcan. The First rule is automatically connected to the starting point; additional rules can be connected to the starting point by mouse-and-drag of the summary box - trading strategies using multiple signal paths use this form.
   
   
   

   Adding a technical rule to the trading system

   Rules are connected to one another by click-and-drag. To complete a strategy the trading system has to run complete from the starting point (1) to the end point (2).
   
   
   

   Connecting technical rules in a trading system

   
   
   
   All changes or additions to a trading strategy can be saved from the main menu.
   
   
4. 

   Executing a trading system

   Once a trading strategy has been defined it can be back-tested. In Back Test the period of the historical test is defined and a sample portfolio - available in the Portfolio Manager - is created showing the trades and performance of the trading system over the test timeframe.
   
   
5. 

   Publishing a trading system

   The final step (should you wish) is to publish a strategy which is available in the Zignals Marketplace.
   
   The parameters of the trading strategy are defined in the Publish interface; although the published strategy should be given a name and description to inform potential subscribers as to what it does.
   
   

   Switching between strategy views

6. To view published strategies click 'Back to Strategy Listing'. This brings up a master view of the most recently worked strategy.
   
   Clicking on 'Back to Strategy Listing' again offers a summary view of all of your published strategies.
   
   
7. In the main strategy view there are six main components:
   
   

   (1) a cash equity curve built from the back-test,
   (2) a summary of the number of subscribers, revenue generated, and summary of portfolio value for the trading strategy,
   (3) strategy messaging,
   (4) revenue and information on subscribers,
   (5) detailed trading strategy portfolio returns (two views are available by clicking the small green icon), and
   (6) signals generated by the trading system.

   
   
   

   Detailed view of a Trading Strategy

8. Clicking again on 'Back to Strategy Listing' brings up a summary view of all of your trading strategies - published (public) and unpublished (private).
   
   From this menu it is possible to directly to another strategy, or create a new trading strategy.
   
   
   

   Summary view of all trading strategies