PREVIEWED BY ACTIVE TRADER STAFF

In the Web Watch section of the March 2001 Active Trader, we took a look at Tradetrek.com and complimented the site on its unique analysis tools, which included pair-trade analysis, block trade statistics and advanced scanning capabilities.

The Tradetrek Web site still exists, but the company has since developed a software program that assembles the analysis tools available on the web, extends their capabilities, adds new features and packages them in a simple application you store on your computer while accessing data through the Internet.

Tradetrek Enterprise is the company’s primary platform for retail stock traders (the company also makes a direct-access trading platform and a Forex platform). Tradetrek doesn’t work with futures data; many of the functions (including scanning features and block trade data) are relevant only to stock trading. While many of the tools and capabilities will be familiar to those who have used the online Tradetrek.com Gold service, Enterprise has (among other features) more sophisticated charts with more technical indicators, the ability to historically search many of the program’s past indicator signals and setups, a streaming ticker and many more search criteria for scanning the market.

Tradetrek isn’t your typical one-million-indicator analysis program with back-testing features. Like most programs, it allows you to create charts and quote pages and access news and fundamental data, but its big selling point is 10 or so unique tools and proprietary functions that focus on aspects of the market other programs ignore.

Some of Tradetrek's functions include trade signals / recommendations based on the software’s proprietary and undisclosed — tools, such as its neural network engine. We will not focus on these features, other than to mention their existence and how they might be used educationally (rather than as the basis for trades). Our primary concern is with the user-modifiable analysis features. Traders must research and test trade signals themselves to judge their merit. To that end, Tradetrek does allow you to review the performance of past signals.

FIGURE1   CHARTING Tradetrek Enterprise's charting features are broader and more interactive than Tradetrek.com's.  FIGURE2   BLOCK TRADES The Block Trades screen allows you to see how much large-trader activity is occuring in a stock and the price levels at which it's taking place.  FIGURE3  MONEY FLOW This screen shows the intraday money flow for large traders/institutions, retail traders and the market as a whole.  FIGURE4  POWER SEARCH Tradetrek's search function allows you to scan the market using a wide range of technical and fundamental criteria.

Tradetrek’s features are divided into three major groups – My Stock, My Trades and My Power Tools – that in turn consist of 23 subgroups or functions. Rather than describe each detail, we’ll briefly summarize functions that are similar to other programs, while focusing mostly on Tradetrek Enterprise’s unique features.

The My Stock section contains tools for analyzing individual stocks. You can request quotes, charts and fundamental data, scan news and check on a company’s SEC filings. Charts can be displayed in time frames ranging from one minute to weekly (see Figure 1) and are accompanied by a menu of 30-plus indicators and charting tools all fine, standard stuff (but still an advance over the company’s online product). Quote screens contain some nice extras, including trade and tick counts.

The tools that stand out in the My Stock section are the Block Trade statistics and the Money Flow and Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP) studies. These tools provide a glimpse into the level of professional or institutional activity in a stock. Block Trades lists all large trades for the day and shows whether they occurred above or below the market price (see Figure 2). You can also enter a date and view this information (one day at a time) back to the beginning of 2001. The Money Flow feature shows how much money is moving in or out of a stock (see Figure 3). Tradetrek breaks the figures down into Block (presumably representing the professional/institutional activity), Retail (you and me), and total money flow. The VWAP shows the price level at which the most volume is taking place, and compares it to price level so you can see whether you’re buying or selling above or below most other traders. For example, when the current price is below the VWAP, it can be a good time to go long (provided you have some other tool that would signal an entry at this level) because you’d be buying lower than most other traders have.

Two other proprietary tools are the 5-Day Forecast and the 6-Month Target. The former uses a proprietary neural network program to project the likely price action over the next five days, including boundaries between which price has an 80-percent likelihood of trading. The latter allows you to enter several parameters, including the inflation rate, a long-term interest rate and a one-year projection for the Dow, and voila, out comes a six-month target price. The exact rules behind these tools are not revealed, though, which means you’ll need to experiment with them and see how they actually perform.

My Stock also includes an option calculator and “Historical Picks,” a list of technical trade signals Tradetrek issued live in the past based on the following patterns:

Triple Top / Bottom, Triangle Breakout, Cup-With-A-Handle, Range Breakout, Head and Shoulders, Trend Reversal, Stochastic Combo, and Moving Average Crosses. Again, Tradetrek does not reveal the precise definitions it uses for these patterns, but it is nice to be able to see past trades and how they worked out. When you click on a trade, it takes you to a chart with the entry and stop price; you can then click forward bar by bar to see how the trade unfolded.

The My Trade Ideas section contains Tradetrek’s most recent pattern-based trade setups (plus bullish and bearish intraday signals). Also included are news section (reports and stories from various newswires) and “What’s Hot” – various best- and worst-performing stock lists (new 52 week highs/lows, biggest gainers/losers, and so on).

The Pairtrade feature shows Tradetrek’s selections for stock spreads – going long one stock and short another related stock. Tradetrek discusses the general logic, if not the precise rules, it uses to find pairtrade opportunities (it searches every 30 minutes for the best candidates). When single-stock futures get rolling, traders interested in those instruments should find this kind of tool especially useful.

Two other interesting features are the Market Center, which shows the most recent NYSE and regional exchange (Chicago Stock Exchange, Pacific Coast Exchange, etc.) bid and ask prices of listed stocks, and Tick Chart, a streaming trade-by-trade picture of a stock’s movement.

Rounding out this section is the Power Search function (see Figure 4), which allows you to scan a database of 20,000 stocks using a wide range of technical and fundamental criteria. Some parameters have fixed values (e.g., if you want to use a moving average as a criteria, you cannot select your own look back period), but the feature is quite comprehensive and simple to use.

My Portfolio allows you to monitor both individual trades and pair trades: Enter the trade price(s) and date (and some additional parameters for pair trades), and you can track the P&L and capital requirement for the position. The ability to track stock pairs as a single transaction is an especially nice feature.

One thing Level II groupies should be aware of is that although the program has time and sales, it doesn’t have Level II. (Tradetrek’s recently unveiled IntelliTrader Pro direct-access platform does have this capability, though.)

The program’s help features include an extensive dictionary that does a good job of describing many of the tools and concepts the program uses.

Bottom Line
Rather than do what everyone else is doing in the trading software world, Tradetrek distinguishes itself by focusing on a set of distinctive tools that emphasize behind-the-scenes dynamics (block trades, money flow, etc.) over intricate indicator trickery. The program could be a little more functional and allow users to experiment with some of the proprietary features and ideas, but these drawbacks are fairly minor compared to the value of Tradetrek’s tools.