Overview

Photon is the Marketcetera Automated Trading Platform UI client. Photon is what's know as a fat client, meaning it is a standalone native executable as opposed to a thin client, which is typically made available via a web browser. To use Photon, you must install the Photon component for your platform and architecture. See the installation guide for more information on installing Photon.

Launching Photon

Photon uses the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. If you're familiar with the Eclipse IDE, Photon will look very familiar to you. On Windows, an entry for Photon will have been added to your Start menu or Desktop, as you requested during installation. On Linux, to start Photon:

$ cd marketcetera-2.2.1
$ . ./setEnv.sh
$ cd photon
$ ./photon

On OSX, there is a Photon.app which you can add to your toolbar or Applications folder.

Logging In

Photon can run by itself, however, most of its utility comes from connecting to other components in the Marketcetera Automated Trading Platform stack, like the Order Routing System and one or more Strategy Agents. Upon start, Photon prompts you to log in to an Order Routing System.

The default credentials for the Order Routing System are admin/admin.

Once you've entered the credentials to connect to the Order Routing System, you can tell if Photon has successfully connected by the status icons at the bottom. The icons will change from

to

(the left light is for the connection to the Order Routing System, the right light is for the connection to a market data adapter, more on that later)

After connecting, some views that require a connection to the Order Routing System are populated, like the Open Orders View and the Positions View. More on these and other views later.

By default, Photon is configured to connect to an Order Routing System running on the same host. However, if you've installed your Order Routing System on another host, you can configure Photon to connect to that host instead. Select Cancel from the login dialog and then Edit->Preferences. Select Connections in the left pane.

You can enter a new IP address (in place of 127.0.0.1) for the IP address of your Order Routing System. Select OK and then File->Reconnect Server to resume the login process. There is also a menubar icon for Reconnect Server, for your convenience. If you are already connected to the server when you select Reconnect Server, your current connection will be closed and a new connection established. This is harmless, though there may be a small delay depending on the amount of trading activity that's occurred today as Photon downloads today's activity from the Order Routing System.

Views

A View in Photon is one of the dockable and resizeable tabs with a title and a menubar. Views may be maximized, minimized, closed, and moved. In addition to some common Eclipse Views, Photon provides custom Views. Several Views are associated with each Perspective. Additional Views may be opened by selecting Window->Open View:

Console View

The Console View is a standard Eclipse View with some Photon-specific customizations. 

There are three sub-views: Main, Sink Console, and Notifications. The Main Console provides basic information from Photon. The default message level is INFO. This can be changed at Edit->Preferences->Photon.

The Sink Console displays messages from connected Strategy Agents. There aren't any Strategy Agent connections yet, more on that later.

The Notifications Console displays messages from Photon that correspond to pop-up messages, like server disconnect and reconnect messages, for example.

Market Data View

Photon provides market data for display and also for consumption by running strategies. More on strategies later, for now, let's focus on the display of market data. The Marketcetera Automated Trading Platform divides market data into content types:

In Photon, top-of-book, latest tick, and marketstat are displayed in the Market Data View:

To display market data in the Market Data View, enter a symbol in the Market Data View menubar and press the green plus button or press enter. The symbol you enter will be submitted to all the active market data adapters. Each adapter will interpret the symbol according to its nature and return market data accordingly. If more than one market data adapter is active and returning data for the same symbol, the market data displayed will come from the most recently supplied market data event. Note that, in the above image, there are two equities and one future instrument displayed. Market data can be displayed for multiple instruments at the same time.

It is important to note that Marketcetera, Inc. does not itself supply market data. Market data comes to the platform via a market data adapter from an external source, like Thompson Reuters or Lime. You will need an account with one of these providers in order to view market data. More on market data adapters later.

If the market data event displayed in the Market Data View comes from a market data adapter that supports depth-of-book, you can select a row in the Market Data View and open the Market Depth View.

The available depth views are displayed in the right-click menu for a given row in the Market Data View. Selecting one of the available market data depth types will open the Market Depth View.


You can select buy or sell from the right-click menu from either the Market Data or the Market Depth Views. Doing so will open the appropriate Order Ticket View populated with the bid or ask from the selected row depending on whether you selected buy (ask) or sell (bid).

Order Ticket Views

The Order Ticket Views are used to place new orders and cancel replace order requests. There is a specialized Order Ticket View for each supported asset class.

FieldTypeRequiredDefaultEquityOptionFutureCurrencyMessage Field
BrokerDropdownYesAuto SelectYesYesYesYesSpecial1
SideDropdownYes YesYesYesYesSide (54)
QuantityDecimalYes YesYesYesYesOrderQty (38)
SymbolString2Yes YesYesYesYesSymbol (55)
Order TypeDropdownYes YesYesYesYesOrdType (40)
PriceDecimalConditional3 YesYesYesYesPrice (44)
TIFDropdownYesDayYesYesYesYesTimeInForce (59)
AccountStringNo YesYesYesYesAccount (1)
IcebergDecimalNo YesYesYesYesMaxFloor (111)
AlgoDropdownNo YesYesYesYesVaries4
Custom FieldsTableNo YesYesYesYesVaries5
Expiration YearNumber: YYYYFuture NoNoYesNoMaturityMonthYear (200)
Expiration MonthDropdownFuture NoNoYesNoMaturityMonthYear (200)
ExpiryNumber: YYYYMMDDOption NoYesNoNoMaturityMonthYear (200), MaturityDay (205)
StrikeDecimalOption NoYesNoNoStrikePrice (202)
TypeDropdownOption NoYesNoNoPutOrCall (201)
Open/CloseDropdownNo NoYesNoNoOpenClose (77)
CapacityDropdownNo NoYesNoNoOrderCapacity (528)
Near TenorNumber: YYYYMMDDNo NoNoNoYesFutSettDate (64)
Far TenorNumber: YYYYMMDDNo NoNoNoYesSettDate2 (193)
Base CurrencyRadio ButtonYesCCY1NoNoNoYesSpecial6
  1. The list of available brokers is provided by the Order Routing System. An order may be targeted to a specific broker or the default or "auto-selected" broker may be selected.

  2. The symbol entered is provided to the broker as-is. There is no official symbology for instruments that is respected by all brokers, exchanges, and market data providers. Some providers accept numeric codes, others use OSI for options, and others use proprietary symbology. This is exacerbated by symbology of market data providers. In the next major release, the Marketcetera Automated Trading Platform will provide a symbol standardization system that will make this easier to manage. For now, keep in mind that the symbol in the order ticket has to be something understood by the broker to which you send the order.
  3. Price is required for non-market orders
  4. The algo dropdown and table allows you to target an order to a broker-specified algorithm. These algorithms are defined in the Order Routing System configuration. For example, the broker may offer a special VWAP or TWAP algorithm with parameters that specify participation or start and end times. These algorithm specifications are part of the broker configuration provided by Marketcetera, Inc. to subscription customers. For non-subscription customers, you may research and define these algorithms yourself depending on what your broker offers.
  5. The custom fields table allows you to specify FIX fields and values on outgoing orders that are not covered by existing widgets on the order ticket.
  6. Specifies whether to use the left currency as the base or the right. For example, for the symbol, USD/EUR, CCY1 is USD and CCY2 is EUR. You may swap these by setting the radio button value to CCY2.

Each asset class has its own Order Ticket View. The Future Order Ticket View is shown here.

FIX Message Views

Trading History

The FIX Message Views are based on FIX message history provided by the Order Routing System. Each FIX message received by the Order Routing System from brokers and exchanges contributes to the FIX message history. That can be a lot of messages! The Marketcetera Automated Trading System has the ability to filter the FIX message history to just those orders from the current trading session. By default, this feature is enabled and the session start time is set to 00:00:00, local time. To disable this feature (download all message history) or change the session start time, go to Edit->Preferences->Trading History:

This feature affects all Views that are based on FIX messages except the Positions View and Open Orders View, which obey special rules. If you change the Trading History settings, they will take effect the next time you start Photon or you Reconnect to the Server.

FIX Messages Menu

All FIX Message Views offer the same right-click and toolbar menus. To activate the FIX Messages Menu, right-click on a row in one of the FIX Messages Views.

Delete Report Menu

Selecting this menu item causes the corresponding report to be permanently deleted. You should not do this unless there's a very good reason, like a bad execution report from an exchange or broker. But, really, you shouldn't do this. Feel free to be intimidated by this message if you do:

View FIX Message Details Menu

This selection opens or refreshes the FIX Message Details View.

Replace Order Menu

This selection opens the Order Ticket View appropriate for the instrument in the message and formats all the fields from the message in order to prepare an order cancel replace request. This menu item is enabled for open orders only. Note that fields that cannot change in an order cancel replace replace are disabled.


Cancel Order Menu

This selection sends an order cancel request based on the given message. This menu item is enabled for open orders only. No confirmation is required; the cancel request is immediately sent.

Copy Menu

This selection copies a text version of the given message to the system clipboard.

FIX Messages Toolbar

All FIX Messages Views provide the same widgets in the View toolbar.

Filter Toolbar


Rows can be filtered with a regular expression based on the column names and values. For example, in the FIX Messages View above, both "Symbol=AAPL" and "Symbol~=A*PL" would yield the same results. Note the usage of "~=" instead of "=" to activate the regular expression filter.

FIX messages can be sorted by any of the columns. Columns can be dragged to change the column order. You can change the columns displayed in each FIX Messages View by selecting Edit->Preferences->FIX Columns.


New View Toolbar

Multiple Views of the same type can be opened by selecting the "picture frame" icon. Each View can have different column orders and filter settings.

FIX Messages View

 The FIX Messages View shows all FIX messages in the trading history. Messages from previous trading history sessions are not displayed. 

FIX Message Details View

The FIX Message Details View shows a tag-by-tag view of a single FIX message. To activate the FIX Message Detail View, select a FIX message in any of the FIX Message Views and right-click. From the pop-up menu, select View FIX message details.

The message can be copied to the system clipboard, either as a text string or a table. Selecting a different row (left-click or right-click) in any of the FIX Message Views will automatically display the selected message in the FIX Message Details View.

Fills View

The Fills View shows order fills from today's trading session. Like other FIX Message Views, the Fills View supports multiple instances using the picture frame icon and filtering with regular expressions.

Average Price View

The Average Price View shows the average price of all fills from the current session per instrument.

outline

  1. Logging in
    1. Local host
    2. Another host
    3. Default credentials
  2. Views
    1. Opening a View
    2. General
      1. Console
    3. Market Data
      1. Market Data
      2. Market Depth
    4. Photon
      1. Average Price
      2. Currency Order Ticket
      3. FIX Message Details
      4. FIX Messages
      5. Fills
      6. Future Order Ticket
      7. Open Orders
      8. Option Order Ticket
      9. Stock Order Ticket
    5. Positions
      1. Positions
    6. Strategy Category
      1. Project Explorer
      2. Strategy Engines
      3. Trade Suggestions
  3. Perspectives
    1. Equity
    2. Option
    3. Future
    4. Currency
    5. Strategy
    6. Custom
  4. Market Data Adapters
    1. Marketcetera
    2. Bogus
    3. Yahoo
    4. CSV
    5. Commercial Adapters
      1. Activ Financial
      2. Thompson Reuters
      3. Lime
      4. NYSE
      5. ICE
      6. Nordpool
  5. Configuration