EasyLanguage® as a Development Environment
 All add-on products designed for TradeStation are achieved via EasyLanguage®. EasyLanguage® is a high-level, English-like programming language specially designed for analyzing securities data time-series. EasyLanguage® provides an intuitive and powerful framework for translating trading ideas into a variety of technologies.
As opposed to general-purpose languages, which are designed to operate only on "snapshot" data, EasyLanguage® is designed to operate on both snapshot data as well as continuous historical data (typically presented as a bar chart). EasyLanguage® can also operate on parallel data from up to 50 securities, with each data series being sampled at a different interval. For instance, a 5-minute bar chart for a security could be overlaid on a 7-minute bar chart for another security, and the two could then be analyzed together for any interrelationships.
EasyLanguage® operates on a bar chart, one bar at a time, in chronological order, with the values of functions and variables carrying over from one bar to the next. Upon reaching the last or "current" bar on a real-time chart, it either re-processes that bar each time a new tick is received, or it waits for that bar to be completed before processing it, depending on a user setting. At any given bar, the hallmark "look-back" feature of the language allows for the retrieval of the security data, function values, and variable values from any previous bar on the chart via a simple indexing mechanism. For instance, the following equivalent statements retrieve the close of 5 bars ago and assign it to the variable "Value1":
Value1 = Close of 5 bars ago ;
OR
Value1 = Close[5] ;
This look-back feature, combined with the host of general-purpose programming features included in EasyLanguage, greatly facilitates the development of code for accomplishing any kind of analysis of historical data, such as moving averages, regression analysis, correlation analysis, technical indicators, and more.
In particular, it enables the creation of more sophisticated look-back schemes, such as Nth highest high, most recent occurrence (MRO) and swing & divergence analysis.
EasyLanguage® is further distinguished by its extensive trading vocabulary to facilitate the creation of trading signals and strategies. Using EasyLanguage®, you can specify the type of trade (e.g., buy, sell), the order type (e.g., stop, limit), the exit stop such as a stop loss, and the profit target. In a strategy, EasyLanguage® can also access current performance and position data on a bar-by-bar basis, examples of which would be the current net profit or the maximum draw down, so entry and exit signals can be based on a combination of market conditions and strategy data. EasyLanguage's trading vocabulary includes more than 500 keywords and built-in functions.
In addition to user and intrinsic functions, EasyLanguage® enables you to use functions residing in DLL's. This means that in addition to all the EasyLanguage® reserved words and functions, EasyLanguage® can also reference any function written in C or C++.
Technologies provided via EasyLanguage® include Charting, Options and Quote analysis, Functions and Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs). These technologies give independent companies the ability to design a wide range of products, from the simplest function calculation to a complex custom trading strategy. Design visual indicators for charting or use any one of TradeStation's ShowMe™, PaintBar™, ActivityBar™, and ProbabilityMap® technologies for a truly unique rendering of trading methodology. The indicator technology has also been applied to TradeStation's Quote and Options Analysis modules, which makes product design possibilities even more limitless.
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