To Create a Trade List

The first step to processing orders through Portfolio Trader is to create a Trade List, a list of your trading goals for the day, and import it; see the To Import a Trade List topic for more information. Trade Lists can be created using a spreadsheet application (e.g., Microsoft Excel®), a word processing tool (e.g., Microsoft Word®), or a text editor (e.g., Microsoft Notepad®). Regardless of the tool you use, the file should always contain the following data:

Data	Formatting Notes
Symbol	Follow REDIPlus symbol formatting rules. All characters making up domestic symbols must be capitalized. The ISIN symbol format can be used when importing European securities, but you must also specify the exchange code (the Reuters exchange suffix).
Side	The four Sides that are supported (Buy, Buy Cover, Sell, and Sell Short) should be abbreviated as B, BC, S, SS respectively. These values must be capitalized.
Account	If you are using an Excel spreadsheet and are entering accounts with leading zeros (e.g. 00012345), you must format the column as text to ensure that Excel will not remove the leading zeros.
Quantity	Do not use commas (or any other number punctuation); they may be interpreted as separators during the importation of your Trade List.
Limit Price (optional)	Follow REDIPlus Price formatting rules. A simple integer is acceptable, but if you use a decimal, you must include at least two decimal places. You can import up to five Limit prices for the same Symbol, Side, Account, Quantity combination, and map the values as Price1, Price2, etc. The Limit prices will be available from the Offset/Limit drop-down list box of the Wave dialog box for the corresponding goal when Explicit is selected in the Price Type drop-down list box. See the To Submit a Wave topic for more information.
All data	Using a spreadsheet application: Make sure that all data is aligned to the left and do not leave any empty columns or rows between the data. Import using the Delimited Data Format and the Comma Separator options, as the spreadsheet columns are replaced with comma when the data is first represented in the Import Trade List dialog box. Using word processing or text editors tools: Use separators consistently, so that when you import the Trade List, the data can be properly mapped into columns. It is important that the separator used is a character or string of characters that is unlikely to be misinterpreted as Trade List data. If you prefer to enter and import your data in a Fixed width format, the separator must be a space.

Trade Lists must be re-imported at the start of each trading day. To facilitate the importation process, use intuitive file naming conventions and create a standard directory for your Trade List files. This will help you to easily find the files you need.