ScriptBots
ScriptBots (and Dakota's "bots" in general) are the core trading capabilities within Dakota. As in most every trading tool, the trading system is the key element for generating trading
signals. In Dakota, the same is true, but the similarity stops there.
ScriptBots are user-authorable adaptive trading systems. To make them adaptive, your trading system simply needs changeable parameters (such as the periods of a moving average crossover system, for example) and then you can merely call our built-in adaptation algorithms: Flocking or Equity-Controller, in just one line of code.
Flocking enables bots to actually "collaborate" (work together) to see higher equity performance across a collection (swarm) of bots so that low performers move towards higher performers and vice-versa. The Equity Controller is a "hill-climber" algorithm where each bot works independently to move towards higher equity performance. Both seek higher equity bar-by-bar in a step-forward process. Advanced users can even create their own adaptation algorithms.
ScriptBots are written in VBScript. Why VBScript? Because the BASIC language is one of the most common, most easily learned languages ever written. It is a compact yet rich language that provides many needed functions which we extend for trading via our "Dakota API" for technical indicators and trading functions.
With your license, we provide you with more than 20 free downloadable ScriptBots that you can import into Dakota and use either immediately or as starting points for your own ideas. These ScriptBots include:
Double Smoothed Stochastic |
Double XMA Smoothed Stochastic |
Writing Your Own Trading Bots in Dakota
Using ScriptBots, you can write your own adaptive trading bots in Dakota using our built-in ScriptBot Editor (not available in Dakota Express). In fact, this is our preferred method for new bot development, because it is fast and easy and integrated within Dakota. Modifying a bot during prototyping is as simple as making the change, typing Ctrl-S to save and then pushing the "Go" button in Dakota. When writing your own ScriptBots, you can call an ever-growing list of functions in the "Dakota API", a function library built into Dakota. We provide functions such as:
You can use these functions, but also extend ScriptBots to use your own ActiveX API within Windows for code and function reusability.