CQG Trader Trading Platform Key Features

Execution

Orders can be placed using the mouse by just clicking on the buy or sell at-the-market buttons, or on the inside market buttons (Bid or Offer). Or place a limit or stop order by clicking next to the price in the buy or sell column, or on a price in the DOM ladder and dragging it into the column.

Instead of using the mouse to drag and drop the order into the buy or sell column, you can select the price and use the arrow keys to enter the order into the appropriate column.

Chained orders, such as a profit target order for a trade and a stop loss risk management order, can be placed using the OCO button. If one order is filled, then the other order is automatically cancelled.

If an exchange does not accept stops or stop limit orders, the CQG Gateway can maintain and trigger them for you.

Any unfilled day orders are listed in the buy or sell columns until filled or cancelled. Trades executed outside the CQG Gateway can be added to the Gateway account as manual fills.

The look of the DOMTrader is customizable. Eight different color themes for backgrounds and fonts are available. The DOMTrader has buy and sell columns, a depth-of-market column, and a setting to have the last four trades marked next to the price by a marker that varies in size. The marker is the largest for the last trade and the smallest for the oldest trade back. The current and largest marker is an up triangle if the last trade was executed at the offer or a down triangle if the last trade was executed at the bid.

A separate column displays the day’s volume for each price using numerical values, histogram bars, or both. The inside market volume setting can be the cumulative volume since the start of the session, cumulative volume since the market hit the price, or last traded volume. The total volume of the day’s trading can be listed.

Choose to display the buy, sell at the market buttons, inside market buttons, quantity, and cancel order buttons. The cancel order buttons include cancelling bids or offers, all orders posted, or liquidate all positions and cancel open orders. While in a position, you have a choice of the account equity calculated based on open trade equity, or open trade equity and realized profit/losses.

In addition to setting other preferences for the DOMTrader, traders can set the number of contracts for both new trades and maximum position under risk preferences. However, it’s necessary for the FCM to manage some enablements, such as the activation of fast-click mode. If fast-click is turned on, all you have to do is click on a price to generate a sell order or right-click and a buy order is sent, both using the preset order and position size.
You can set the custom order buttons for quantities displayed on the execution interface. For example, contract quantity buttons could be one, five, ten, and twenty.

Limits, stops, and the slippage factor for stop limit orders can be set under the preferences.

Market Watch
Market Watch displays the last trade and net change for a single futures contract, option series, or stock. You select the type of quotes you want: either bid and ask or actual trades. You can also choose to display a “thermometer” graphic indicating the market’s current standing relative to the high or low for the day.

Quote Board
Quote Board displays the open, high, low, last trade price, and change from the previous close for each symbol you request. It looks much like the quote boards at the open-outcry futures exchanges. You can choose whether to display bids and offers or actual trades. As with the Market Watch, you can also choose to display a “thermometer” graphic indicating the market’s current standing relative to the high or low for the day.

Custom QuoteBoard
Custom QuoteBoard lets you enhance your quote display by allowing you to customize the contents of each cell. You can select from a list of values to display the current status of each value if there is a particular value you wish to monitor.

Quote SpreadSheet
Quote SpreadSheet allows you to create custom spreadsheets, selecting the market symbols and the values you want to display for each symbol in a typical spreadsheet format of columns and rows. You can display a large number of symbols on one page and choose from open, high, low, close, last trade, time of trade, and a long list of other values that you wish to see for every symbol. You can insert bars to identify market sectors and size the cells and window to make full use of space.

Enhanced Quote SpreadSheet
Enhanced Quote SpreadSheet (EQSS) adds an even higher degree of flexibility in CQG’s display of quote data. You can display different information about a variety of instruments on this spreadsheet. Unlike the quote spreadsheet, you are not restricted to a single type of data in a column or to data for a specific instrument in a row. EQSS allows you to decide what you want to see in each cell.

If an EQSS view is active and the mouse hovers over a cell that is not empty and not in an edit mode, a tool tip is displayed after a few second delay.

Cells are classified into six categories in EQSS, each with its own unique characteristics. Column header cells in the top one or more rows in the spreadsheet identify column heads and row header cells in the left column of the spreadsheet identify rows. Comment cells are for notes you might want to add. Empty cells have no content, symbol cells show the text of a symbol or expression, and value cells show a current value (if there is one) for the selected symbol.

Spread Matrix and Spread Pyramid
The Spread Matrix and Spread Pyramid allow traders to trade exchange-traded spreads and monitor both exchange-traded and synthetic spreads.

Orders and Reports

The Orders and Reports window shows important account details including account summary, parked orders, cancelled orders, purchases, exceptions, sales, filled orders, working orders, and open positions.

CQG’s Orders and Positions window covers everything you need to know about your account and its current status.

Among many other features, the Orders and Positions window provides the functionality to set up accounts and keep track of all your outstanding and filled orders in one window.