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How to read the log when you see No Matching Trade Found

Updated

In TAT, there is now detailed log information available for each trade entry. This only shows information related to the trade you are trying to enter.

Where you can find the log

In TAT dashboard In Instant Order section

You can select any scheduled trade and press Log

After the attempt to Preview trade you can press Log button to get detailed info

There are several common reason that TAT might be unable to find a trade.

Possible reasons:

  1. Trade template is too strict (min/max premiums)
  2. DTE's for trade is not properly loaded 
  3. Template is too wide and option data for longs is not loaded

In the detailed trade logs TAT collects all the information that is necessary to determine why a trade was not found.

 

How does TAT find trade strikes:

The trade selection process in TAT to find a trade has several steps:

  1. Load option chain market data
  2. Build the list of all possible trades according to the setting of width and Min OTM distance
  3. Filter out list of all possible trades by premium or deltas limits
  4. Filter out trades with conflicting strikes
  5. Final check for total Min/Max premium limits for the whole trade
  6. Build a final list of possible trades and sort it by Selection preference.

How it looks in the real log:

Trade selection steps example:

  1. Load option chain. Record in log:  Trade - Load Contracts   Puts: 41  Calls: 40
  2. Build the list of all possible trades according to the setting of width: 
    Trade - Load Contracts Call Complete (475 possible trades)
  3. Filter out list of all possible trades by premium or deltas limits:
    Filter Call Trades on credit complete (24 possible call trades)
  4. Filter out trades with conflicting strikes:
    Filter Trades on open positions precheck (12 possible trades)
  5. Final check for total Min/Max premium limits for the whole trade
    Filter Trades on same short strike and price complete (5 possible trades)

The chain of possible trade filtering in TAT for this example looks like this: 475 → 24 → 12 → 5 → 1 (final trade).

 

When TAT couldn't find the trade

Example 1

When the problem is with very strict limits in premium

13:54:05.523 [05]: Entering Trade  (SPX: 6855.81)
13:54:05.523 [05]: Trade criteria - Widths: 150 Call Target Min: 0.8 Max: 1  Stop Multiple: 1.5 Stop Offset: 0 Trade Type: CallSpread 
Long Type: Width Long Max Premium 0.1
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Check Positions Complete
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Load Contracts   Puts: 143  Calls: 60
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Load Contracts Call Complete (87 possible trades)
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Filter Call Trades on short credit complete (0 possible call trades)
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Filter Trades on open positions precheck (0 possible trades)
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Filter Trades on open positions complete (0 possible trades)
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - 0 possible Call trades, 0 possible Put trades
13:54:05.524 [05]: Final sorted Trade list: 
13:54:05.524 [05]: Trade - Find Trade
13:54:05.524 [05]: No Matching Trade Found

First row with 0 possible trades shown where is the issue:
Filter Call Trades on short credit complete (0 possible call trades)

The reason for this is in the Trade Template very strict Call Target Min: 0.8 Max: 1 limits ($0.8 - $1) so at the moment of the entry call spread with price between $0.8 and $1 just doesn't exist.

How to fix? Add more 'room' to the trade by extending Min/Max target in Template.

 

Example 2

Let's look at this example when TAT is trying to find a call spread:

13:54:05.5235840 [05]: Entering Trade  (SPX: 6855.81)
13:54:05.5236568 [05]: Trade criteria - Widths: 150 Call Target Min: 0.5 Max: 1  Stop Multiple: 1.5 Stop Offset: 0 Trade Type: CallSpread 
Long Type: Width Long Max Premium 0.1
13:54:05.5241628 [05]: Trade - Check Positions Complete
13:54:05.5242871 [05]: Trade - Load Contracts   Puts: 143  Calls: 60
13:54:05.5245450 [05]: Trade - Load Contracts Call Complete (87 possible trades)
13:54:05.5247108 [05]: Trade - Filter Call Trades on short credit complete (1 possible call trades)
13:54:05.5247384 [05]: Trade - Filter Trades on open positions precheck (0 possible trades)
13:54:05.5248297 [05]: Trade - Filter Trades on open positions complete (0 possible trades)
13:54:05.5248563 [05]: Trade - 0 possible Call trades, 0 possible Put trades
13:54:05.5248735 [05]: Final sorted Trade list: 
13:54:05.5249001 [05]: Trade - Find Trade
13:54:05.5249133 [05]: No Matching Trade Found

In this example we can see, that TAT can use only 1 spread because of very restrictive Call Target Min/Max $0.5 - $1. And later it leads to 0 possible trades when checking with currently open position because the strike TAT chose for the short was occupied with a long from another trade.

How to get more info from the log

To get more info about the quotes and strikes TAT used during the attempts to find a trade you can export log to a .txt file. This file contains extended info about the entry. You can also turn on the Debug level logging under the TAT Settings, so that TAT will write out each possible trade option and it's current price and delta to the log.

 

More information about how to configure debug level logging and correcting your market data settings related to trades now found is available this article.

 

 

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