- ago
There are a number of brokers that allow fractional trading.

1) Is this supported in WL7 live trading through supported brokers (like Alpaca)

2) Is there a way to enable this in backtesting? (or to prevent the rounding to whole shares when position sizing)

I've had a quick look on the discussion board and help files but can't find refernce to fractional or partial shares anywhere.
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Glitch8
 ( 12.52% )
- ago
#1
Yes, this deserves some attention. WL7 can already support it and it’s already working for the crypto brokers. But we need to put some effort into enabling this for US stock brokerages.
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- ago
#2
Glitch, you mention that fractional shares are already working for crypto; is there some setting we need to enable in order to use fractional shares during backtesting or running a live strategy? I've only ever seen positions use integer quantities.
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Glitch8
 ( 12.52% )
- ago
#3
Are you backtesting on a Cryptos based DataSet?

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- ago
#4
Hmm, all of my data sets in WL7 were created in the Data Manager using the "ASCII" import. Does Wealth-Lab support that for fractional crypto?
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Glitch8
 ( 12.52% )
- ago
#5
You’ll probably need to use the Markets and Symbols tool to associate the symbols with the Cryptos market.
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- ago
#6
Shameless bump... I would really like to see this feature get more community support for Fractional Shares. Upvotes anyone?
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- ago
#7
When implementing we need to take care of limiting it only to the markets that support fractional shares.
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- ago
#8
Ofcourse. I believe the Alpac API returns a boolean value for factional support (true/false). But, I understand there are complexities... like how to handle a portfolio where fractional is supported for some, but not all, tickers. Do you suport where available, or only support if the whole dataset supports fractional trading.

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Cone8
 ( 5.85% )
- ago
#9
Fractional shares are already supported by specifying the symbol(s) in Markets and Symbols. Just give a symbol non-zero Quantity Decimals.

I don't know enough about the subject to comment further, but if there were rules to implement for a particular group of stock symbols that use fractional shares, please share them.
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Glitch8
 ( 12.52% )
- ago
#10
Fractional shares support is coming in B39. WL7 already is geared up for fractional shares, you enable this mode by selecting "Next Bar Market Open" as the Basis Price mode in Position Size. You'll then see your entry Signals expressed as notional values.



Now, crypto brokers already support fractional shares and you don't need to specify Next Bar Market Open to get them. But for the stock brokerages we currently support, it's looking like only Alpaca supports fractional shares via their trading API.
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Best Answer
- ago
#11
Wooohoo!....

Quick Question: Are fractional shares supported in backtesting or only live trading?
1
- ago
#12
I had the same question as splodge, so I ran a quick backtest on a strategy that uses an Alpaca dataset. To my surprise, the backtest does not appear to support fractional shares, even when using the "Market Open next Bar" setting as described.

EDIT: It seems that it's still necessary to manually add the symbols in the "Markets and Symbols" window, and specify the number of decimals to use, if you want to use fractional shares. This applies to both backtesting and live trading.
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