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Tradovate Account Manager

The Tradovate Account Manager watches your linked Tradovate accounts and acts on them when your rules are breached. It runs entirely in CrossTrade's cloud against Tradovate's API. There is no desktop software, NinjaTrader is not involved, and your computer can be off.

You configure it from the Tradovate Account Manager page in the dashboard. Each managed account gets a Monitor, the same concept used on NinjaTrader 8, holding that account's thresholds and the actions to take when one is hit.

Diagram: CrossTrade's cloud evaluates the monitor on every account event and at least every 10 seconds while idle. A tripped monitor stops a CrossTrade webhook before it reaches Tradovate, but a trade placed by hand inside Tradovate goes straight to the broker and can only be auto-closed after the fill. Stale pricing pauses enforcement with an alert.

A webhook can be stopped at the gate. A trade you click inside Tradovate cannot.

Setup​

  1. Link the Tradovate identity that holds the accounts you want to manage (My Account, Brokers tab). Live and Demo environments link separately, and you can link more than one identity.
  2. Open Tradovate Account Manager in the sidebar and add a monitor for an account.
  3. Set your daily profit target and daily loss limit, choose your P/L basis, and decide whether a trigger should auto-close the position.
  4. Optionally add a minimum profit floor, a trailing drawdown, a scheduled flatten time, and account-level signal locks.

Each account takes one monitor, and there is no limit on how many accounts you monitor.

The Tradovate Account Manager grid: six Tradovate accounts, each tagged Demo or Live, with monitor status, balance, profit and loss thresholds, total P/L with commission, drawdown from the session high, room to the loss limit, and open positions.

One row per Tradovate account, demo and live, in every monitor state

What a monitor watches​

RuleWhat it does
Daily profit targetTrips when the account's session P/L rises above the amount you set. Use zero to disable.
Daily loss limitTrips when session P/L falls below the amount you set. Use zero to disable.
Minimum profitOnce the day is up by your trigger amount, trips if it falls back below the floor you choose.
Trailing drawdownAfter the day passes your trigger amount, trails the high watermark and trips if the account gives back more than your threshold.
P/L basisWhether the rules read Total (realized plus unrealized), Realized only, or Unrealized only.
The Daily P/L Thresholds and Account Floor sections of the Tradovate monitor editor: a daily profit target and loss limit of 1,400, P/L basis set to Unrealized, and Account Floor enabled at a net liquidation floor of 48,000.

Daily thresholds and an Account Floor in the monitor editor

The Minimum Profit and Trailing Drawdown sections of the Tradovate monitor editor, both enabled, with their trigger amounts and the trailing amount in dollars.

Minimum Profit and Trailing Drawdown in the monitor editor

Unrealized P/L is calculated by CrossTrade from live market data. CrossTrade does not act on the broker's own open P/L figure.

There is no include-commission toggle on Tradovate. Evaluation runs against the Tradovate cash-balance snapshot, which carries no per-fill fee data, so the setting would do nothing.

How evaluation works​

Monitors evaluate on CrossTrade's servers in near real time as account activity happens, with a background refresh at least about every 10 seconds when the account is idle. Rule evaluation always runs from the latest confirmed snapshot, and CrossTrade paces the recurring snapshot traffic automatically to stay clear of Tradovate's shared API penalties (see Rate limits on Tradovate).

The Account Overview for one Tradovate account: net liquidation, total, unrealized and high P/L, the session P/L chart against the profit and loss thresholds and both drawdown triggers with the tooltip open, the drawdown statuses, and the open position.

Click an account for its session chart, drawdown status and positions

info

If live pricing is incomplete or stale for an open position, enforcement pauses instead of acting on unreliable numbers. You will see a Monitor Enforcement Paused alert while this is happening, and enforcement resumes automatically once pricing is current again.

What happens when a monitor triggers​

A triggered monitor blocks CrossTrade webhook signals for that account. If auto-close is enabled, it also closes the position through the Tradovate API.

Trades you place by hand inside Tradovate cannot be blocked ahead of time, because CrossTrade is not in the path when you click. Auto-close still applies after the fact.

Flattening cancels working orders before liquidation, then re-reads both working orders and positions. The action reports success only when the account is confirmed order-free and flat.

The Management Log for the Tradovate Account Manager: a dated list of monitor events by account, including a monitor stopping at its daily profit target, the account being flattened and signals blocked, Closing Only turning on and off, and a trading-window flatten.

Every trigger, flatten and signal block is logged with its time and account

Scheduled flattening​

Set a flatten time in US/Eastern, 24-hour notation, such as 16:30 for 4:30 PM ET. It is optional and never happens on its own: if you leave the time unset, nothing is scheduled.

The End-of-Day Flattening section of the Tradovate monitor editor, with Auto-Flatten Account set to Yes and a flatten time of 15:45.

End-of-day flattening, set in US/Eastern

Scheduled flattening is eligible only during the five minutes after the configured time, the same window the NT8 Account Manager uses. If CrossTrade cannot run or verify it inside that window, it does not send a surprise catch-up flatten hours later.

Trading windows​

Each monitor can carry up to five trading windows, configured in the monitor editor with start and end times in US/Eastern. Outside an enabled window, CrossTrade webhook signals at that account are blocked before they reach the broker. A window with Flatten enabled also liquidates the account at the window's end while the monitor is enabled, using the same five-minute eligibility rule as scheduled flattening. As with the rest of the Tradovate Account Manager, manual Tradovate trades are not blocked by windows.

Account-level signal locks​

Block Signals and Closing Only are account settings rather than monitor rules, so they apply immediately even when P/L monitoring is switched off. Use them when you want to stop or restrict inbound automation on an account without building a threshold around it.

Monitor states​

StateMeaning
ACTIVEThe monitor is running and watching the account.
PAUSEDYou turned the monitor off. Nothing is evaluated or enforced.
STOPPEDA threshold was hit and the monitor stopped for the day. Edit the thresholds and restart it to resume.
The Tradovate Account Manager in card view: one card per account showing its status (Paused, Active or Stopped), P/L, session high, drawdown, balance, working orders, positions, thresholds and flatten time, with the Block Signals and Closing Only switches.

Card view: every state at a glance, with a restart button on the stopped account

Parity with the NT8 Account Manager​

CapabilityNT8 Account ManagerTradovate Account Manager
Where it runsInside NinjaTrader, through the CrossTrade NT8 Add-OnCrossTrade's cloud, against Tradovate's API
Works with your computer offNo (NinjaTrader must be running)Yes
Evaluation cadencePolls every 2.5 secondsNear real time on account activity, plus a background refresh at least about every 10 seconds when idle
Daily profit and loss thresholdsYesYes
Minimum profit floorYesYes
Trailing drawdownYesYes
P/L basisTotal or Realized, plus an include-commission toggleTotal, Realized, or Unrealized. No commission toggle
Monitor modesStandard, Hybrid, UnrealizedStandard only
Position-level thresholdsYes, in Hybrid and Unrealized modesNot available
Bad-data protectionOutlier Protection validates reported P/L before actingEnforcement pauses when live pricing is stale or incomplete
Scheduled flattenYes, US/Eastern, eligible for five minutes after the set timeYes, same US/Eastern time and same five-minute window
Actions on triggerFlatten, and independently disable alerts, set closing-only, or leave filtering unchangedBlocks CrossTrade webhook signals, with optional auto-close
Block Signals and Closing OnlyYesYes, and they apply even when P/L monitoring is off
Trading windowsYes, up to 5 per accountYes, up to 5 per account, set in the monitor editor
Monitor LockYesYes
Economic-event lockoutYesYes
Clean session requirementYes, the account must be flat at the 6 PM ET session startNot enforced. There is no INACTIVE state for a monitor to land in
Monitor statesACTIVE, INACTIVE, STOPPED, PAUSEDACTIVE, STOPPED, PAUSED
Monitors per accountOne per NT8 accountOne per account, with no limit on how many accounts
Management logYesYes, in the same log
Plan requiredPro and abovePro and above

Unlinking​

Unlinking any Tradovate identity pauses all Tradovate monitors and copiers before removing the credential. Active broker orders and positions are left alone, and re-linking later does not automatically re-enable them.