If you own a trading system on Collective2 and want to enter your signals by sending us an email, you need to follow a very specific format.

First, however, we need to stress that email signal entry is not appropriate for everyone.

• Email delivery can be slow, and processing times can not be guaranteed. Sometimes emails bounce around the Internet for several minutes before they reach their destinations. While this is growing increasingly rare, it could happen. So: if you are entering signals which need to be posted and executed right away, it is probably better to log in to the Collective2 Web site, and use the order entry screen. At a minimum, if you email an absolutely vital signal, you may want to check that it has been processed
• Not all features are available through email. Email allows only the most basic kind of signal entry.

Assuming the limitations above are acceptable to you, here is the way you can use email to enter your trades.

Email format

Send your email to: signal@lists.collective2.com

(Please notice the word lists in the email address above. This is very important.)

Make sure your Subject is: C2 Signal

The email needs to contain 2 lines which identify you:

systemid=123456

pw=your C2 Data Services Password (see note at bottom of page*)

Note that uppercase and lowercase do matter. Follow these formats exactly.

The system ID is your system's unique identifying number. You can find the ID for each of your systems on the C2 Web site after you log in as the owner of a system:

Order format

Finally, you need to include one line that contains your order. Here are some example order lines:

BTO 12 AAPL @ 12.02 LIMIT GTC (stock)

STC 12 AAPL @ MARKET DAY (stock)

SSHORT12 AAPL @ MARKET GTC (stock short)

BTC 12 AAPL @ MARKET GTC (stock short)

BTO 1 @ESH0 @ STOP 1102.50 GTC

BUY 13 EUR:USD market

BTO 1 NDYUS LMT .50 GTC (option)

Only one "trade line" should be in any email (that is, only one trade signal per email). The list above is meant to show you a variety of styles of typing the information; it is not meant to suggest that you can have more than one trade per email.

Other notes: capitalization doesn't matter. In many cases the instrument (e.g. stock, option, future) is optional... but it is a good idea to include it in case C2 can't figure out what you mean. In particular, it's often difficult to differentiate between "stock" and "option" symbols.

The @ sign isn't necessary when specifying limits, stops, or market orders (but of course is needed when the symbol, such as @ESH0, requires it).

Finally, you can optionally include profit targets and stop losses in your email by including each in its own line:

profittarget=77777
stoploss=123.456

You can include just one of these lines, or both, or neither.

Summary

For the purposes of example, here is what a complete email might look like:

That's it. If the order is processable, C2 will enter it into your system.

Please keep in mind this feature is new, and is in very early beta. Please report problems to us.

* Huh? What is my C2 Data Services Password?

You must include a password in your email, to identify yourself and prove you own the trading system in question. However, the password you include is your C2 Data Services -- not your regular C2 account password. Do not email your regular account password! (It won't work, and that is a very bad idea.)

The C2 Data Services Password is a special password you create which allows certain programs or functionality to access some aspects of your C2 account, but not your entire account, and not your personal information or credit card data. You set this password through the MY ACCOUNT link in the top menu bar. To set up your C2 Data Services Password, first pull down the top menu like this:

Then scroll down to the section where you can set up the C2 Data Services password. Note that you must choose a password and check both boxes to allow email signal entry: