Allocation Explorer Overview
In this Article
How to Allocate
How to Allocate
- Set up your account aliases. This dictates the targets of trade allocations.
- Enter one or more fills. A fill is an executed trade that is to be executed and allocated to the aliases according to each alias' share percentage.
- Confirm your allocation settings. Chose the trade price method and other settings that control how the quantities and prices will be assigned to each alias.
- Press the allocate button.
Shares and Incoming Positions
An alias is a moniker to represent an account, customer, investor, book, or any other part of a larger whole. Each alias has a share of the whole, and the total share must equal 100%.
Requirement: To use the Allocation Explorer, you must have at least two shares set up and the total of all shares must equal 100%.
Each alias also may have an optional incoming position and price. The incoming position and price is the market exposure of each alias prior to any allocation activity and not including any fills.
- Click the Add Row button in the Share Area to add a new alias.
- Check one or more check boxes next to an alias and click the Delete selected button to delete an existing alias.
- Double Click into any cell to change an alias name, share percent, incoming position, or incoming price. Use the TAB key to switch to the next cell or press ENTER.
Fills Box
A fill is a hypothetical trade that has been executed at the specified quantity, price, and time. The fill box on the lower left corner allows you to enter one or more fills that are to be allocated to the Aliases according to each alias share percent.
Quickly Add Random Fills
Click the Generate Fills button to add filled trades at random quantities and prices. The random price of subsequent fills will be within a few percent of the average price of all the other fills so far.
Add Your Own Fills
- In the fill box on the lower left side, click the + Add row button.
- Enter the quantity and price of the new fill. You might need to scroll to the bottom of the window and/or double click into the quantity or price cells.
Allocate Settings
Shares Setting
You can create multiple sets of shares and save each with a custom name. Different share sets might be useful for different trading strategies, products or markets trading, or other considerations.
This setting is disabled in the free version of Allocation Explorer. You are only allowed to create one set of shares at a time.
Trade Price Allocation Method
When allocations are done, the trade prices assigned to each account can follow different algorithms. The Allocation Explorer allows you to switch between:
- Average (APS)
- Low to High
- High to Low
- Best Fit Linear
- Best Fit Heuristic
See our article about trade price allocation methods to learn more about each method and to compare with each other.
Symbol 1 and Symbol 2
In the "real world" we allocate specific symbols, such as NGM29 (June '29 Natural Gas) and others. The Allocation Explorer provides for two generic symbols, Symbol 1 and Symbol 2. You may use these as aliases for a particular symbol you have in mind. This sandbox version does not have any connection to actual symbols.
- Switch between Symbol 1 and Symbol 2 using the list box near the top of the page. The Allocation Explorer will change to show the positions, prices, fills, and allocation summary of that one symbol.
- Select All Symbols to Allocate both symbols at once. When selecting both symbols, we are applying the same share percentages and trade price methodology to everything. The Incoming Position, Price, and Result Previous can't be seen because two or more symbols cannot be added together into one summary.
Auto Rebalance
**** When Auto Rebalance is turned on, changing any alias share percentage will automatically change all other share percentages to make the total shares 100%.
This is often convenient when one account increases or decreases its subscription amount.
Tip: Leave the Auto Rebalance setting turned off if you are creating new aliases and shares for the first time. Turn the setting on once you have all the initial aliases created.
The Auto Rebalance feature is only applicable when changes are made to the share percentages by the user.
Use Incoming
The Use Incoming toggle controls how quantities (and trade prices, for Best Fit only) are applied when allocating. The share percentages will be applied to the fills when Use Incoming is off. The share percentages will be applied to the ending position (and ending average price, for Best Fit only) when Use Incoming is turned on.
Tip: When Best Fit is used in combination with Use Incoming, the algorithm will always automatically adjust allocations to optimize market exposure and minimize market value deviations between aliases.
Getting Results
Press the Allocate button to get your allocation results or to re-apply the allocations if you have changed something on the page.
The summarized allocation results will appear in the Results Area and show the Allocated Quantity, Allocated Trade Price, Ending Position, and Ending Average price for every Alias.
- The Allocate Quantity is the quantity of fills given to the alias. The total quantity in the summary line will always equal the total fill quantity.
- The Allocate Avg Price is the weighted average price of all the trades given to the alias.
- The Ending Position is the Incoming Position + Allocate Quantity.
- The Ending Avg Price is the new weighted average price after adding the allocation to the incoming position.
Tip: To get a sense of theoretical tracking error, compare the Ending Avg Price for each row to the price on the summary row. In most cases, the objective is for the ending average price to be as close to the total average price as is possible.