CAT User Guide

GUIDE - HOW TO USE C.A.T. (UPDATED TO 4.7 VERSION)

BTC Start  BTC
   
From the Start Screen you can
- Exit C.A.T.
- Login Into an exchange
- Expand/Collapse current running exchanges
- View C.A.T. Version Info
- View Current RAM Usage
Frame is Resizable from Full Screen To Minimum Size


BTC Login BTC
    
Press LOGIN Item on the Main Toolbar : 
- Choose the site you want to log-in to.
- Insert your private and public keys and press enter. If exchange needs the user-id a third textbox will appear.
- C.A.T. will verify your key and will try a call to the trading site you've chosen.
- No Third Party Server Will be ever called by C.A.T.

If KeyPair is accepted you will get a Welcome Message. You can now close the login window, and the main trading GUI will appear.
Or you can also login into another exchange before closing the login window.

- C.A.T. will save your Public and Private Keys in a file named Key.XML. This file is located inside the CAT System Directory.   

- C.A.T. Root directory is "currentRunCATdirectory\CATSystem\"
- Exchange Root directory is "currentRunCATdirectory\CATSystem\ExchangeName\"
- Inside the ExchangeName folder you will find these folders/files :

• ExchangeLogs (You will find logs at Exchange level, API print, Errors etc...)
• MarketLogs  (You will find logs at Single Market level)
• GainLogs (You will find logs about your Gains)
• EXCHANGER.xml (Exchange Options)

- If these folders doesn't exists, C.A.T. will create them.

- C.A.T. Will also create a File Named : CAT_Log_YYYY-MM-DD_HH_MM_DD.txt in CATSystem folder
If an error not handled by C.A.T. will occur, it will be printed inside this file.
If file will be empty during C.A.T. quit routine, that file will be deleted. Otherwise SEND ME the file and i will take a look


BTC Exchange Frame BTC

Exchange Frame will appear after a successfull login.

Action From The Toolbar : 


- File

• Save Open Markets Parameters/Current Orders or Both
• Load Markets Parameters/Restore Orders or Both
• Exit Exchange

- Dashboard

• Open Markets List
• Your Balances
• Global Gain
• General Statistics
• General Console

- Markets Global Action (Action chosen is sent to all open markets) 

• cancel/remove all kind of orders/trades
• start/stop/restart single processes
• reset some value

- Other Market Action : 

• Check Difference Between Best Buy/Sell Orders on Each Open Markets
• Sort Current Open Market/Utility Tabs
• Close All Open Panels (for Markets Panel with Running Algorithms a confirmation message will appear)

- Tools : 

• Options
• Calculator

- Execute A Full Automatic Backup Every X Minutes. You can choose to save all your open markets parameter and orders in automatic mode inside the Folder \AutoBackups every X Minutes.
- No More Than 1 Api Call Every X Milliseconds. Useful when you want to set a limit to the number of API Calls that will be performed by the CAT Api System during a certain amount of time. 
This is very useful when your connection have problems and all markets are in Lookup Status : when connection will return active all pending request will be processed at the same time causing a possible flood to the exchange, you can avoid this behaviour using this option. Or you can use this option for exchanges who give limit like "No More than 60 calls / Minutes". In that case you will set this option to 1000 Milliseconds and you won't have any ban problems.
- Limit CAT Log Elements to X : A CAT Log Elements is a message composed by 1 or more lines. With this option any logs will have a maximum number of messages to be shown. When limit is reach old messages will be removed (FIFO queue). Market Log Files on Disk (In folder \ExchangeLogs and \MarketLogs) are not affected by this option. Set a Very high value could cause RAM saturation, suggested value is 100-300.
- Print Api Call Result to Api Console. Useful to print and look at Api responses. Usually used when a debug log is needed
- Reproduce a Sound when a Ping-Pong is complete. You will hear a "dling-dling" sound for every completed ping-pong.
- Make a Post To URL When a Ping-Pong Is Completed. When this option is activated a POST Call will be performed and data about ping-pong will be sent to a REST Page.


An useful calculator that will help you to calculate the Buy/Sell Price According to the % GAIN you wants to have



- Api Connection: Every API call, you will see a "red blink". If connection drops, icon will change from green to red. 


BTC Markets List BTC

Markets are group by "Partner Currency" (BTC/USDT/XMR/ETH in the image)
For any group you will have a tab where you can
- Load Markets by pressing the "Get Markets Data Button"
- Add some statistics calculation by check the "Load With Order/Trades Statistics" (this operation is longer than the normal market load process)
- Highlight market where you have a Market Currency balance 0 by check the "Highlight Markets with QTY Bal 0"

These are the statistics calculated : 
- % Difference is the price difference between the Highest and Lowest trades over the last 24 hours.
- Sell Order/Buy Order is the numbers of orders currently open.
- Sell Trade/Buy Trade 24H is the number of trades completed in the last 24 hours.

You can sort this table in Ascending/Descending Order by clicking on the Column Header
Double Click On a Row will Open a new Tab for the selected Market.

You can open MULTIPLE Markets at the same time using the CTRL (for single multiple select) or CTRL+CAPS (for multiple range select) and then RightClick-OpenMarket 


BTC My Balances BTC
 
If you want to check your balances press the button "Load Balances"
Your Balances are highlighted in green. If Exchanges API returns the Held Values you will also see the HELD column.
You can sort the table by Column.
You Can Open A Market By Double Click the Coin Name (A Popup Will Ask You wich markets you want to open)
You can Export Your Portfolio to CSV Format.

Estimated Portfolio Values are calculated this way : BTC Amount + Sum of All AltCurrency * LastMarketPrice


BTC Market BTC



The image shown is a what you'll see after opening a Market using the Market List
There's a dedicated tab for each open market. 

Quick Summary : 

Market Panel has a Toolbar with : 
- Market Label (just information about market name)
- 2 Dropdown List

• The "Market Panels" Menu containing all the Panel you can open/collapse.
• The "Market Actions"  Menu containing a set of actions you can perform on your Algorithm/Order/Trade. This is very similar to the Action Menu you can find on CAT Exchange Frame Toolbar

- an Algorithm Status label that helps you understand the Algorithm status

Market Panel have 6 Specific Panels
 

• Generator & Parameters : Used to Create Orders/Edit The BuySell Pool and Set Up Your Algorithm
• Orders & Trades: Used to monitor and edit all the current market structures
• Logs: Where you can read what actions/events are occuring while your algo is running. There's also an Error Log Tab that is very important to check.
• Status & Statistics Panel : There you can perform some reset action and take a global look at some current/historical statistics
• Gains : Where you can check/export all your gains
• Market Explorer : Where you can load Your Order/Trades and Market Order/Trades. You can also use this panel to RESTORE your personal orders

  

- The "Market Panels" Menu contains all the panel you can expand/collapse. 

- The "Market Operations" Menu containing a number of options which can be sent to the market :

• Start/Stop the entire process
• Stop/Restart a single task (for example the Ping Order Creation Process)
• Delete Orders (you have many options here about what kind of orders you wants to delete)
• Remove Trades (no PONG will be created from the removed trades)
• Reset some comulative value

 

Status Label Meanings : 
- Wait (Green) : Algo Is Sleeping
- Lookup (Yellow) : Algo is checking for trades/order creation/order recreation, etc...
- Red (Zombie) : Market is inactive, no Buy/Sell Pool values, No Ping, No Pong, No Trades
- Stop (Black) : Algo is not running


BTC Generator & Parameters BTC

This is where you create orders and update the Ping-Pong Algo. This is the most important tab.
This panel has 2 main panels :

- The PING-PONG Generator Panel



Using this panel you can :

• Create new Ping Orders (GUI will help you choose best price, qty and static/dynamic order type)
• Update the buy/sell pool and let CAT create your pings for you (this is considered an advanced features so you must first fully understand how pool works)
• Check Your Balance/Get Current Market Spread/Get a Suggested Buy/Sell Price
• Check Market Limits : max/min quantity,prices,total and number of digits for the specific market.

-
 
Order Creator Usage Example : 

Press the Check Status & Validate Price Button if you want to get :
- Your Primary/Secondary Currency Balances
- The % difference between the Lowest Sell Price & the Highest Buy Price
- A suggestion about the price to start a Sell/Buy Orders (according to the algo parameter you have set).

Create/Add User Ping Orders.
- Choose Type+Price+Quantity+Mode(Static/Dynamic) and press ADD PING ORDER (repeat for each order you want to create)
- Press the CREATE ORDERS button and C.A.T will create new orders.

During Ping-Pong Running
- You can Update All Your Ping-Pong Parameters by pressing the Update Ping-Pong Parameter Button.
- You can add New Ping Orders (Add New Ping Orders Button). 

Buy/Sell Pool Edit Example : 

The value you must insert is a TOTAL Value (QTY * PRICE) in other words is a value expressed as PARTNER CURRENCY
You press the "New Values Preview" to take a look at how CAT will create your orders. That is only a preview based on current market values. All your limit/filters are not considered


- The PING-PONG Parameters panel, where you can set all the Ping-Pong Algo Parameters attributes.



Panel is composed by few tabs, that lets you modify Ping-Pong algorithm paramers.
When you want to UPDATE the current running Algorithm, you must press the UPDATE CURRENT PING-PONG PARAMETERS


Mode

Static Mode


Choose a fixed price for Buy/Sell and C.A.T. will always Buy/Sell at these prices, without any adjustment.


Normal Mode


- Min % Guaranteed Gain. Is the minimal % of GAIN you want guaranteed from C.A.T. after a Buy-Sell/Sell-Buy operation. If this percentage is not guaranteed, C.A.T. will wait. Default Value is Exchange Buy Fees + Sell Fees + 0.1%

- Create Ping Orders Only If Market Spread % Is X : With this option Checked, C.A.T. will create new Ping Orders (From the Buy/Sell Pool) only if the current % Spread Between best market prices is X
- Don't create ping with total < Than> : After a successfull Ping-Pong the total amount of this order will be put in the "Buy/Sell Pool" and from the "Buy/Sell Pool"  new sell/buy orders will be created. With this option activated you will limit the creation of "little orders". If the total in the "Buy/Sell Pool" is < than this parameter, then C.A.T. will wait.> - Always Create Pong Orders From Trade : C.A.T., by default, tries to create your Pong Order on top of the sell/buy book order. If this is not possible (there's no % Gain Guaranteed) C.A.T. will retry later. With this option activated, C.A.T. will calculate the minimum price (TradePrice +/- %GAIN) and will create the order INSIDE the Order Book.
- Avoid Immediate Price Match Order Book : with this option you will never buy/sell directly (your Price directly match an active order). If a Price Match Occurs CAT will recalculate the price adding/subtracting a single market price unit.
- Check To Not Buy/Sell To Yourself : When you have Buy and Sell orders at the same time, after the price calculation, C.A.T. will check to not buy or sell to yourself. BUT in markets with 1 Satoshi difference between best buy/sell price, you  must remove this option. 
- Try to Stay Alone on Top Orders Book : With this options C.A.T. will always try to create your orders in the best position and alone with others orders

Normal Mode - Filters 



When CAT load orders it loads the full order book. Then all calculation will be performed according to the best prices and order values.
If you want to DISCARD some order during MarketOrder API Call you can set 4 discard limits here. 2 For Buy Book and 2 For Sell Book
A Limit could work on QTY (when you want to set a limit for the Market Currency) or on TOTAL (Qty X Price) When you want to set a limit for Partner Currency)
You can press the Preview Button to understand how CAT will remove orders and if you decheck the option "Remove Filtered Orders From Preview" you'll be able to understand the reason about remove action.
Don't Forget that FILTERS is the first action CAT Perform before any other calculation

Normal Mode - Limit Rules 



Anytime an order is created, last price statistics are update.
Your order have 2 Attributes : Ping/Pong Type and Buy/Sell Type
CAT actually is able to manage LAST SellPrice/SellPingPrice/SellPongPrice/BuyPrice/BuyPingPrice/BuyPongPrice

So you can create limits according to these values. But you can also create limits using static values.
In this panel you have 2 Editor : one for the static rules and another for the Dynamic rules.

After a rule is added you will be able to read the description in the LIMIT List.
You can now Edit/Remove rules.
To Edit a Rules double click on the rule, then confirm/discard updates by pressing the OK Button or Cancel Button.

Normal Mode - Pong Stop Loss Rules 



Very similar in usage as the LIMIT Panel, you can add STOP LOSS RULES for PONG Orders
Stop Loss Rules could be on both sides : "Sell All" and "Buy All".

Rule could be STATIC or DYNAMIC
The Static rule is based on current market price, so the limit will be triggered if the Market Value will match the limit.
The Dynamic rules are based on the % SPREAD between the REFERENCE PRICE (The Ping Trade Price that generate the PONG) and the current market price. Suggestion is to set values < -10% (-15,-20 etc..)>

Stop Loss Action will be executed at current matching market price.


Ping Pong Buy/Sell Pool Options



The buy sell pool is the structure where new PING are calculated.
Values are updates in 2 ways
- User Edit The Values
- A Ping-Pong is completed and the Pong trade total value is put inside the Buy/Sell Pool
- Values are usually expressed as (Primary Currency is the Currency that you use to express the PRICE, usually is BTC)
Only the ADDING OPTION (% AND FIX) are expressed as QTY from user side (and converted into PrimaryCurrency by CAT)

- Limit Buy/Sell Pool Max Value to : If this value is reached new adding values will be discarded.
- Reuse % of total Pong Trade into Buy/Sell Pool : with this option active, only the % of the total (Qty*Price = PrimaryCurrency Value) of a Pong Trade will be reused into the buy/sell Pool. 
- Never Create Ping With quantity /< X >: by Default CAT try to use 100% of your total buy/sell pool to create new orders. With this option activated you can limit the total Quantity of a single new ping-order.
- Add % Amount into / Pool Every Pool Lookup : This option will directly take a % Amount from your portfolio. % Is always calculated on QTY
% QTY calculated for MarketCurrency will be converted to PrimaryCurrency using current Market Values.
- Add FIX Amount into / Pool Every Pool Lookup : Like the option "ADD %" but using a FIXED Value. Values are expressed as QTY
FIX QTY calculated for MarketCurrency will be converted to PrimaryCurrency using current Market Values.
- Stop Ping Creation If Sell Value Is  : You can decide to Stop the Ping Order Creation if the Current Best Sell Value is too high. C.A.T. will restart Ping Order Creation if the Best Sell value returns to lower than your specified parameter.
- Stop Ping Creation If Buy Value Is  : You can decide to Stop the Ping Order Creation if the Current Best Buy Value if too low. C.A.T. will restart Ping Order Creation when the Best Buy value returns to higher than your specified parameter.
- Stop Ping Creation after X Ping-Pong Completed : when number of ping-pong completed will reach X, ping creation will be stoppe.
- Stop Ping Creation if Number of Active Orders X : if the number of your active orders on that market is X then ping creation will be stopped.
- Stop Ping Creation if Total Orders Amount is X : If total sum of orders amount (qty x price) will be X ping creation will be stopped.
- Set Pool Value Amount to 0 if current amount is < X >: This option is used to clear the market pool if value inside is too small. This option is set by default with Total Min Market Amount allowed (Qty x Price)
- If Needed Adequate new Ping Pool Order to Min Total (Qty x Price) : Starting from the Current Pool value, CAT could calculate an order where the total Amount is under the min amount allowed by the exchange. With this option activated you will force CAT to reach the Min Amount Allowed adding some Qty to the Order. With this option, if you trade with 100% of your amount there's an high risk to get a NO FUNDS Error from Exchange.
- If Pool Values Available Amount then Adequate Pool Values to Available Amount : As the option say, if pool value is over your available amount you can update it to your real available amount. 


Ping Pong Dust Elements



It could happens that Partially filled orders and MicroTrades will be too small.
In some cases are too small from the user point of view (strategy), in some other cases are too small to allows CAT recreate them or create an order from them (In case of Trade Over Ping).
Usually CAT try to adequate the order to the mimimum values allowed by the exchange. But this behaviour could be changed using these options.

- Ping Order is Dust if QTY is < X> : A Ping order will be flagged as "Dust" if his current QTY is < X> - Ping Trades is Dust if QTY is < X> : A Trade from Ping will be flagged as "Dust" if his QTY is < X> - Ping Trades is Dust if TOTAL (qty x Price) is < Min Total Market Orders (Qty x Price)> : Min Total Market Orders is the Min Value allowed by a Market (usually it's an Exchange rule) to create an order. This means that if a Trade is under that value, C.A.T. will need to adequate the Trade to that minimum value to create a Pong Order. With this option activated you will consider the trade As Dust
- Dust Elements are  Discarded/Put Into BuySell Pool : with this option you decide what to do with a dust element.

Ping Pong Running Option



- Exec a Lookup routine every X sec. : you can change this value to make C.A.T. lookup faster/slower than default value. Be careful with this value because some exchanges performs an ip-ban if too much calls happens in little time.
- Exec an order recalculation routine very x Lookup : with this option you can choose how many lookups must be performed before an order recalculation routine.
- Check Buy/Sell Pool every x Lookup : with this option you can choose how many lookups must be performed before a Buy/Sell Pool check
- Run Algorithm For XX Minutes and then return all to / : With this option, C.A.T. will run normally for the numbers of minutes set by user, then it will stop creating Buy/Sell Ping Orders
- When Convert All To is Active delete Sell Ping : When RETURN TO is triggered, you can choose to delete the PING SELL.
- When Convert All To is Active delete Buy Ping : When RETURN TO is triggered, you can choose to delete the PING BUY.

Ping Pong Advanced Options



- If Necessary, Adequate Order to Min Total (Qty*Price) : when option is active (by default is active) if the min-total value of an order is not reached (the Exchange will discard the new order request) CAT will adeguate the quantity to reach the minimum value to create an order.
- If Calculate Order QTY Available QTY Then use all available QTY : Sometimes the Order QTY calculated/recalculated is higher than the QTY Available into Portfolio. With this option activated you will use the Available QTY instead of accept the order creation request failure.
- Merge Equals Order/Trades into a new one : when option is active, if there are 2 or more equal orders/trades (same price, buy/sell type, ping/pong type) CAT will merge them into a new one.
- Never Recalculate Orders QTY during recalculation routine : By default C.A.T. use the TOTAL (QtyXPrice) original Amount to redetermine the new QTY after a new Price is Calculated. With this option you will have always the Same QTY even if Price will change.

FEES are calculate by CAT This way :
Qty x Price = Total (Partner Currency) - %FEES Over Toal = Available For Pong (If Trade is Ping) / Available For Buy/Sell Pool (If Trade Is Pong)
Then if PONG Order is a SELL, C.A.T. will also calculate the fees expressed as Qty. And that Qty will be the Available Amount to create the PONG.

- Subtract Fees From Ping Trade Buy Qty before creating Pong Sell : Some exchanges remove fees from your so if you want to use 100% QTY without remove fees (and use 100% bought qty) you must decheck this option. But Take care about the way exchange gets your fees from a buy trade.
- Subtract Fees From Ping Trade Sell Total (Qty x Price) before creating Pong Buy : Sell Fees are always deduct from so this is a normal option. Decheck this option only if you don't trade with 100% Amount and you won't consider FEES

- Subtract All Buy/Sell Pool Current Values while considering available amounts : API for Balances doesn't know nothing about the values into the buy/sell pool, but on CAT side that coins should be used as soon as possible. With this option active, CAT will subtract the buy/sell pool values during calculation of Available Amount.
- Reduce orders to restore Qty by % before a creation retry : Usually when you have an order to restore, there's something that goes wrong during an order creation. Sometimes is a temporary problem, and sometimes you don't have enough funds (usually due to some fees rounding). With this option you can try to reduce the total amount before a new order creation call.
- Consider X% of your real / Currency : If you want to hide a percentage of amount from CAT view, you can simply change this value to a little value, for example 90%. CAT will discard the other 10%. This could be useful to let some amount for CAT rounding routines. Sometimes use 100% of available amount could be risky when micro orders and micro trades comes in play.


Ping Pong Current Parameters



You can always take a look at the current parameters from the CURRENT TAB 


BTC Order & Trades BTC


 
- Orders To Restore : If an order creation will fail (after a delete/recreate routine) C.A.T. will put the order creation request inside this tab. Creation will be retried in the next lookup.
- Ping Orders : Ping Orders are the orders created from the GUI by the users or the automatic orders created from the Buy/Sell Pool
- Trades From Ping : From here new Pong Orders will be created.
- Pong Orders : Pong Orders are created from Trades. When a Pong Order is completed you will have a GAIN.

With a Right Click on a single Element you could :
- Recreate/Delete An Order.
- Re-Set/Delete data of an "Order To Restore".
- Delete a Trade.
These actions are not taken immediatedly, but in the next lookup. So you have time to change your mind. 


BTC Logs BTC



Here you can find 2 TABS : Market Log and Error Log

Market Log it's a very important tab
All the action taken by CAT are described inside LOG.
Different colors are used to help user read the various actions performed by all the internal CAT Processes.
LOG show only an amount of record according to the CAT Parameter "LIMIT CAT LOG ELEMENTS TO".
But the full log file is written in : CATROOT\CATSystem\\MarketLogs\_GENERAL_LOG_.TXT

When an error/problem occurs, you can find the log into the Error Log.


BTC Status & Statistics BTC



This is only a statistics/info panel. NO Action could be taken by the user.

With the Panel on The Left You can Check 
- General Status : info about starts time, running time and last user prices.
- Processes Status : info about CAT algorithms (Ping Creation, Pong Creation, Main Process)
- General Statistics : Sum of current/historical orders/trades values/types

With the Panel On The Right You can Check
Buy/Sell Pool Values
Ping/Pong Values
Trade Values
All Values are expressed as CURRENT and CUMULATIVE


BTC Gains BTC

This is only a statistics/info panel.

  

Here you can have a look at every market's Ping-Pong completed Cycle.
You will have all the info about PING - PONG and Final GAIN Expressed as % and PARTNER-CURRENCY
You will also have a comulative Gain (Previous Gain + Current Gain)

Gain are Also Written in : CATROOT\CATSystem\\GainLogs\_GAIN_.TXT


BTC Market Explorer Tab BTC



If you want to have a look at the current market status press the "Refresh Status Button" and wait some seconds.
This is the information displayed 
- The market's current orders
- Your current orders
- The market's last completed trades
- Your last completed trade

With a right click on one or more (for multiple selection press the CTRL button) orders, you can open a RESTORE function.
From the restore fuction you must choose the order type (Ping or Pong) and in the case of a PONG you must set the Reference Price.


BTC  Restore Orders BTC

The Prerequisite to restore an orders is that the order must be active on the Exchange.

There are 2 ways to restore an orders : 

1 - File - Load Orders (you need to load the XML File previously saved with File - Save Open Markets Current Orders)

 
Then you'll need to choose what to do
A - Restore All Orders And Open Needed Markets : this means that C.A.T. will open all the markets where there's an order to restore.
B - Ask Me for any Restore : C.A.T. will ask you for any market if you wants to restore the orders.
C - Restore Order If Market is Actually Open : You need first to open manually the markets, then only orders associated with open markets will be restored.

2 - From Single Market Panel - Market Explorer - Refresh Status - MyCurrent Buy/Sell Order Table - Choose Orders (you can use the CTRL button to multiple selection) - Right Click - Restore

The same window will appear : 

 

Here you can see
- A Tab for Any Markets (Orders to restore are grouped by market ID)
- Inside any tab a little panel for any order to restore
- A set of button to apply changes properties to all orders (All Pong/All Buy/All Static/All Dynamic)
- A Button to restore all orders (and start algorithms on markets if they are not running)

In a Single Order To Restore Panel you can get/set info
- Order Id
- The Panel Border could have 3 colors