Defining Positions

You can display the Positions tab of the Portfolio dialog box in several ways:

• Display the portfolio dialog box, then click on the Positions tab.

• Press Ctrl-E, the keyboard shortcut for editing positions.

• Select File, then Edit Positions from the menu.

With the Positions tab of the Portfolio dialog box, you specify the positions in a portfolio.

There are four fields -- Exchange, Product, Product Type, and Option Series which you use to specify the set of contracts of interest.  These are called Type-Down Drop-Down fields.  You can either type values in them, or click on the down arrow at the right of the field to drop down a list of allowable values, and then select from the list.

For example, to enter positions in the CME's E-Mini S&P 500 futures contracts, you would select CME for the exchange, ES for the product, and Future for the product type.  To enter positions in options on these futures, you would change product type to Option on Future and then select the option series -- for example, the December 2017 options on the December 2017 future.

Once you have specified the values for these fields, you will see a spreadsheet-style grid of available contracts, with whatever positions are currently defined for them:

• To enter a position in a particular contract or to change the quantity for an existing position, merely click in the Net column by that contract to put the cursor there, and type the position quantity.

• To delete a position, change the position quantity to zero.

You can move around within the grid using the mouse, or via the up arrow,  down arrow, or Enter keys.  If you are entering omnibus account positions, use the Enter key to move from the Total Long column to the Total Short column.

You can re-size the grid to suit your preferences just by dragging its edge with the mouse, just like you can resize any standard window.

There are two "check box" fields on the Positions tab that you can use:

• When you check Contracts with Positions, for the selected product or option series, only contracts for which nonzero position quantities have been defined will display.

• If you also check All Positions for Selected Exchange Complex, you will see all positions in the portfolio for the exchange complex in which the specified exchange is contained.

For a normal account, where only a single net position quantity is defined for each position, the grid will show only a single Net column.  

For omnibus accounts, the grid has four colums -- for total long and total short, and for the naked long and naked short quantities as well.  You enter the total long and total short quantities.  The naked long and naked short quantities will be automatically updated when you calculate the performance bond requirement.

The 'Edit Positions' button on the toolbar

You can use the Edit Positions button on the toolbar as a quick way to open the Portfolio dialog box on the Positions tab.  This is equivalent to pressing Ctrl-E.

If you have already selected a particular portfolio when you click this button, the dialog box will display immediately for that Portfolio.

If any other node is selected on the tree and there is more than one portfolio defined, a Select Portfolio dialog box will display to allow you select the specific portfolio for editing positions.