Why Specifying an Asset Class Is Required for Strategies

When building strategies on trading platforms like TradersPost, users often question why they need to specify the asset class when, theoretically, the platform could infer it from the ticker symbol. This feature request was recently discussed during an office hours session, shedding light on the necessity of defining asset classes explicitly.

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The Need for Asset Class Specification

The main reason asset class specification is required is that ticker symbols are not always unique across asset classes. For instance, “ES” could refer to both a stock and a futures contract. Without knowing the asset class, the platform cannot accurately determine which market or instrument the user intends to trade .

Additionally, when creating webhooks and applying ticker filters, the platform needs the asset class to narrow down the correct universe of tickers. Without this specification, it would become challenging to manage multiple tickers across various asset classes in a single strategy .

Alternatives and Why They Aren’t Ideal

While it might seem possible to infer asset classes based on the exchange or symbol, this approach isn’t foolproof. One alternative discussed was prefixing tickers with their exchange (e.g., NYSE:XYZ), which could help limit the universe of assets. However, even this method wouldn’t eliminate the need for asset class specification, as some exchanges support multiple asset types .

Another proposed solution was removing the asset class requirement from the strategy and instead specifying it in the payload for each webhook. However, this would place an additional burden on users, requiring them to define the asset class every time they create a webhook, which would make the process more cumbersome.

Conclusion

Requiring users to specify an asset class when creating strategies may seem redundant at first, but it ensures accuracy in identifying tickers and reduces the risk of errors. While alternative solutions have been considered, they either complicate the user experience or fail to address the fundamental issue of non-unique ticker symbols across asset classes.