To automate or not to automate?

If you don't know where to start, start here! Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Moderator: moderators

Aldo
rank: <50 posts
rank: <50 posts
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:13 am
Reputation: 0
Gender: None specified

Postby Aldo » Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:11 am

Michal, thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply.

I think overall my thoughts have been confirmed by the posts. Ultimately I want to work towards automating trading, but I realise it's far from easy and I might never achieve this goal. I have some programming background and I work in the IT industry so hopefully this will be some help along the way.

So I guess this leaves the most difficult question, and one with hundreds of answers, where do I start?!

The first steps I think I need to go through are
1) Choose a platform (had a look at smartquant and neoticker as per eudamonia's post)
2) Choose a language if choice available
3) Find resources
4) start!

As Michal has pointed out, the difficulty is in ensuring that every single possible eventuality is catered for in the code ... and then proving this through extensive testing. I guess this is ideally done in something like smart quant which seems to be able to generate ticks and simulate market conditions?

Can anyone suggest any good resources I can look at, or is trawling through forum posts the best? For example, are there any books (more related to trading automation than just language alone) , or does any good quality example code exist that I could work through to help me understand the basics. Presumably the aim is to write re-usable code so a lot of hard work is at the beginning when creating this. Then subsequent strategies should be less painful.

Any thoughts appreciated, I realise this is going to be a long and difficult road!!!


Cheers,
Allan

Please add www.kreslik.com to your ad blocker white list.
Thank you for your support.

koolbreeze
rank: 50+ posts
rank: 50+ posts
Posts: 59
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:32 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: San Diego, CA
Gender: Male

Postby koolbreeze » Mon Feb 18, 2008 6:26 pm

Michal, I thought your reply on automated trading was the most concise and eloquently expressed explanation I have ever heard. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Aldo, Good luck with you quest. As I am a discretionary trader encouragement is all I can offer.

User avatar
michal.kreslik
rank: 1000+ posts
rank: 1000+ posts
Posts: 1047
Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 2:40 am
Reputation: 36
Location: Monte Carlo, Monaco
Real name: Michal Kreslik
Gender: Male

Postby michal.kreslik » Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:51 pm

koolbreeze wrote:Michal, I thought your reply on automated trading was the most concise and eloquently expressed explanation I have ever heard. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Aldo, Good luck with you quest. As I am a discretionary trader encouragement is all I can offer.


I can be much more concise and eloquent :)

I´ll post a couple of thoughts on the subject in this thread when I get back home, right now I´m in Andorra.

Michal

Aldo
rank: <50 posts
rank: <50 posts
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:13 am
Reputation: 0
Gender: None specified

Postby Aldo » Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:52 pm

Thanks Michal, I'll look forward to it.

Cheers,
Allan

Aldo
rank: <50 posts
rank: <50 posts
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:13 am
Reputation: 0
Gender: None specified

Postby Aldo » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:09 pm

Hi all, I've been on holiday and now back and starting to look at this stuff again. It looks to me like NinjaTrader might be a cheaper option for me to start out with as it's free (although if successful I would look at using it with futures betting for tax reasons).

Has anyone got any thoughts on NinjaTrader as a platform for strategy development and testing (both the wizard and just writing 'proper' code), I hear good things about it as a manual trading platform. And can anyone advise on any good resources for learning more?

I've pretty much decided that NT is going to be my starting point on this road, but any advice is greatly appreciated. :)

Cheers,
Allan

Please add www.kreslik.com to your ad blocker white list.
Thank you for your support.

User avatar
eudamonia
rank: 500+ posts
rank: 500+ posts
Posts: 536
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:50 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: Rocklin, CA
Real name: Edward Heming
Gender: Male
Contact:

Postby eudamonia » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:19 pm

Allan,

I use Ninja for order execution (manual of course) so I can't really advise you other than that you can try it out for free (which I'm sure you know already). Good luck.

Edward
Eudaimonia (pron.: you-die-moan-e-a) (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. The less subjective "human flourishing" is often preferred as a translation.

Aldo
rank: <50 posts
rank: <50 posts
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:13 am
Reputation: 0
Gender: None specified

Postby Aldo » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:34 pm

Thanks Ed, I've downloaded Ninja and have started playing around with it. Just wondered if there was any nice resources for new guys instead of a web browser, google, and half a dozen forums :). I did join a free webinar tonight but it was pretty basic, guess I need a more complex one.

Maybe I'm just being lazy and looking for someone to spell it out for me!

I'll return to my darkened room!!
cheers,
Allan

User avatar
eudamonia
rank: 500+ posts
rank: 500+ posts
Posts: 536
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:50 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: Rocklin, CA
Real name: Edward Heming
Gender: Male
Contact:

Postby eudamonia » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:45 pm

Aldo,

One hard lesson I've found is that there are no "easy" resources - particularly when it comes to automated trading. If you want to succeed your own hard work will be what takes you there above anything else (of course if you can find a few other people to work with that's great). Good luck!

Edward
Eudaimonia (pron.: you-die-moan-e-a) (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. The less subjective "human flourishing" is often preferred as a translation.

Aldo
rank: <50 posts
rank: <50 posts
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:13 am
Reputation: 0
Gender: None specified

Postby Aldo » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:58 pm

Thanks again, guess I'm prone to these bouts of optimism that it will be easy :lol:

I think once I'm up and running with all the functionality of NT I'm happy to put in the hours testing. It's just the initial steps (as with everything in life) that are more challenging. Having said that, I've only spent a few hours so I should just shut up and get on with it.

If I'm still going in a few months I might post my progress ...

Allan

User avatar
eudamonia
rank: 500+ posts
rank: 500+ posts
Posts: 536
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:50 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: Rocklin, CA
Real name: Edward Heming
Gender: Male
Contact:

Postby eudamonia » Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:18 am

Allan,

It's only natural to have a lot of optimism when first trading. It looks so easy lol. This is 2X as true for autotrading since as Michal has stated it can be infuriating to tell a computer many simple tasks so that trades are taken the way that you want.

Let us hear your progress (or lack thereof) as other traders can only benefit from your experience.

Edward
Eudaimonia (pron.: you-die-moan-e-a) (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. The less subjective "human flourishing" is often preferred as a translation.

Please add www.kreslik.com to your ad blocker white list.
Thank you for your support.


Return to “beginners forum”