I posted your post accidentally, sorry. Since you asked, I jotted down my thoughts on the "FAQ's" I have had many experiences where people do ask me how I am doing what I do. for trading my mind behaves like an ATS. Also at night my mind completes the merger of my perceptions early on and then it goes into a query mode where it gives me tasks to do upon awakening. these tasks mostly relate to improving my inference is various fields. Thus, today you all get the organic chemistry result in the fuels you use. You also get cleaner water since the APHA now has a complete set of interference tables for proper water testing. And indirectly you get the benefits of the EIS filing requirements for your community. Having complete ATS's for trading were a lot simpler to achieve.
With all due respect to Jack, I think the recommendation to learn SQL as your first programming language is ill advised, at best. SQL is primarily a databasing language. While I suspect many folks use SQL for their databases, they access their sql database through C++ or Python. In my opinion, you should learn C++ or Python. Or if you can afford a matlab license, do that. Matlab is c++ like, and serves as a good stepping stone. Matlab was my first coding language, now I know just about all of the major ones. I'm pretty sure you can talk to Interactive Brokers with matlab now too.
This is throwing darts in the dark. You have to re-focus. Choice of language to tackle markets is not done in vacuum. It should be done after market platforms research and after establishing general outline of your algorithms, their complexity and future direction of your work. Language is only a tool but you do not want to lock yourself into some obscure language and build algo with it and then be forced to re-write because it does not let you to connect to broker or market data for live trading. You interact with data providers, brokers through platforms and API. Research of those would indicate that interaction with markets is done mostly with languages from C++ family - Java, .Net, C++ itself or some proprietary platform specific scripts. The advantage of other languages like Python and R is in their vast libraries that you can immediately employ with relative ease instead of trying to invent something that is already available. General purpose languages listed above also have libraries but some of them might not as freely available as in Python and R which are supported by academic communities that thrive in open source movement. What is easier in the beginning may turn out to be a big problem later on. In reality you need to know more than one language anyway. Even if you can write simple programs in very short time be prepared for long hours and lots of frustration. Hiring someone is difficult and interacting with programmer is also not easy for many reasons one of the being communication (you speak different language) and the need for often changes to the program. After all it is not another employee database. The examples of potential algos from the family of candlestick soup spiced with some TA you have shown are very simple to code and all of it have been already tried so protecting it from others is not an issue at this time. R is the easiest to start with and really pleasant to work with. Python is ok but what I would recommend is to read some short book or tutorial for C++ to understand the basis of computer languages. For actual programming C# is probably the best choice in general purpose languages. Since both are very similar you may skip learning C++ if you are not interested why things are done in certain ways. Another option is to pick a platform with scripting capabilities and stick with it if you are going to do variations on TA and candlesticks because it would be more than you need.
Jack could you explain what is HS, PM, FI in your post. Do you have more concrete evidence of volume being leading indicator of price because you are citing theories that in my opinion were never proven. History of sciences you mentioned has many examples of paradigms (or dogma) including Sun revolving around Earth and this is why your confidence about power of human brain in deducing theories is puzzling.
@jack hershey I might have to go through your post to digest it in all it's completeness. However, from what I get as of now, is that nothing is left to chance or any sort of ambiguity. The end starts with a beginning and I plan to take it from there should I pursue this route.
@vicirek Thanks for your post. I see where your are coming from and it's all making a little more sense now. Some of my questions may sound naive, as I have NO knowledge in coding and have never even tried to set a strategy for it. My assumption was that in being a consistently profitable trader, I could transfer what I do onto a language, which would then go on to do some of the work for me. It seems like my naivety is being exposed with each post and that I will have to learn how to look through a different screen, should I want to pursue this route.
Few remarks on points 9 to 12. If you see NYSE floor today there are hardly any traders. This answers your question. Algo trading has replaced traders already and changed market dynamics. The reasons are the same as you experienced: trader can be tired, emotions can distract him, boredom of monitoring markets, lack of consistency. Keep in mind that those Algos are not necessarily very smart like the one you are trying to create. They just play along and "work" the orders, automate market making, make compliance and error checking easier etc. Any algo can be used to monitor from 1 to thousands of symbols and this is the advantage computers have over traders so in that sense it is scalable. But it may not scale well trading small lots versus bigger blocks because from being hunter it become hunted decreasing its usability. The issue of how long "strategy" lasts is a function of random match of "strategy" to current market conditions and has nothing to do with particular strategy. It just happens that it works and then it does not.
I post from a science and mathematics orientation HS and PM come from Keynes. Hypothesis Sets are built and a rule set applies to their building. when a complete HS is built, then a Parametric Measure is dictated. In the case of the market's paradigm, the gerunds in the HS dictate that velocity is the PM. FI is the name of where trading is done: Financial Industry. As following Keynes shows, the independent variable and the dependent variable are defined in the "like kind" nature of each of the hypotheses. Volume is the independent variable. through the period of history you may have examined, the paradigm first appeared implicitly since those doing the thinking were not too refined. Later, others worked to make the understandings more explicit and more precisely defined. As one looks a displayed data, if it is orderly, then he can use an appropriate math application to define this orderliness. Today, the CRT afforded people the ability to see pictures. I took classes from the inventor of the iconoscope, the main element of the original video cameras. From the data of markets, where orderliness is used, then it appears that the found granularity leads to cases found in orderly uniform data packets. both the market variables have finite cases and all of each set is used in the Algebra related to the system of operation of the markets. The theoreticians who are most helpful are Carnap and Boole. By using their complete tools, one builds from the cast in concrete foundation laid using Keynes' clear and well developed paradigm theory. you may be familiar with TF's (time frames) in the display of information. Market data is put into standard packets and the packets are displayed on a screen electronically. It is like looking at the Sun revolving around the Earth. At some point a person can see on the screen that fractals exist. further the person may be able to see that the fractals are interlocking. at some point a person watching the sun revolving around the earth may see Mars and the moon. when he does he begins to do SA. Systems Analysis creates more knowledge as knowledge relates to structure, processes and the results of processes. A paradigm has logic and algebra added to it. then, this combination has system characteristics and SA ensues. Set theory yields about 30 free standing tables and all of the fractal knowledge attendant to such. Your mind is where it is and stuck at this point. building a system comes from observations that are kept well organized. Key historical people have provided extremely useful tools. The reasoning process called iterative refinement allows complete systems to be developed by using enchanting vibrant tooling. think about adding a new building on your estate. Call it a workshop. build things. as you do more and more complex projects, you will have to buy tools to do various jobs. One of my avocations have been ship design re the America's Cup. Getting the sail boat out of the water has been a major achievement. at last we can get around to the energy transfer. Propelling the ship faster than the wind is what is required. In trading there is he ATR of the market's offer. we work on what the performance is in terms of multiples of the ATR. Tools work for us to achieve effectiveness and efficiency. the market is a system. tools enable you to "know you know" at every moment.
among the tools out there is the human brain. I feel it is the most powerful tool available. what I like best about it is how it does so much work when it is not interfered with. The time it does most and best is when its human is sleeping. at that time it merges conscious and unconscious perception acquired and stored in short term memory. It merges things into long term memory as inference. Inference is the knowledge used in the perception sum along with the sensing from the senses. inference is 90% of the sum. Imagine seeing the sun revolving around the Earth. Then one evening you see Mars and the moon. then you go to bed. when you awaken you have a big AHA staring at you form in your mind. the moon is going around the earth and mars is going around the Sun. Maybe I better re think about the sun and earth rotation. this lets you see Venus easier.