Hi all, another silly question here. in a prop trading firm, how does the algo trading work? such as: 1) Do the algo traders trade all the way from market open to market close? 2) When will they design/implement their algo/strategy? (during the trading period, or off the trading period?) 3) How much percentage of trading activities vs coding activities? 4) How strong the programming skill is required to become an algo trader in a prop firm? (1 to 10, 1 is dummy level, 10 is google programmer level, pls give a rating) I have solid programming background, in the sense that I have done a few projects using C/C++, Java during my uni time. (my final year project is to program a real-time multi-player mobile game using Java. I did a multi-player Blackjack in Nokia 3G phone) I would rate myself 7 out of 10. But I think I'm still not as strong as the google type of programmer, who can code on a blank paper, without looking at any reference/library book. So, I'm wondering whether my programming skill is good enough to start as an algo trader.
If you're a google level coder it won't matter if you can't find an edge to exploit. It doesn't take a whole lot of skill to code up someone's working trading system. Developing a working trading system is probably 10-50 times harder than coding the thing if you're a decent programmer.
I wholeheartedly agree. First you need an idea that makes money, then you can code it. Fortunately for you coding it will be the easy part. - mnx
but how can you develop a trading system if you cannot program? how can you test anything or analyze anything? how do you even know it works as you think it does?
You can test it manually if possible. Otherwise you will need to code it. Tradestation is a good prototyping tool for basic systems. Eventually you will probably want to move to a platform with more robust language support. E.g., TS has no real public variable support, and event-driven triggering/methods. A deal breaker for me.