I was a senior trader. Now I’m a programmer. Here’s why

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by trader99, Apr 17, 2018.

  1. JSOP

    JSOP

    If your scalping is really that profitable, you should program a auto-trading system to trade it instead of manually trading it. I agree manual scalping is a killer.
     
    #31     Apr 17, 2018
    trader99 likes this.
  2. trader99

    trader99

    Maybe. I NEVER said my scalping was really profitable. I only said it had a high win rate, which is deceiving metric. Since one big loss can wipe out all the small gains. Still working on that...

    My native style(if one can call it that) is to hold longer. Maybe there's a happy middle ground since commissions add up really quick when scalping on IB. I know if you do enough volume it will go down. I can't do that kind of volume without automation. Even then i think I prefer to capture intraday trends. Let's see.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2018
    #32     Apr 17, 2018
    Xela likes this.
  3. JSOP

    JSOP

    Agreed. If you are only scalping for small profits at a time, your SL targets is going to be pretty tight and you are going to be subject to whipshaws. And if you left a profit run then you won't be scalping anymore. I know it's tough.
     
    #33     Apr 18, 2018
  4. 25 year run? Sounds like an old codger, probably 50+
    Last thing i'd want to do is learn programming after age 50. Life is too short
     
    #34     Apr 18, 2018
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  5. Takes approximately 2 years to learn a programming language fluently. To learning to code in C#, C++, Java, R, Python, HTML5, .NET Framework, T-SQL , from ground 0, will take a long time. Good luck.
     
    #35     Apr 18, 2018
  6. DaveV

    DaveV

    Yes, but once you thoroughly learn one programming language, it is takes much less time to learn another language, especially if the languages are very similar, such as C# and Java.
     
    #36     Apr 18, 2018
  7. I understand the desire to "automate trading". (It would be wonderful if we could just turn on the computer before the market opens, go spend the day at the golf course, then return home to pick up the money and head off to the bank.)

    Seems to me that you'd need to understand "what and how" to trade before automating anything. Most traders barely have a clue as to what they should be trying to automate. JMV.

    Like most, I'm a retail screen jockey. I'm watching for perhaps a dozen different things which command action. I can see trying to automate "a thing", but could you automate 12 different trading plays into a program??
     
    #37     Apr 18, 2018
  8. DaveV

    DaveV

    You may want to rethink that. The best way to prevent Alzheimer's disease or dementia is to force the brain to learn completely new things, especially as you grow older.
     
    #38     Apr 18, 2018
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  9. Xela

    Xela


    When you're scalping, much more so than with most other kinds of trading, you need the price to move in your direction really quickly after entry: if it doesn't, then it was a bad entry and it's a trade you don't want to be in. For this reason, very tight stop-losses are appropriate for scalping - which obviates the risk of one big loss wiping out multiple small profits.
     
    #39     Apr 18, 2018
    Lukas V, birdman, speedo and 2 others like this.
  10. Yes, you'll be able to program at a junior level after a couple of years of full time coding. Takes awhile to become fully fluent and memorize vendor functions / classes. i mean without referring to manuals. I've worked with senior programmers with 8+ years of experience multiple manuals open.
     
    #40     Apr 18, 2018
    DaveV likes this.