Hi everyone - I want to build a trading bot to help me with my own trading or potentially trade entirely programmatically. I have cash and programming skills but have never built a trading bot. I am looking for an experienced builder who can help me get setup, teach me the basics, provide guidance and mentorship, and, if interested, help me implement trading strategies. I can pay an hourly rate and am open to other arrangements as well. Please DM me or feel free to reply here.
This might be better. Backtesting – Is Zipline Dead? Or does it just need a reload? Posted by: Andreas Clenow https://www.followingthetrend.com/2021/12/backtesting-is-zipline-dead-or-does-it-just-need-a-reload/
Your trading bot will vary depending on the broker you have chosen. In order to look for the right help you will need to specify the API that you will be using. Also your preferred programming language will refine the search.
I've also to laugh when I see ads that say "No coding required" B/c then it cannot be worth anything, IMHO They of course just want to sell their questionable stuff to anybody...
be careful, Andreas is a book salesman, not a trader. He does not have a trade room, does not have a track record and has no recorded profits. He is all vendor/no trader and there 2000 more just like him.
90% of the "bot" is a strategy. Market you trade, strategy, statistical validation, data, broker, live trials etc. Then "bot" is just automation piece you put in place once it's done. I wrote plenty on my methodology in Fully Automated Stocks trading journal. It has strategy examples, talks about common mistakes, automated trader's routine, automation stack including infrastructure, just scattered over many pages. There is also one for Futures by Rob Carver with everything laid out in his books.
A back test and live algorithmic trading architecture can be as simplistic or complicated as desired. It really is the choice of the user. It's easy to throw a few python packages together and load some data, iterate over them and call a strategy function that feeds data to the actual algorithm. Every now and then the algorithm places orders that are filled in a simulated environment. Then at the end performance calculations are output. I have worked years on my trading framework and architecture, probably now close to a decade. Of course did I trade on it in its earlier stages but I added and changed a lot of code and features over time as I saw fit. One example is how I represent orders. Orders are represented by a ParentOrder class that can split off Child Orders and hence allows for fairly involved and non trivial order logic. For example I have a Basket Order type that can split off fractions of the original order size and hence submit parts of the total order size to get the basket legs submitted at a lower risk of unbalanced fills. It also allows for bracket order logic where target and stop loss levels are already baked into the Basket Order logic. Hence, orders become small algorithms themselves that are updated by backtest or live data that affect any of the basket legs. This is just one of many examples where the architecture logic can get fairly complex in order to support more advanced features. I agree with some here who belittle those book writing clowns. They usually present the absolute basics which guarantee to not work or at the very least won't take a beginner very far. I recommend the best combination is professional experience in the trading space coupled with coding skills. Most developers who approach algorithmic trading would not even know about parent/child order logic unless they read or learned about it from someone who is involved in this space. The same goes with other features. Jus knowing how to code means nothing. You need to know what you want to achieve and why. Often times the biggest challenge is not knowing something exists that makes life much less complicated.