Ok, I'm 65, still trading, options mostly, on IB, SPX iron condors weekly, long LEAPS puts on bound-to-lose leveraged ETFs covered with OTM short puts, and some short vol trades. Now I like the idea of automating my trades, especially the ICs and the weekly Far OTM short puts on the long LEAPS puts. But do I really need to know programming of any sort to get started? Python? Any others? Thoughts? Is it reasonable to pick up at my age? I also hate Windows, so if I could do it on a MAC, that would be nice although it probably rules out any VBA or macros. Thanks in advance.
I have colleagues that are well into their 50s. Not quite your age, but they seem to be doing very well for themselves. Automating these types of things tends to be difficult and API dependent. I'm sure you could do it on IB for example, but yes - to answer your question you will need to learn some kind of programming to accomplish this. Excel has gotten a lot better but the VBA facilities are still limited on MAC to old Excel 2007-style stuff. You can do it, just be aware some things may need adjustment. You'll also lack ActiveX integration and be forced into something like DDE - so I'd run parallels and a copy of excel from there if you go that route. Python is probably the easiest to pick up. Excel may be easier for you given the more visual aspect of it. Your learning curve will be far shorter as long as you can find a decent API integration. If you have any specific questions on Python I can answer them. I'm ok at Excel too.
Ok, Thanks for the thoughts and encouragement. I didn't know I could automate with Excel, even with VBA on IB. I also heard IB has some automation product out now. If so, I may try.
Curious, which parts do you think could be automated? I assume you will be deciding what and when to enter discretionary, but maybe just automating the trade management thereafter?