Hi all, I am not a trader even though I have read a couple of good books on the subject I do not know enough to or have the time to trade. However trading commodidties is something that has always interested me. My strength lies in software development and have been practicing that trade for the last 20 years. I have been toying with the idea of creating a simple trading application that I would make available via my website as freeware just to see if there was any interest from the trading community at large. If there was interest then I would enhance the application and make the enhanced version available for a reasonable price. Please, if anyone happens to have any good ideas on what a simplistic trading application should contain at a minimum, let me know what that is. Perhaps there is a need in the community of traders that has not been met by the other software development companies then please feel free to submit that idea as well. Thank you, Johnny
Existing popular software like Interactive Brokers TWS and the API as well as Ninja Trader are popular. One is proprietary in the sense you must have an IB account. The other is broker-affiliated which means you must have a broker that has established a relationship with Ninja. I think you'll find NO DEMAND for a simple trading platform. However, IMHO, there are unmet needs in the area of programmable market scanners and options strategy backtesting platforms.
I don't know what "simple trading application" means. Trading is serious business. Trading is war! This is not kiddie stuff. It is not an electronic paint tool toy or let you create your own greeting card on jibjab kind of thing. The key in making money in trading program is in the trading methodology, not the programming skill. Most traders may not be programming capable. They pay (good money) specialized programmers to implement their trading methods and constantly tweak them. And there are specialized programmers who lend their skills in programming projects. Most of them would be done in proprietary ways. I don't think your idea of developing a "simple trading application" and later sell to the masses will work.
Well, I tried it once, and I'll tell you what it means. I attempted to use Excel with IB's ActiveX API....and it was an abysmal flop. Oh sure, I was able to make it work quickly without a lot of code, but it couldn't handle all of the connectivity problems that occurred. It also could not handle the data load....my CPU would spike to 100% on many occasions. The reason: alas, Excel is single-threaded. Any decent trading app is designed from the get-go to be multi-threaded. That's actually a key feature and it's not simple to program well. So, you are correct: there is NO SIMPLE TRADING APPLICATION.
Can you be more specific what you mean by a trading application? 1. An application to generate signals for trading? 2. A program to send orders to a broker? 3. An algorithm for finding liquidity? 4. Any combination of the above?
Look into creating an application that supports a specialised trading strategy really well - for exampe: Pair trading, long/short equity, rebalancing. And support a popular platform - i.e. IB.
I agree...it's a great idea to specialize. I had someone ask me once for a trading system based on EVENTS. Example: GAP OPEN. Wow, what a tough trading app ! It had to scan for gapped stocks on the open, and then trade them algorithmically all day.
Bolimomo, what I do for a living is serious business the Software that I write for a living is not kiddie stuff. However thanks for your input. What I mean to say by a simple trading application is one that may fill a particular utilitarian or other need that has yet to been met. I know that may be incedibly vague but I am just trying to get some ideas. Thanks again. John
John. Someone of course already wrote this application but this is something I think a single developer could do: http://www.pairtradefinder.com/ And make a business out of.