4 ms·

I’ve been writing algorithmic trading software and back testers as a hobby for a couple years now, and what surprises me most is how it is possible to have dece

I’ve been writing algorithmic trading software and back testers as a hobby for a couple years now, and what surprises me most is how it is possible to have decent profits without mad financial skills. The trick is good quality data and a couple spare hours a week! A rooky mistake I have made is losing too many days trying to hack myself a good source of data, so I can only recommend paying a few bucks for a reliable one. You can definitely have a good time (while making money) with basic swing trading algorithms and a bunch of historical end of day data like https://www.gourgane.io https://www.gourgane.io

tudelo 8y ago
Is there any way you can give more details on... Where you trade? What sort of trades? How much capital to start doing something like this?
- backtestingmofo 8y ago
  I have been using Questrade for a while (I’m from Canada) but they are closing their API so I will have to switch to Interactive Broker... My algorithms are mainly swing/long term, so making a few trades a month. I like to trade and back test ETFs like SPY and SPXL since they have high volumes and are more easy to « predict ». I started with 10k and it didn’t feel risky at all since it was post 2009 :)
  - zombieprocess 8y ago
    Any resources on learning swing/long term algorithms that you mentioned?
    - backtestingmofo 8y ago
      I'm a software engineer and I developed trading algorithms just by playing around and visualizing data. Once you have historical data, technical indicators and a simple back tester, you can test some trading strategies and get feedback quickly. Graphing the output of your tests to analyze the annual return over time also helps a lot to design algorithms. I have limited financial knowledge but I would recommend reading about technical analysis and technical indicators (This one is short and sweet https://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/ https://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/) just so you can grasp the basics.
nasir 8y ago
I've had a similar problem to find proper data for cryptocurrencies while I was writing my trading tool. It was quite some work to set up a proper infrastructure to get the data. Though eventually I turned that into a full service. You can check it out on https://coinograph.io https://coinograph.io
- backtestingmofo 8y ago
  Oh nice! I will give this a try

tudelo 8y ago

Is there any way you can give more details on... Where you trade? What sort of trades? How much capital to start doing something like this?

backtestingmofo 8y ago
I have been using Questrade for a while (I’m from Canada) but they are closing their API so I will have to switch to Interactive Broker... My algorithms are mainly swing/long term, so making a few trades a month. I like to trade and back test ETFs like SPY and SPXL since they have high volumes and are more easy to « predict ». I started with 10k and it didn’t feel risky at all since it was post 2009 :)
- zombieprocess 8y ago
  Any resources on learning swing/long term algorithms that you mentioned?
  - backtestingmofo 8y ago
    I'm a software engineer and I developed trading algorithms just by playing around and visualizing data. Once you have historical data, technical indicators and a simple back tester, you can test some trading strategies and get feedback quickly. Graphing the output of your tests to analyze the annual return over time also helps a lot to design algorithms. I have limited financial knowledge but I would recommend reading about technical analysis and technical indicators (This one is short and sweet https://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/ https://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/) just so you can grasp the basics.

nasir 8y ago

I've had a similar problem to find proper data for cryptocurrencies while I was writing my trading tool. It was quite some work to set up a proper infrastructure to get the data. Though eventually I turned that into a full service. You can check it out on https://coinograph.io https://coinograph.io

backtestingmofo 8y ago
Oh nice! I will give this a try