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I've been building a bot with Typescript because it is what I know and Python because of the tools available. It is an overwhelming lonely endeavor. With all m

I've been building a bot with Typescript because it is what I know and Python because of the tools available. It is an overwhelming lonely endeavor. With all my other projects, I've always worked on teams, although they have always been very small teams and most of my work was autonomous -- still there was the occasional meeting and stand-ups. I've been working on this for six months and thought about bringing a friend onboard for no other reason than to not be alone.

dzink 3y ago
Count me in the group of solo algo trading developers. Maybe we should connect and chat.
- Def_Os 3y ago
  There are dozens of us! I'd be open to a chat channel or something.
  - MuffinFlavored 3y ago
    I wonder how many people are actually willing to share "secret" details versus how many actually have anything to share that is worth anything. We all know how to load up OHLCV data and do basic math on it. Where does that gain us any edge, you know?
  - Shocka1 3y ago
    Myself included. One issue I've run into with the public Discords is there are just too many people and therefore too much noise. A smaller non-public group would be ideal.
- antiviral 3y ago
  This is why I miss Quantopian. They had a great discussion forum, an ongoing competition, and annual conferences. I would be interested in some kind of regular meetup as well to discuss new techniques and to analyze publicly disclosed strategies, etc. I recently posted this article on HN... There is so much more knowledge to share: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344587
IshKebab 3y ago
How can you hope to compete with the pros? You're not going to be faster than them and unless you have several PhDs in maths it's unlikely you'll come up with a better algorithm. The only way I can think of is to get data that they can't.
- kevstev 3y ago
  Not everything has to be super fast. I was using quantopian to trade based mostly off fundamentals data on a monthly rebalance basis successfully. At least enough to beat the sp500 for a few years- I stopped because I went to a hedge fund that prevented me from trading that frequently and in most small caps. If you want an idea take a look at the piotroski f score and factor based investing. Aqr for example is still largely factor based.
- usefulcat 3y ago
  There are plenty of strategies that can be profitable on a small scale but which just don't work as you scale up the capital or leverage. Such strategies can be simultaneously profitable for a small operation and not worth the bother for most larger trading shops.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    That doesn't make any sense. Can you give an example?
    - k9jd883jb 3y ago
      This is just one example, but at a small scale you might be placing buy orders with let’s say $1k or $10k. This is insignificant compared to the total amount of money being traded, and will not affect the stock price. However if you start increasing scale to $1mm or $10mm, your buy or sell orders begin to actually move the stock price itself. You might not be able to successfully sell $10mm of stock without dropping the price, signaling others to sell, further dropping the price, cutting into your own profits.
      - 3y ago
Aken 3y ago
This article is well-timed as I was about to use options monitoring as an excuse to get into some other technologies. Probably not going to make a ton of progress as a side project, but I'm always up for a chat!

dzink 3y ago

Count me in the group of solo algo trading developers. Maybe we should connect and chat.

Def_Os 3y ago
There are dozens of us! I'd be open to a chat channel or something.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago
  I wonder how many people are actually willing to share "secret" details versus how many actually have anything to share that is worth anything. We all know how to load up OHLCV data and do basic math on it. Where does that gain us any edge, you know?
- Shocka1 3y ago
  Myself included. One issue I've run into with the public Discords is there are just too many people and therefore too much noise. A smaller non-public group would be ideal.
antiviral 3y ago
This is why I miss Quantopian. They had a great discussion forum, an ongoing competition, and annual conferences. I would be interested in some kind of regular meetup as well to discuss new techniques and to analyze publicly disclosed strategies, etc. I recently posted this article on HN... There is so much more knowledge to share: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344587

IshKebab 3y ago

How can you hope to compete with the pros? You're not going to be faster than them and unless you have several PhDs in maths it's unlikely you'll come up with a better algorithm. The only way I can think of is to get data that they can't.

kevstev 3y ago
Not everything has to be super fast. I was using quantopian to trade based mostly off fundamentals data on a monthly rebalance basis successfully. At least enough to beat the sp500 for a few years- I stopped because I went to a hedge fund that prevented me from trading that frequently and in most small caps. If you want an idea take a look at the piotroski f score and factor based investing. Aqr for example is still largely factor based.
usefulcat 3y ago
There are plenty of strategies that can be profitable on a small scale but which just don't work as you scale up the capital or leverage. Such strategies can be simultaneously profitable for a small operation and not worth the bother for most larger trading shops.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  That doesn't make any sense. Can you give an example?
  - k9jd883jb 3y ago
    This is just one example, but at a small scale you might be placing buy orders with let’s say $1k or $10k. This is insignificant compared to the total amount of money being traded, and will not affect the stock price. However if you start increasing scale to $1mm or $10mm, your buy or sell orders begin to actually move the stock price itself. You might not be able to successfully sell $10mm of stock without dropping the price, signaling others to sell, further dropping the price, cutting into your own profits.
    - 3y ago

Aken 3y ago

This article is well-timed as I was about to use options monitoring as an excuse to get into some other technologies. Probably not going to make a ton of progress as a side project, but I'm always up for a chat!