Automated trading systems

A

Anttso1

Hello to everyone. I am trading mostly bond futures, technically and fundamentally, but want to trade also fx but with an automated tr system. Nevertheless, I am completely blind concerning this matter. Could you please provide me some guidance (books, sites) for a step to step process. (I have plenty of months to modify my own system, so please do not give advice concerning systems already out there). Need to do it myself. Thanks in advance for your precious time.

Antonis.
 
It depends on the following 3 things:

1) what is your skill in programming (Excel only? or C++ / Java ?)
2) what is your budget (free software only? or $1 million?)
3) what is the complexity of your system (simple TA or a neural net)?

Tradestation seems to be a popular choice for most situations. It takes some time to learn EasyLanguage if you are not a programmer, but it can be done and is much easier than programming in say Java or C++ for someone new to programming. The cost is $100/month if you fund it with a brokerage account (waived if you trade a minimum amount per month). It handles a moderate amount of complexity, or even significant if you buy 3rd party add-in modules.

Personally I'm using Java + IB, since I am a programmer and the system I'm developing is a bit too custom to easily write in Tradestation.

-Taric
 
Quote from ptunic:

It depends on the following 3 things:

Personally I'm using Java + IB, since I am a programmer and the system I'm developing is a bit too custom to easily write in Tradestation.

-Taric
More...

I understand that esignal EFS studies uses java scripts,
and if learning it would beneficial for using with IB platform
or do i have to learn Java itself?

Is Java or Java script much easier to learn than C++?
And how do you build functions, system variables like
Highest, MRO(most recent occurrence), ......etc, as they
are readily available as build in with proprietary languages?
 
Java is what you would need to learn among the 2 for java programming to the IB API.
I'm a java developer, and I've had to code most of my indicators my self. There's some out there now, just google. It's pretty easy to code them yourself though, particularly if you can see an example in excel, easylanguage, etc.. if you're thinking of writing your own auto-trading platform, coding indicators is the easy part.
Java would much quicker to pick up then C++.
 
I agree.

But for someone who isn't a programmer already, I would not try to learn Java at this stage. First start with TradeStation's EasyLanguage or something of similar easy of learning.

-Taric
 
EXACTLY. Tradestation has about 2 MAN-YEARS of built-in indicators or functions.
If you start-from-scratch with Java or C++ RIGHT NOW,
you'll be where Tradestation 8.1 is in 2 years.

This assumes however, that you NEED all of those functions or indicators. If not, then the time-frame may be < 2 years.
 
2 man years times 5 developers :)


Quote from syswizard:

EXACTLY. Tradestation has about 2 MAN-YEARS of built-in indicators or functions.
If you start-from-scratch with Java or C++ RIGHT NOW,
you'll be where Tradestation 8.1 is in 2 years.

This assumes however, that you NEED all of those functions or indicators. If not, then the time-frame may be < 2 years.
More...
 
Quote from jason_l:

Java is what you would need to learn among the 2 for java programming to the IB API.
I'm a java developer, and I've had to code most of my indicators my self. There's some out there now, just google. It's pretty easy to code them yourself though, particularly if you can see an example in excel, easylanguage, etc.. if you're thinking of writing your own auto-trading platform, coding indicators is the easy part.
Java would much quicker to pick up then C++.
More...

Still you need to creat system variables to use them in
your function, like in easylanguage where you have
Vars, inputs, Truefalse/text/Numeric simple, series, ref,
ref arrays, while, for loops,...

How you will creat them? Because Easylanguage don't give
source code for these reserved words?
 
Quote from syswizard:

EXACTLY. Tradestation has about 2 MAN-YEARS of built-in indicators or functions.
If you start-from-scratch with Java or C++ RIGHT NOW,
you'll be where Tradestation 8.1 is in 2 years.

This assumes however, that you NEED all of those functions or indicators. If not, then the time-frame may be < 2 years.
More...

Are you saying you will be ahead of EL by using Java, C++
in 2 years time?

What if you face problems in process of building your own
application, who is gonna hold your hand, while with EL
you have 100s of supporters?
 
Quote from OptionScreen:

Are you saying you will be ahead of EL by using Java, C++
in 2 years time?

What if you face problems in process of building your own
application, who is gonna hold your hand, while with EL
you have 100s of supporters?
More...

Yes, but the opposite is also true. What if you encounter problems or limitations with TS (or any other product) that are a serious issue for you and THEY won't fix them in a time frame that's acceptable. You really are stuck then. A decent programmer should be able to fix any problem given the source code though it may require considerable effort. If you write it yourself, by definition you have the source code.

I'm not advocating learning Java or any other programming language but there are some advantages. The huge disadvantage is the time involved.

I havn't used TS so I can't comment but I have tried ESignal efs and I thought it was quite frankly, bloody awful. From that point on I use Java only. But I am a programmer, so it was not a difficult decision. For those that havn't programmed before, learning it will be a lot of work that is quite possibly not justified.

As for coding a few indicators, they are likely to be least of ones problems. All the common stuff like RSI, Stoch, MACD, Linear Regression etc are not difficult at all.
 
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