Collaborating with a programmer to create trading tools/strategies - Have anyone done this?

[Howard]

Hi all,

I have a custom made application which is the result of years of work, both in developing the logic and also actually coding it. The coding was done by a professional firm, although to various degrees of satisfaction (excellent initially; subpar at the end).

As I'm now starting to plan re-developing and refining this tool, I also need to think about who will do it for me. Ideally, I'd do it myself, but I think it will take me too long to become proficient enough in programming to do that.

I'm leaning towards having someone do it for me as a job. Professionally.

But, I'm also considering a collaboration with a programmer provided I found someone with an interest in the financial markets and actually trading them such that he could find mutual benefit in doing so.

By the way - this is not an ad for that. Not ready for that just yet. I'm just curious if anyone have had any successful experiences with a collaboration like this or if it's a bad idea.

Also, having done this much work on my own, I notice that I am a bit reluctant to just hand over what I've learned to someone else. Which is why I'm leaning towards having it done professionally. But even still - I'm paranoid about sharing my stuff. Having worked a bit with programmers though, it's interesting to note how oblivious most of them are to what they're actually programming.

Regards and thanks.

Howard

 

[trend2009]

i will never hand out my trading strategy fully to one programmer, unless you have 100% trust on the person. the alternative is to break down your task into a few sub project, and hire a few programmers, each for one sub project, and you put them together. if your strategy is truly valuable, i recommend you learn to program it yourself.

 

[qlai]

But, I'm also considering a collaboration with a programmer provided I found someone with an interest in the financial markets and actually trading them such that he could find mutual benefit in doing so.

Please elaborate on what you have in mind and technology stack. PM me if preferred. I just became free agent.

 

[d08]

What's your platform? That will also limit options somewhat. I find myself coding more and more every day as the markets become secondary. I figure it won't be easy to find someone who understand the financial markets, likes to program AND is affordable.

 

[Howard]

i will never hand out my trading strategy fully to one programmer, unless you have 100% trust on the person. the alternative is to break down your task into a few sub project, and hire a few programmers, each for one sub project, and you put them together. if your strategy is truly valuable, i recommend you learn to program it yourself.

That's certainly ideal. And yes, I share your concerns...

Please elaborate on what you have in mind and technology stack. PM me if preferred. I just became free agent.

Thanks, but I'm not ready to proceed quite yet.

Current application is written in C#. Data is stored in an SQL DB. Excel is used as a front-end.

What's your platform? That will also limit options somewhat. I find myself coding more and more every day as the markets become secondary. I figure it won't be easy to find someone who understand the financial markets, likes to program AND is affordable.

My charting platform is NinjaTrader, but my application works completely independent of that.

 

[nooby_mcnoob]

coding more and more every day as the markets become secondary

As the markets become secondary to what?

 

[ET180]

Is your program oriented towards day-trading or swing trading? What markets? Have you backtested it to ensure that it has a real edge (validated with statistics) vs. random entries? That's a bit harder to do because buying the S&P500 randomly, averaged out over a large number of trades, over the past 10 years has been a profitable strategy.

 

[fan27]

I actually did a small project with a member on this site recently. I found his approach interesting so we chatted and I coded up his strategy for free in AlgoTerminal and we both have access to the source code. The strategy in its current form is not ready for prime time but I am not sweating it as the level of effort was low. So yes, a collaboration can work but only if what you have is going to be interesting enough for a programmer/trader to want to work on it.

 

[Howard]

Is your program oriented towards day-trading or swing trading? What markets? Have you backtested it to ensure that it has a real edge (validated with statistics) vs. random entries? That's a bit harder to do because buying the S&P500 randomly, averaged out over a large number of trades, over the past 10 years has been a profitable strategy.

Day trading. ES (S&P 500) futures. Long and short.

I actually did a small project with a member on this site recently. I found his approach interesting so we chatted and I coded up his strategy for free in AlgoTerminal and we both have access to the source code. The strategy in its current form is not ready for prime time but I am not sweating it as the level of effort was low. So yes, a collaboration can work but only if what you have is going to be interesting enough for a programmer/trader to want to work on it.

Cool.

The problem is the latter part. I understand that someone won't start programming my stuff unless they feel it's worthwhile for them to do so. On the other hand, I don't want to go around pitching my strategies and selling the shop just to have some asshole say he's not interested and then steal my stuff anyway. Or maybe work on it for a few weeks or months and than give up.

So, I'm definitely leaning towards just getting it done by a professional.

 

[fan27]

@Howard , why do you have custom software? Why not use an off the shelf product such as NinjaTrader, AlgoTerminal or the other numerous choices out there?