Free automated trading platform, for IB

Ursa,

Thanks for your support of the project. One of the next steps I will be taking with this project is to set up a website to act as a common repository for all donated scripts.

top_playa,

Thanks for the advice. The way it is apearing is I will need to do 2 things to fully protect myself:

#1 Incorporate to move the liabilities away from me personally
#2 Purchase Insurance

Both of these things will cost me money, so therefore it is doubtful the project will stay "complety free".

My thoughts on this will be, the basic package including, backtesting, tick by tick chart replay for learning and testing strategies, and auotomating systems to run on IB's paper account will all be free.

Then charge a fee to allow the system to run on IB's real money account, and perhaps for some really advanced features. This way I have money to pay all of these fee's such as insurance, and business fees. The way I look at it, is the tool will allow anyone with no money on the line to learn to trade, or if they already have strategies to backtest and fully automate them. Then use that fully automated strategy on a simulated account which is as CLOSE to real as humanly possible because it will be transmitting orderse through IBs api and everything. Once the user has a method that is making money in a demo account, I see no reason why they woudlnt be willing to pay a fee to make it trade the real money account.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions concerning fee's for the real money partion and or for some aditional features that the free one may not have?

The only problem with this, is initially I will not have the money to fund incorporating and purchasing insurance, so my thougths are I may have to set up some sort of page where I can accept donations to be able to fund this initial setup, or take on a business partner. Still tryign to figure out that part.
 
I know you have proprietary bits to your platform. Have you though of pulling them out and coding them as scripts rather than in the 'core'? Tht way you could release the platform bit as open source and keep your proprietary bits safe.

I guess you must have considered that and rejected the idea for some reason? Anyway it is generous of you to share your work whatever mechanism you use.

Cheers,
Nick.

P.S. apologies for flogging a dead horse just an idea.
 
Quote from frostengine:
top_playa,

Thanks for the advice. The way it is apearing is I will need to do 2 things to fully protect myself:

#1 Incorporate to move the liabilities away from me personally
#2 Purchase Insurance

Both of these things will cost me money, so therefore it is doubtful the project will stay "complety free".

My thoughts on this will be, the basic package including, backtesting, tick by tick chart replay for learning and testing strategies, and auotomating systems to run on IB's paper account will all be free.

Then charge a fee to allow the system to run on IB's real money account, and perhaps for some really advanced features. This way I have money to pay all of these fee's such as insurance, and business fees. The way I look at it, is the tool will allow anyone with no money on the line to learn to trade, or if they already have strategies to backtest and fully automate them. Then use that fully automated strategy on a simulated account which is as CLOSE to real as humanly possible because it will be transmitting orderse through IBs api and everything. Once the user has a method that is making money in a demo account, I see no reason why they woudlnt be willing to pay a fee to make it trade the real money account.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions concerning fee's for the real money partion and or for some aditional features that the free one may not have?

The only problem with this, is initially I will not have the money to fund incorporating and purchasing insurance, so my thougths are I may have to set up some sort of page where I can accept donations to be able to fund this initial setup, or take on a business partner. Still tryign to figure out that part.
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But then you may incur much more liabilities since you are offering a commercial product.

It is different from a product which is offered completely free. Plus it is crazy to buy any insurance, or hire a legal representative. You don't need to.

After all, it really depends on your view and goal. If your main goal is to earn money, then sell it. But be prepared for all sorts of things (including legal affairs).

However if you do it as a hobby and to help other traders, you should offer it free since this will increase the popularity of your tool. If you sell it at a cost, probably most people will not bother and buy other commercial programs made by large or reputable corporations.

I see you are very concerned about liabilities or being sued. So my best suggestion is to offer it completely free of chrage unless you are very serious about the program, and will give the comprehensive technical support for your customers, hire legal staff and buy insurances, and so on.
 
Quote from frostengine:

Here is an example of a very simple system, buys/sells on moving average crossovers..... This example is done using the beanshell scripting language which is probablly the most dificult of the scripting language for non programmers.. but even so, looking at this script I dont think its anymore dificult than any of the other scripting langauges used in auto traders out there....... thoughts? Is this too dificult, if so I can move quicker to get some of the easier scripting langauges in to show how the code woudl look in say basic.. or something...
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For non-programmers, they may not even understand !=, &&, and how to follow the arguments of the code.

But then they probably could not understand any scripting lanaguage.

After all, I agree that this script is easy to read and understand if one has some very basic scripting knowledge.
 
trader herry,

Thanks for the advice.

I still believe even with a complety free system that I still have some liabilities that fall back on myself..... at the very least I need some sort of insurance.....

My thoughts are that people would still want to use this tool because its a no risk solution for them. They get to do all of the things that these expensive software packages do, except free. The only time they start paying out of the pocket is AFTER they discovered a method that they have proven works with the system. I look at it as a very inexpensive way for someone to develope their trading strategies and once they have one they can use the same platform they developed their strategies on to trade it. I see no reason why someone would be unwilling to pay a few bucks to make it trade live once they have discovered a method that will make them money.

I am fully prepared to make this more than just a hobby if the interest is there. The more I work on this sytem the closer I see it being comparable to many of the profesional packages out there.

One last thing not to forget that this package has, is the exstensibility. It will be exstensible to a point that no other package like this out there is capable of. Traders who want to develope a trading strategy but their strategy cannot be implement in the current packages will be able to find a way if they try hard enough with this one. If the method can be coded it can be put into this system.

I know when I was first trying to find a strategy to trade, I would have LOVED to find a free system like this that would have allowed me to develope and perfect my trading systems FREE, and then once I had something, instead of having to jump to a complety new platform and hope I implemented the strategy correctly, I could just pay a few bucks and have my strategy working live......

These are only my thoughts.. I do not know what the community as a whole woudl feel about this software package, but I BELIEVE people will want this tool, and if things get serious I have no problems with making this much more than a hobby.
 
Just wanted to give an update and let everyone know the code is progressing very well. At this rate I should have the first beta ready in another 2 to 3 weeks.

Also, pretty soon I will start posting screenshots to try and get some ideas for possible improvements. I am currently working only on functionality and not really on making it look pretty or on userbility, so posting some screenshots may give some good ideas on how to improve those things....

I am also hoping to get some more feedback on the posibility of having it free to do everythign except let it trade on the REAL money accounts. If the program turns out really well, what are your thoughts on paying a small fee to make it work on the real money accounts instead of just the demo account.
 
I once posted a suggestion on the IB Improvements thread that TWS implement a two level authorisation scheme for connecting clients. The first level would allow access to streaming, historical and Level 2 data. The second level would allow access to 'sensitive' facilities such as place order. The second level should have to be explicitly enabled in TWS - default off. It should also be password protected.

This would place responsiblity on the user of third party products and also provide a gentle reminder about account security. It would also possibly provide a measure of protection for the supplier of software using the API.
 
Quote from frostengine:

Frost
I appreciate that you are putting your developer skills to develop a offering which will help fellow traders.
You are considering to charge for it so that you will get some funds for incorporation/legal advice etc.
I will give a suggestion which might sound some what unsual.
You can incorporate an LLC cheaply in an another (non US)country (you +another business oriented partner)& first explore the free offering part(with minimum cost) with demo testing .You can figure out all the bugs /functionality,commercial potential etc with out too much worry how & when & by whom you are going to be sued!!
If the product takes off I/you can get software support guys to work (cheaply ) 24X7 from an offshore English speaking country (labour arbitrage)
Iam not a programmer but a seasoned business man. If you want to go down this path,let me know- I can offer advice from an entrprenuer experience.
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here is a screenshot of the charts. I have not put a lot of work into the charts, so they may not look that great..... This screenshot, is just to get some feedback on things to make the charting look better, and to also demonstrate how it is marking buys and sells during a backtest.

In this screenshot, I am backtesting the SMA crossover simple script I showed the other day on the YM. The long veritcal bars are showing where the system is making entries and exits.

Any suggetsions or thoughts on how to improve the charting while running backtests.

Just try not to be too critical of the chart quality yet ;)
 

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The second screenshot shows another chart, and shows the main application window displayed at the same time. That window is showing the output of the backtests, such as how much each trade is netting and such..... and what the running total for the day is. As you can see MA crossovers arnet very profitable ;)
 

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