Newbie needs help automating strategy.

M

Mike34

In the hard to believe category, I'm exceptional at finding support and resistance and bad at trading them. I have ADD and compulsive behavior disorder and it prohibits me from exercising financial discipline and patience. I'm just looking to automate orders around support and resistance that also factor in some basic market internals into the decision making process. It's a little more complicated than that, but not by much, at least to start. I have zero programming background or knowledge and don't have any real interest in doing this myself. From my research, that's still in the early stages, it sounds like IB would be the best platform to use if you are placing 20-50 smaller trades a day due to their commission structure and technological capabilities. Does that sound right? Also, where do I look to hire somebody? I'm currently on TOS, but I imagine if I have my trading automated on IB, I cannot use the same ago on different platforms.

1- Is IB the best place to automate your trading?

2- Where can I find programmers?

Thanks in advance. From what I've read, people on this forum seem really helpful.
 
Mike34 said:
In the hard to believe category, I'm exceptional at finding support and resistance and bad at trading them. I have ADD and compulsive behavior disorder and it prohibits me from exercising financial discipline and patience. I'm just looking to automate orders around support and resistance that also factor in some basic market internals into the decision making process. It's a little more complicated than that, but not by much, at least to start. I have zero programming background or knowledge and don't have any real interest in doing this myself. From my research, that's still in the early stages, it sounds like IB would be the best platform to use if you are placing 20-50 smaller trades a day due to their commission structure and technological capabilities. Does that sound right? Also, where do I look to hire somebody? I'm currently on TOS, but I imagine if I have my trading automated on IB, I cannot use the same ago on different platforms.

1- Is IB the best place to automate your trading?

2- Where can I find programmers?

Thanks in advance. From what I've read, people on this forum seem really helpful.
More...
If you pay someone to code to C++ you will be able to move to another broker if you choose to later as C++ is very common.
 
IB good enough to start with unless their cost structure prohibits you from being profitable (which can actually be pretty likely for frequent trading, then again you shouldn't be doing medium to high speed trading on IB due to latency).

If you're in the US Alpaca seems pretty cool since it lowers threshold for medium frequency algo trading dramatically. Haven't been able to try them though since I'm in Sweden.

C++, Python, C#, Java all are very common for finance I would say. Personally ended up on C++ because dealing with various performance issues in the other languages got tiresome. That said, a poor programmer can write inefficient code in any language.
 
Mike34 said:
I have ADD and compulsive behavior disorder and it prohibits me from exercising financial discipline and patience.
More...
And you think automation is the solution? Can you watch the algo going negative and wander ... Why the hell it is not getting out ... Is there a bug ... Did I loose connection ... Isn't it obvious today is just not a good day for this strategy?

If you read about fully automated traders they often say that the HARDEST part is NOT overriding the system! You will not be able to to do it, especially if you pay someone to write/test it.

You cannot remove emotions from trading. Once you can trade your strategy manually, come back with the right mindset. Hope you don't take this in a negative way. Good luck.
 
I'm not taking anything the wrong way, I'm just trying to become better informed. Could you be a little more specific in regards to why it won't work? It works manually and I know this in more then one way, my issue is I need to take me out of the equation so that the trades are as mechanical as possible. Is it not reasonable to build a cost efficient algo that follows 20-30 stocks/etf's and triggers orders at support/resistance when price action directs it to? Is that going to lead to it getting overloaded constantly? You make it sound like I should expect massive inefficiency from something that is designed with the opposite goal in mind.

I really don't know, that's why I came on here and politely asked for help. You implied that maybe it's my lines (support and resistance) that don't work and I know that's not the case. I've had literally every other trader I've been around tell me I need to automate my strategy. If anything, I waited to long to at least research it. I just want to build something simple where I do most of the work and build on it as I learn more about automation.
 
Mike34 said:
Could you be a little more specific in regards to why it won't work? It works manually and I know this in more then one way, my issue is I need to take me out of the equation so that the trades are as mechanical as possible.
More...
I said nothing about validity of your strategy ... I am asking you why can't you take yourself "out of equation?"

The first part in automating is being able to clearly state the rules. Once you have the rules written down you simply follow them.
Obviously, back-testing is useful (understatement).
So the question is why can't you? Are you taking profits too early? Are you letting losses get too large? If you have discipline problem, the worst thing to do is to rely on software for solution, imho. Automate yourself first :)
 
Mike34 said:
In the hard to believe category, I'm exceptional at finding support and resistance and bad at trading them. I have ADD and compulsive behavior disorder and it prohibits me from exercising financial discipline and patience. I'm just looking to automate orders around support and resistance that also factor in some basic market internals into the decision making process. It's a little more complicated than that, but not by much, at least to start. I have zero programming background or knowledge and don't have any real interest in doing this myself. From my research, that's still in the early stages, it sounds like IB would be the best platform to use if you are placing 20-50 smaller trades a day due to their commission structure and technological capabilities. Does that sound right? Also, where do I look to hire somebody? I'm currently on TOS, but I imagine if I have my trading automated on IB, I cannot use the same ago on different platforms.

1- Is IB the best place to automate your trading?

2- Where can I find programmers?

Thanks in advance. From what I've read, people on this forum seem really helpful.
More...
The likely hard part of this project is translating what you currently do into rules as I suspect there are subjective parts to your strategy. I recommend that before you try to automate, see if you can quantify your strategy via a set of rules. Get as far as you can by yourself. I might be able to help you with programming or quantifying your strategy but won't waste either of our time if I feel the project won't be successful. Send me a pm if you would like to discuss.
 
qlai said:
I said nothing about validity of your strategy ... I am asking you why can't you take yourself "out of equation?"

The first part in automating is being able to clearly state the rules. Once you have the rules written down you simply follow them.
Obviously, back-testing is useful (understatement).
So the question is why can't you? Are you taking profits too early? Are you letting losses get too large? If you have discipline problem, the worst thing to do is to rely on software for solution, imho. Automate yourself first :)
More...

Sorry if I took it the wrong way. Look, I've meditated, gotten medicated, read the bible, I've tried everything I can think of to slow myself down and develop patience. I'll have options on tomorrows big winner today with a target in mind and get out before it happens because I got lost in a 1 min chart.

I had puts on the XLE on monday of last week and sold them on monday even though I knew it was in a bad spot and felt a big drop was probably in the cards. I had what turned out to be the bottom of Googl within a dollar on my chart since earnings but didn't notice my alert until the market closed. I follow everything but lose focus on anything I'm not in during market hours. It's an every day and every week occurrence. It's not some traders fallacy, it's legit. I think switching to stocks (instead of options) and automating my strategy is the answer. People are different. For some, patience and financial discipline come easy but they can't figure out how markets work. For me, I can plan the trade but I literally never trade the plan.
 
I am not a psychiatrist but it seems there is an easy solution ... Find someone to approve your actions and hold you accountable. Consider yourself running a signal service and publish your calls to someone you trust. Imagine he or she is a business partner (or maybe even have them become actual partners with skin in the game).
How about you start a journal here and we will keep you accountable :)
 
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