R Programming for Traders, Helps small traders compete with Hedge Funds

[jj90]

I have looked into few codes of R. I donot see much difference compared any similarly used language. I am a long time Programmer and have developed quite a bit EAs and Indicators using MQL4 and fail to understand the hype for R. Whatever be the language the logic/concept has to work first. IF it is working and programmable, then the language is immaterial. Unless there are some unique features of R which are not available in other languages then I can look into it.

Readily accessible libraries to instantly do numerical analysis. R and Python I know has this. I can't say the same for Java/C#/Ruby/etc. I do my number crunching in Python.

 

[kent]

What sort of complex numerical analysis you would do in a trading system? Can you give me an example? Whether it is reading price history of an instrument stored in large array or any specific complex computation which is not possible in any other language?

 

[Murray Ruggiero]

That is exactly my point there are 10,000+ libraries for free available , advance modeling stuff, Neural networks, machine learning , HMM and much much more. Also advance money management concepts like Leverage Space.
Now you just need to develop your strategies using them and not need to worry about developing the advance technologies.

 

[jj90]

@kent you miss my point. It is not that other languages can't do it. It's that certain languages already have it built.

Why spend time coding up a library when you can get straight down to work?

 

[2rosy]

How many of you are looking at R for machine learning and modeling ?

i rarely use it but this is a good library that allows the same interface on top of various models.
http://topepo.github.io/caret/index.html

 

[Murray Ruggiero]

Here is another good resource I have created for R programming for new programmers. Click Here to Download

 

[kent]

Murray,

I went thru your website a bit. When users develop/test their strategies, where does the code/compiled objects reside? Is it protected and allowed for use or access only to the developer or anyone can or the owners (you have access to that)?

 

[Murray Ruggiero]

What site, UsingEasyLanguage.com , I sell open code, you can open the code in the TradeStation (EasyLanguage) editor and view it , modify it , copy and adapt. R is a script language and the scripts you write are text files. Libraries are a combination of text files and DLL 's many times. Also source code is available for most R Libraries.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

Hello,

Why not just skip all the programming and manual back test a trading idea for about 300 trades based historical data and review the performance metrics and start trading it live?

What advantage will programming a strategy have for me? Why should I spend +10000 hours learning to program? After I'm done learning, what trading ideas to test?

You see where I'm going with this. Explain the advantages programming a trading strategy rather then me just trading it straight up after some manual back testing? What is R anyway?

 

[kent]

Though this looks sarcastic, let me try to answer. R is a programming language. If proven system works it is good to trade manually and if it can be automated thru program more good. You can be at vacation/retirement thru out the year just swiping the cards based on the money earned by the program! Manual back testing will take lots of time and effort. Programming is not that difficult.