All You Need to Start Algorithmic Trading ( $$ #tradingalgo )

During the cold winter months, I usually leave Long Island for warmer climates. I recently spent ten days on our catamaran anchored in the Andaman Islands, India and a week in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. With plenty of bandwidth available, I ran my entire algorithm business using a Sony Vaio.

 

My laptop connects to Interactive Brokers via its application programming interface (API) and our software trades our algorithm in real time with minimal human intervention.

 

You can run a global algorithm trading business from a device costing about $500. Bandwidth, computing power, brokerage fees, and communication capabilities are cheap.

 

This is what you can do from your laptop:

 

• Open a trading account with a global online broker with strong Application Programming Interface (API) and sandbox capabilities (learn more here )

• Participate in algorithm trading groups on LinkedIn and various other forums

• Explore different drivers of algorithm value creation 

• Design and test your algorithm in the sandbox

• Take advantage of free third-party algorithms (see Accumulate/Distribute post)

• Initiate discussions with people interested in funding your strategy via a separately managed account

• Deploy your algorithm on a global basis

• Build a communication station

• Share documents (Google Docs)

• Take part in free voice and video conferencing

• Engage like-minded individuals (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StockTwits)

• Etc.

 

You might want to stop watching the tickers on your screen. Instead, start building an algorithm using the cheap tools around you. What do you say?

   

   

Written by Michael Bigger. Follow me on Twitter. Picture licensed under Creative Commons.

Comments

[Arthur]

Excellent post! I had no idea you were on Long Island.