How to make a trading program

[abrejner]

Hi guys,

I am currently studying Economics at a university in Denmark, when I am not studying I am trading US stocks. I came to the Idea of making or getting someone to make a program trade the system I trade, and I would like to ask you if it is possible, what type of coding language I should go for and so on.

I would like the program to act on some technical indicaters such as MA's, stochastics and OBV from my charting program( Esignal), then it has to buy through a trading platform . Is that possible?

Best regard, Anders

 

[Joy Pathak]

MB Trading and Ninja Trader have their own API and automated trading system strategies that you can set to your liking. MB Trading has an API, but I heard in terms of built in indicators/etc for automated trades Ninja Trader is one of the better ones out there. (http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/index.htm )

Is it a specific strategy that you have in mind that you want to set up an algorithm for on a third party broker platform? or are you looking for just general softwares/platforms for electronic trading?

You can use C++ to set up your algorithms or MATLAB(there is a procedure to output your files in .NEt). I am sure there are other languages you can use too but I only have exposure to these two.

 

[Uncle Max]

You can start programming your system from scratch using C++, Jave etc. but you will be reinventing a lot of wheels by doing so.

The best path for you now is to use one of the trading platforms which can connect to your broker. These platforms have already built in all kinds of indicators, back-testing abilities and many other features. I would recommend you take a look at this one: AmiBroker

 

[abrejner]

Thanks for answering. I forgot I posted in here. I am playing with ninjatrader.

Are some of you guys coding in that? I have a multitimeframe strategy that I am trying to build in but i dont know how to tell it: "These conditions has to be true on these timesframes and this condition has to be true on just this timeframe?"

 

[RSTrader]

Your platforms are all very well known. For programming your code (and back and walk forward testing it) I would recommend Amibroker (like said above).If you know to program the AFL language will be easy to pick up. But you need more than average programming skills. (see i.e.: the looking forward bias).

If you are a good programmer you just build your own flexible backtester from scratch in let's say Java (like we did) which allows further building portfolio management and A.I.

Connecting the platforms ninja, e-signal is easy or was done before I guess.

If you can't program, there are programmers that can do the job for you. Make sure to have them sign a good NDA before disclosing your trade strategy...

Oh, yes I or my partner could do it.


Oh, on that multitimeframe strategy: you mean like the well know H1 candle and M5 candle overimposed strategie? Even metatrader let's you do that in no time.

Thanks for answering. I forgot I posted in here. I am playing with ninjatrader.

Are some of you guys coding in that? I have a multitimeframe strategy that I am trying to build in but i dont know how to tell it: "These conditions has to be true on these timesframes and this condition has to be true on just this timeframe?"

 

[Strat-O]

There is an open-source project that was abandoned in 2008 that is in Sourceforge. It is called Nextick. It used OpenTick for it's data source. When OpenTick failed, Nexttick died with it. You could fork this project and if you figure out a solution for it's data source, you'd have yourself a nifty system to do whatever with. It looks like it was pretty slick and feature-full. http://nextick.sourceforge.net/