developing a trading softwares

[intr1203]

Hello,
I am just thinking how difficult would be to develope a day trading software. Say, nothing fancy in terms of UI. Mainly open source for a version with basic features.

Are you folks aware of any open source initiative like that. I am wondering I would be interested in that.

Any one has ideas or suggestions?
Thanks

 

[HowardCohodas]

I am a retired software engineer, so programming a system is not a problem for me. And I've done quite a few.

No longer.

I now use Prodigio, available through ThinkOrSwim. It has a graphic user interface for building, testing and turning into a robot about anything you can dream up. Unless you want to learn programming, I would give it a try. I was able to use TOS for 5 months before funding my account. So learning it is likely to be free except for your investment in time,

 

[intr1203]

Actually I am a programmer. I am interested in developing something like http://www.marketcetera.org/confluence/display/MPIO/Welcome+to+the+Marketcetera+Communitybut but for day trading.

 

[HowardCohodas]

In that case I would explore two approaches.

If TOS ever reopens its FIX protocol accounts you can get direct access to quotes and order execution without the need for their desktop platform. In fact, I asked for an account just to get server access to some of their quotes and calculations to populate my Trading Dashboard. FIX accounts is just one of at least three programs I know about that are on hold and likely to be terminated as a consequence of their merger with TD Ameritrade. Now I've currently reduced myself to screen scraping for delayed quotes. Yuk. BTW, my server side is written in PHP with a lot of components obtained at no cost as open source through SoruceForge.net

My desktop Trading Dashboard is built in Excel with VBA and a direct link to the desktop TOS platform. Works great except when I'm on the road.

I hope this gives you some ideas worth pursuing.

 

[zsawevv212]

Each trading system has to have an edge. The edge is what should make your system have positive expectancy. In other words it must be profitable over the long run. We will go into the calculations and common misconceptions about expectancy later. But for now it is just important to understand that an edge should ideally make the system profitable in the long run and make you more likely to make money than lose money over a large enough sample size of trades
When selecting an edge it is very crucial not to over-optimize or fit the data. One common mistake that people make when developing a system is using 2 confirming indicators and optimizing them. This causes the system to look great historically; however the system will not do as well in the future.