Personal Outsourcing - Hiring someone to operate or develop your trading system?

[abottoml]

Has anyone ever considered outsourcing any aspect of developing or operating a trading system?

It turns out there are plenty of "personal outsourcing" services out there. Here are a couple for example:

elance.com
Personal Assistant - Concierge Services - Sunday 24/7 Personal Assistants
getfriday.com
Knowledge Process Outsourcing | BrickworkIndia
Outsource to Freelancers, IT Companies, Programmers, Web Designers from India, Russia, USA, and more - oDesk

Obviously you wouldn't hand over the passwords to your trading accounts, and there may be a need to develop a way to protect a "winning" system, but some of the advantages could be:

- It would free up some time in your day by taking a bit of the grunt work out of operating your trading system (running scans, managing alerts, etc ...) - This would be useful for the many of us who still have a day job
- It could keep your trading activities more disciplined from a routine point-of-view if you "work" with someone who is on your payroll, and you have to deal with and respond to them on a weekly or daily basis
- Help with automatic trading development?
- Help with backtesting ideas and possible strategies?
- Help with paper trading ideas and possible strategies?

Thoughts?

 

[Rossini]

The cost of such a person plus all the usual expences- slippage and spread etc would mean you would have to make so many points that I doubt it would pay for its self....

 

[fifty2aces]

Surely if your system is mechanical enough that you would trust someone else to execute it, you could just automate it?

 

[jeffsmith]

As regards outsourcing the old adage is true “You get what you pay for.”

 

[pedro01]

This is just programming work. I've been programming since I was 13 years old & I'm now 38 and run a software company.

If the pipes burst in my house, I do not attempt to fix it myself but I call a plumber. Same with programming, some people are good at it & some can't get their heads around it. There is no reason a person with a decent system should be expected to have the skills to code it.

In terms of having a programmer develop your system, there will be 2 things that will impact its success

1 - The system itself
2 - How good the programmer is

Number 1 is the most important. If you can define the system in words, then you can define it in a program. Hard things to define are items such as 'support' and 'resistance' - they are very subjective and hard to code. You can say 'when support is broken' - but you also need to define how to recognise support.

In terms of the skills of the programmer, you should not test the code when you get it & make sure it follows your system. If not, the programmer should fix it for free.

In terms of cost. Programmers can cost between $200 a day to $2000 a day - depending on the field. I have no idea what a typical ESL contract developer would cost as I've never employed one and I've never been one.

If you have such a system & can lay out the outline of the system here or in a PM - in such a way that you don't give away the system. I can tell you how long roughly such a system may take to develop.

So - things you can put here without giving the game away -
- what type of indicators you watch
- if you use single/multi timeframes to give a signal
- if you scale in/scale out of a trade

etc.

You can give a lot of info without giving the game away.

One more thing - there is no reason to give your password away - you'd get code back that you could backtest yourself.

Ultimately though - YOU NEED THE SYSTEM FIRST. Once you have your system - then you can automate it. If you can't make money, you won't be able to tell a computer how to make it for you.

 

[AnEdge]

Having been building automated systems for years , for myself and instituitions, I cannot stress enough how important it is that your "outsourced" developer has trading knowledge. If they do understand the game, no matter how good their technical skills they will not be able to deliver what you need.

 

[Tulsii]

hi friends,

we are looking for the personal outsourcing manager for our office in India... I would appreciate if any of you can assist me to find the right person in India.
you can also contact me at [email protected]

Thanks

 

[pedro01]

Having been building automated systems for years , for myself and instituitions, I cannot stress enough how important it is that your "outsourced" developer has trading knowledge. If they do understand the game, no matter how good their technical skills they will not be able to deliver what you need.

Good point - a programmer in any field will be much more successful if they understand the subject matter at hand.