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Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#51

Post by jjeaff »

windowshopping wrote: post #22
mbroshi wrote: post #17

I wonder whether the premise of your question is faulty. If you ask enough people: "In your last 100 flips of a coin, did you get more than 60 heads?" some will truthfully say "Yes." Unfortunately, that does not mean there's anything special about their coin-flipping strategy, or that you will be able to generate a successful coin-flipping strategy. My guess is what you really want to know is "What is my expected gai…

Mostly I believe this too, but I am familiar with some people who can consistently make money year after year. From talking to them it becomes clear that they understand things very, very deeply. See /u/Fletch71011 on reddit-- he's always happy to discuss things. He's made millions trading options, mostly algorithmically as I've understood it. The methods he uses are sufficiently complex that you need to be very well…

Markets have been going up for a while now. So anyone with half a brain is making money. But long term, there are essentially 0 investors making money on day or algorithmic trading.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#52

Post by icebraining »

mirceal wrote: post #15
pfarnsworth wrote: post #13

I lost about $100k doing algorithmic trading. I spent the better part of 2 years after work immersing myself in algorithmic trading, understanding the architecture of the stock market, and getting very very deep into the topic. I found an algorithm that was wildly positive, and traded it on 3 separate markets every night. I learned a lot and I love everything I learned, but it was a very expensive lesson. The #1 thin…

if you've lost 100k, you had 100k to spare. agree it was an expensive lesson.

if you've lost 100k, you had 100k to spare

Not if you're leveraging! For an extreme example, this guy lost $210k of borrowed money: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5934&s...

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#53

Post by ww520 »

windowshopping wrote: post #22
mbroshi wrote: post #17

I wonder whether the premise of your question is faulty. If you ask enough people: "In your last 100 flips of a coin, did you get more than 60 heads?" some will truthfully say "Yes." Unfortunately, that does not mean there's anything special about their coin-flipping strategy, or that you will be able to generate a successful coin-flipping strategy. My guess is what you really want to know is "What is my expected gai…

Mostly I believe this too, but I am familiar with some people who can consistently make money year after year. From talking to them it becomes clear that they understand things very, very deeply. See /u/Fletch71011 on reddit-- he's always happy to discuss things. He's made millions trading options, mostly algorithmically as I've understood it. The methods he uses are sufficiently complex that you need to be very well…

Be careful with volatility. I don't know what he's trading on exactly. But a big part of volatility trading is selling insurance, i.e. selling insurance against the direction of S&P. You can make a lot of money collecting insurance premium, but on the event of a payout, like a sudden big drop in S&P, the loss can be very substantial. See XIV and SVXY in February of this year.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#54

Post by baccredited »

Yeah I made 21.4% in 2017. I wrote my own algorithms and did back-testing with custom ruby code and data from ycharts.com ($) and brokerage.tradier.com (free if you have an account). Ruby is a weird choice in this area as most probably use r or python, but I love ruby.

The key for me is to focus on long-term trading strategies that are at least a year long. The HFT guys and people who spend their time on quantopia and the like have a day trader mentality.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for asking this question, I will look for you on twitter.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#55

Post by ljubica »

We have started something similar to the your question. It is project which generates useful signals for trading with Bitcoin and improves existing trading strategies with these signals. In case you would like to read more, we wrote a blog: https://www.smartcat.io/blog/2018/bitcoin-trade-signals/

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#57

Post by aflagatopamoon »

Yes, made more money last year trading, than for all my previous jobs combined. Probably got lucky by betting big in an up-trending market, but I'll take it.

I use an automated inter-day scalping bot and a collection of scripts to help with manual longer-term technical trading or jumping into a P&D for quick profits.

Generating alpha was easier for me than setting everything up. I did not use any complicated model or strategy.

I suppose it will get more difficult, if not impossible, once the big boys jump in, but right now it is a market for makers.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#59

Post by seiferteric »

baccredited wrote: post #54

Yeah I made 21.4% in 2017. I wrote my own algorithms and did back-testing with custom ruby code and data from ycharts.com ($) and brokerage.tradier.com (free if you have an account). Ruby is a weird choice in this area as most probably use r or python, but I love ruby. The key for me is to focus on long-term trading strategies that are at least a year long. The HFT guys and people who spend their time on quantopia an…

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic, the S&P was up slightly more than that in 2017...

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making money through algorithmic trading?

#60

Post by cschneid »

baccredited wrote: post #54

Yeah I made 21.4% in 2017. I wrote my own algorithms and did back-testing with custom ruby code and data from ycharts.com ($) and brokerage.tradier.com (free if you have an account). Ruby is a weird choice in this area as most probably use r or python, but I love ruby. The key for me is to focus on long-term trading strategies that are at least a year long. The HFT guys and people who spend their time on quantopia an…

In 2017, the S&P 500 was up 18.74% - not that the extra 2.5% you made is nothing, but it's not a get-rich-quick type of return.

How many trades did you do over the course of the year? Was your volatility lower than the market overall?

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