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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?

#201

Post by mathgenius »

pphysch wrote: post #63
jmhyer123 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone says their algorithm relies on some sort of TA, run for the hills. Care to explain? I'm genuinely curious as I've had some success in this area. Curious if I should be aware of something that I'm not...

Fundamentally, the history of a price has nothing to do with its future price. The laws of nature do not care if you are on a bull run. So TA is completely bunk in that regard. However, obviously many people do rely on TA, which means TA is influencing the price (you can beat their TA algo with your own TA algo). The problem is, you never really know what everyone else is doing. Relying on TA amounts to playing rock-…

> Fundamentally, the history of a price has nothing to do with its future price.

This is not true at all. Price movements show auto-correlation, for example.

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

#202

Post by tptacek »

cjbprime wrote: post #121
carbocation wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is absolutely not within the definition of insider trading.

It seems pretty close? Insider trading is any trade that exploits non-public information, regardless of whether it's made by an employee.

It is not close, since no agent-principal relationship exists.

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

#203

Post by gerdesj »

charlesdm wrote: post #194
gerdesj wrote: post #193

I'm going to pull out some small bits from your AHN and ask in return: If you think you might have found a niche that might work in your favour, why on earth broadcast it? "...that would not be interesting enough for larger algorithmic trading firms" This could have been your potentially unique insight. "... But are there opportunities ..." There probably are but you wont find them being researched on AHN. "no need t…

Honestly, I don't. I was merely wondering whether people are even able to make money doing this. This is akin to, "are indie devs making money on the App Store in 2018?"

Fair one mate. I suppose I read too much into it and I apologise for perhaps being a bit aggressive.

I take you are more interested in the environment itself rather than actively exploiting it - although that might become an option later 8)

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

#204

Post by admiralg »

arisAlexis wrote: post #198
clevernapkins wrote: post #171

I have an equities strategy that I run on IB. I think it is possible to generate alpha with a small account if you do it right e.g. don't compete with big funds in HFT. There's a cool article about this by Robert Carver who used to be a portfolio manager at one of the top quant funds. https://qoppac.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/david-versus-goliath.h...

do you think IB would close an account for algo trading? I have bad experience with sportsbooks

no, we support it, there's an api that you can use. Brokerages live off of volume.

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

#205

Post by Retric »

PeterisP wrote: post #169
dorgo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically you are saying that it's all gambling and nobody has a better strategy / better information than everybody else. Some are just lucky and it is all because of the survival bias. I agree with you in that it is a possible explanation, but I disagree in that it is the only one possible.

I feel that what he's saying is that it's hard to tell if somebody actually has a working strategy or it's just gambling, they can be nearly indistinguishable, and (given the number of people) someone showing a streak of successes is really not much evidence that it's something beyond luck. They may have something, but since you can't determine if it's so and there is a lot of just gambling, then most likely it's tha…

That's part, but the reverse is also true. Someone could lose money and still have better odds than normal. Something like skill adds 5% then luck adds or removes 30%.

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

#206

Post by diminoten »

latencyloser wrote: post #196
diminoten wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my question about what you've described is: can't I just give you my money, you do this for me with my money, and you make a cut off of it? In other words, what products can I buy that basically do what you're doing already?

Not me, no. But if you've got a good money manager they can/will do this sort of thing if you ask. Otherwise, this is sort of how a hedge fund works--delta neutral portfolio management. You can always try to join one of those.

Thanks for answering my question, but I was being hypothetical. I just wanted to know what services do this sort of thing in theory, not like I have money I need to get involved in this idea!

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

#207

Post by adjkant »

In crypto, yes, and there are tons of bots out there, many taking very different approaches.

There are a few very big ones that are quite easy to spot if you sit and watch GDAX for 5 minutes.

It's too high risk for most big firms to touch it, but I assure you many are writing bots for it. Many HFT, many AI based predictions.

I've got one that's ranged in return per year estimates from 15,000% to 1000% (the thing I capitalize on is decreasing steadily over time). Currently sitting up 100% in 3.5 months with a relatively low amount put in.

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

#209

Post by fedecaccia »

trophycase wrote: post #176
headmelted wrote: post #98

I hacked together my own scripted system that would arbitrage cryptocurrency across exchanges. It worked (for the most part), but it's been abandoned now. The best way I can think of to describe why is to say that while the low hanging fruit exists, there's far too little juice in it for it to be worth the squeeze. Others have explained that the problem they've encountered is counter-party risk in that some exchanges…

This is why you don't withdraw. Just arbitrage back the other direction. My arbitrage script was weighted to favor rebalancing my portfolio.

Are you talking about pair trading? How do you do it, since you can't go short in crypto? (At least not if you are not using bitfinex)

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

#210

Post by tathougies »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #185
_fq4v wrote: post #110

Yes. I have a very simple algorithm. Expressed as a function f(state of the market) = purchase shares in a fund that tracks the S&P 500 Total return: 12-20%/yr. Sometimes more, sometimes less

When does your algo close the position?

Once 4% of the current value equals my expenditures for the year, it'll start selling enough capital each month so that I recuperate all my personal living expenses. I doubt the positions will ever be fully closed out until I'm dead.
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