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tweakmm

Lifer
May 28, 2001
18,436
4
0
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: AMDZen
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Why would it be? Low risk, high mass investing.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to program a learning AI to pick meaningful information out of what is basically chaos and noise?

No doubt.

If you can create it, all the more power to you. But by the time you got done with it (assuming you are doing it yourself or with minimal help) it would be obsolete. Meaning that the way it performs its function may no longer be as relevant to online trading and the way its conducted.

I agree but...Worth the practice. Great for studying marketing trends. Start with some 'virtual money' and see how it goes. What better way is there to spend the summer than some good ol programming?
What exactly are you suggesting?
A bot to trade when a set of preprogramed circumstances occur together? Or are you talking about a program that would be programed to learn from the market while making predictions about market direction all while constantly updating itself with what it's learned?

Because the former is relatively simple and the latter is well, relatively not.
The former. From a learning perspective it's a great way to bring in statistical analysis and programming together.
What do you know about trading? What markets are you familar with?

Unfortunately for you unless you are willing to put lots and lots of money in a brokerage account the closest you are going to get to the transaction process is through a 3rd party program that will allow you to use a scripting language to define the parameters of the sale.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,402
8,574
126
why even bother? any money you make would be purely random. you can't make money by studying trends in the market. lots and lots of studies have proved that. you might as well throw darts at a board, it'd be cheaper. just open up the paper to the stock listings and start throwing.
 

preslove

Lifer
Sep 10, 2003
16,754
64
91
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
A and C I agree with. Choose stocks low-risk, low-profit margin.With B, my suggestion: start low, work your way up. More money = Increase risk, increase chance of higher profit.

There's a lot of risk there, though. The only way this works is if you have sufficient transactions to get past anomolies and get a good statistical return.
 

Thraxen

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2001
4,683
1
81
Originally posted by: ElFenix
why even bother? any money you make would be purely random. you can't make money by studying trends in the market. lots and lots of studies have proved that. you might as well throw darts at a board, it'd be cheaper. just open up the paper to the stock listings and start throwing.

Sure you can, I've done it. Not on a large scale, but I managed to take an extra $2K I had and turn it into $6K+ in under a year just doing some occasional trades.
 

Miramonti

Lifer
Aug 26, 2000
28,653
100
106
Originally posted by: preslove
You would need a couple of things to do this effectively:

a). a way to make transactions at a VERY reduced rate. In terms of cents, not dollars.

b). Big ass bank roll to give you sufficient spread.

c). lots of programming hours to iron out problems.


Banks have all three of these, so they do it.

Proprietary systems and self-clearing firms aside, TradingSolutions.com has a very sophisticated software package designed to learn opportunities using neural networks (the only neural network package I know of).

InteractiveBrokers.com is a brokerage that charges $.005 (1/2 cent) per share, has their own API so you can program your own software to execute trades thru it.

If you can develop your system, prove that it is successful at finding opportunities and that it will make money in realtime trading, you will never have problems getting financing. In fact Bright Trading would probably do it, but if you can prove it will be very successful, it won't be a matter of getting backing, only a matter of getting the best terms for yourself.

Good luck. Let us know, OP, when you are rich. :)

 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,402
8,574
126
Originally posted by: Thraxen
Originally posted by: ElFenix
why even bother? any money you make would be purely random. you can't make money by studying trends in the market. lots and lots of studies have proved that. you might as well throw darts at a board, it'd be cheaper. just open up the paper to the stock listings and start throwing.

Sure you can, I've done it. Not on a large scale, but I managed to take an extra $2K I had and turn it into $6K+ in under a year just doing some occasional trades.

apparently you missed the bolded. i didn't say you couldn't make money, i said it'd be random. because of the cost this guy would incur doing this cockamamie scheme, he'd be worse off than just throwing darts at a dart board.

and i can't even be sure you made money, because for all i know you invested in the worst company in a booming industry, and would have done better off with less risk if you'd diversified.
 

Thraxen

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2001
4,683
1
81
Originally posted by: ElFenix
Originally posted by: Thraxen
Originally posted by: ElFenix
why even bother? any money you make would be purely random. you can't make money by studying trends in the market. lots and lots of studies have proved that. you might as well throw darts at a board, it'd be cheaper. just open up the paper to the stock listings and start throwing.

Sure you can, I've done it. Not on a large scale, but I managed to take an extra $2K I had and turn it into $6K+ in under a year just doing some occasional trades.

apparently you missed the bolded. i didn't say you couldn't make money, i said it'd be random. because of the cost this guy would incur doing this cockamamie scheme, he'd be worse off than just throwing darts at a dart board.


Nope, didn't miss that part. I was disputing the sentence right after that one. I studied the trends of a couple of stocks and made some money.
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
4,327
1
0
Originally posted by: preslove
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
A and C I agree with. Choose stocks low-risk, low-profit margin.With B, my suggestion: start low, work your way up. More money = Increase risk, increase chance of higher profit.

There's a lot of risk there, though. The only way this works is if you have sufficient transactions to get past anomolies and get a good statistical return.
Precisely the point of bots.

why even bother? any money you make would be purely random. you can't make money by studying trends in the market. lots and lots of studies have proved that. you might as well throw darts at a board, it'd be cheaper. just open up the paper to the stock listings and start throwing.

I agree wholeheartedly. But why study the market? If you can have a bot react instantly to fluctuations, why overcomplicate things? You'd be making quite a small amount of money per bot, but the net gain by the numerous bots would be massive wouldn't it?
 

Pepsei

Lifer
Dec 14, 2001
12,895
1
0
was it not computer that caused the last stock market crash?

the market dropped, and the computer programmed to sell after it drop a certain point caused it to drop even more... more computers started to sell... LOOP.
 

MaxDepth

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2001
8,757
43
91
However...

If you had 1000 bots, you could see it. But if you 10K robots then it definitely would be noticeable.

Because you have these robots tied to one stock, they do not see their actions affecting an overall trend. As a collective, your robots become part of the overall trends. Your robots could conceivable artificially raise or dump stocks.
 

tweakmm

Lifer
May 28, 2001
18,436
4
0
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: MaxDepth
I for one welcome our capitalist robot overlords.
:thumbsup: :)
:thumbsup::laugh:

:thumbsup::beer:

This idea, I think, has some potential... if done right.
It most certainly does, I'm probably gonna write up a few demo programs in the coming months to scalp pips from the foreign exchange market. Low spread and high margin allows for maximum profits while the few stragegies that I would program are so dead simple and almost always correct that it should hopefully work out well.
 

iversonyin

Diamond Member
Aug 12, 2004
3,303
0
76
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: MaxDepth
I for one welcome our capitalist robot overlords.
:thumbsup: :)
:thumbsup::laugh:

:thumbsup::beer:

This idea, I think, has some potential... if done right.
It most certainly does, I'm probably gonna write up a few demo programs in the coming months to scalp pips from the foreign exchange market. Low spread and high margin allows for maximum profits while the few stragegies that I would program are so dead simple and almost always correct that it should hopefully work out well.

I also flirt with the idea of writting my own neural network program mainly as a way of forcing myself to look at things in a differet way, I realise that my goal is probably ultimately a pipe dream. I really don't have the theoretical knowlege nor the money to spend on the hardware of a probable pipedream.


I hope you know you're not the first to think of it. There are plenty of traders that already have these programs running. I don't know if scalping pips will make up your commission cost.
 

tweakmm

Lifer
May 28, 2001
18,436
4
0
Originally posted by: iversonyin
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: MaxDepth
I for one welcome our capitalist robot overlords.
:thumbsup: :)
:thumbsup::laugh:

:thumbsup::beer:

This idea, I think, has some potential... if done right.
It most certainly does, I'm probably gonna write up a few demo programs in the coming months to scalp pips from the foreign exchange market. Low spread and high margin allows for maximum profits while the few stragegies that I would program are so dead simple and almost always correct that it should hopefully work out well.

I also flirt with the idea of writting my own neural network program mainly as a way of forcing myself to look at things in a differet way, I realise that my goal is probably ultimately a pipe dream. I really don't have the theoretical knowlege nor the money to spend on the hardware of a probable pipedream.


I hope you know you're not the first to think of it. There are plenty of traders that already have these programs running. I don't know if scalping pips will make up your commission cost.
I'm well aware of this. It's how the smart people and the big boys play.
I'm not talking about the neural networks yet either :D, I'm just talking about a few conditions that when together 85% of the time a small drop in the follwing 20 minutes will occur.
It'd be the same thing that I do manually every day which is truly an easy 8 pips in 15 or so minutes.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,402
8,574
126
Originally posted by: Thraxen
Nope, didn't miss that part. I was disputing the sentence right after that one. I studied the trends of a couple of stocks and made some money.
again, what you made is random profit. it wasn't due to you studying the 'trends' in the market. there are lots of studies that have proved that over and over again. any good finance book will show you that, in its discussion of the efficient capital markets hypothesis.
 

Thraxen

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2001
4,683
1
81
Originally posted by: ElFenix
Originally posted by: Thraxen
Nope, didn't miss that part. I was disputing the sentence right after that one. I studied the trends of a couple of stocks and made some money.
again, what you made is random profit. it wasn't due to you studying the 'trends' in the market. there are lots of studies that have proved that over and over again. any good finance book will show you that, in its discussion of the efficient capital markets hypothesis.

Sorry, I wholeheartedly disagree. I made profits over and over doing the exact same thing. Your studies are meaningless in light of what I've done first hand.
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
Originally posted by: Pepsei
was it not computer that caused the last stock market crash?

the market dropped, and the computer programmed to sell after it drop a certain point caused it to drop even more... more computers started to sell... LOOP.

yup that's what trading curbs are for. it only allows program sells on upticks and program buys on downticks.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,402
8,574
126
Originally posted by: Thraxen
Originally posted by: ElFenix
Originally posted by: Thraxen
Nope, didn't miss that part. I was disputing the sentence right after that one. I studied the trends of a couple of stocks and made some money.
again, what you made is random profit. it wasn't due to you studying the 'trends' in the market. there are lots of studies that have proved that over and over again. any good finance book will show you that, in its discussion of the efficient capital markets hypothesis.

Sorry, I wholeheartedly disagree. I made profits over and over doing the exact same thing. Your studies are meaningless in light of what I've done first hand.

yes, because personal experience and anecdote is so significant :roll: