Creating my own algorithm

[alon cohen]

Hello everyone, i don't have any prior knowledge in programing. i started to get interested about algo trading and began learning data science course in coursera.
i'm currently trading stocks with interactive brokers (TWS), i figured that i need to learn java to know how to manage with TWS program.
i have couple of strategies that i want to apply and my question is what is the fastest way to do it without learning new programing languages? i want to use data mining tools and machine learning.
hope i explained myself well..
Alon

 

[rholowczak]

Hi
There is a lot that goes in to a trading algorithm - much more than just getting a hold of some prices and making a buy/sell decision. To do even something simple, you will definitely need to learn some programming.
If you are interested in being able to back-test strategies right away, I suggest looking at Quantopian. The code is written in Python and can also be connected to your Interactive Brokers account should you want to do that at some point down the road. There are tons of examples already there for you to test and modify.
If you are willing to dig in and learn Java (or another programming language) I can humbly suggest some very basic TWS API tutorials: http://holowczak.com/category/ib/

A third alternative is to hire someone to code your algorithms for you. Ultimately though you are going to want to understand what your trading algo is doing at a very detailed level.