Can I algo trade as an individual investor?

Folks .. quick question for you...

Is there a broker out there that allows me, as an individual investor, to trade using custom logic / algorithms, e.g. if stock A falls below price X then buy stock Y OR Buy stock Z as soon as it becomes one of the S&P 500, etc..

Ideally, I would like to be able to feed in my logic/expectations in the morning for some stocks I am speculating about ... then go to work and not worry about it for the rest of the day.. thoughts?

14 Comments
 

Quantopian and Quantconnect are the two best options in this space if you're looking for a full algo trading setup. If you just want a broker then there are quite a few (like Interactive Brokers) who will service algo accounts.

Also, Ernest Chan has two quasi-textbooks on the market about individual algo trading and his blog is also worth a follow.

 
Best Response

InteractiveBrokers.com has had an API for over a decade. If you know how to code, these brokers are definitely out there.

Word to the wise- I'd start out without a margin agreement. Algo trading can get you into a lot of trouble if you fat-finger something (cc: Knight Capital) and it's smart to limit your contractual responsibility if you screw something up. As a guy with five years of financial programming/quantitative development experience, I can attest that even the professional coders screw up. It's a 1 in 10,000 prod commit event (which really means 1 in 10 over the course of the year), but it's certainly possible that a tail event happens. Be kind to yourself and limit your liability- and make sure your broker does, too!

 

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