How To Build An Automated Trading System

With the evolution of technology and unlimited resources on trading strategies, I had an idea. Now, this is not a new idea and by no means is it an original idea. A lot of the leading hedge funds in the world have researched and implemented these ideas and have paid off big time. 

The idea is quite simple. I have an investment strategy and I want a system to listen to the market and take action based on my strategy. However, putting this to practice has been nearly impossible for the regular traders at the lowest levels. In my opinion, it is now the right time for the regular traders to get into the action.

Why Now

1. $0 commissions
2. API Access, Not some unofficial api 
3. Technology advancements
4. Accessibility to the plebians. Hedge funds have millions to invest into proprietary systems and plug right into the exchanges

How is this different then regular trading

There are many types of traders and this solution, in the way I plan to implement it  is specifically tied to replacing the work done by day traders. If your style is buying and holding for 30 yrs, dividend growth investing, or any other simple trading then this is probably not for you. At least not right now. 

If you’re like me and you watch day traders with 10 monitors, 30 active charts with 1000’s of indicators then you probably came to a similar conclusion. “Looks Cool, but it probably consumes your life”. 

With an automated system the goal is to program it and just let it run while you work on bettering your strategies. Removing yourself from having to wake up at 4am and going to bed at midnight just to stay ahead of the market. 

How To Build an Automated Trading System

In this section I will describe what I consider to be the best option for creating such a system. There are many technologies that come into play to create the system. 

What Will We Build

1. Ubuntu 20 LTS Server Instance on Linode With:
   1. Nodejs
   2. MySQL
   3. NGINX
   4. Python
   5. Performing data analysis
   6. Interfacing with the Alpaca API to create orders
2. Web Application
   1. Express Server
   2. React Application
   3. Python Scripts
3. Tie server to a domain of my choice