A Beginner’s Path into Algorithmic Trading

Summary

The document offers a starting point for a novice interested in algorithmic trading. It recommends studying Ernest Chan’s books and blog to learn how strategies are structured, how trading signals are generated, and how to backtest and interpret results. It notes that these resources may not teach programming an algorithm from the very beginning, but can provide a foundation for understanding the trading process.

For hands-on practice, the answer suggests exploring a community platform with existing algorithms, code comments, and tools for modifying and backtesting strategies. The guidance is based on a brief community response rather than a comparison of courses or a detailed curriculum. It does not assess the named course’s difficulty, establish prerequisites, or explain how to judge whether a strategy is robust. The suggested platforms and resources may also change over time, so readers would need to check their current availability and features.

Key ideas

• Study strategy structure, signal generation, backtesting, and result interpretation as core parts of algorithmic trading.
• Books and writing by Ernest Chan are recommended as sources for foundational concepts.
• The suggested reading may not teach programming from the ground up.
• Existing algorithms and community tools can provide practical opportunities to modify and backtest strategies.

Tags

# Algorithmic Trading


# Algorithmic Trading












I am a novice when it comes to algorithmic trading with strong interest in the subject matter. As I am looking around for online courses, I can only find one course called Algorithmic Trading Strategies. The reviews look decent but it is hard to say if the course is for beginners like me or for someone who is more advanced. Any recommendations on how to get started?

## Answer by Eliotb (score 1)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/35024

Look up any book from Ernest Chan.

such as this one: https://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Trading-Winning-Strategies-Rationale-ebook/dp/B00CY5HC0U/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=quantitativet-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=OKVO7DYTPENVN5Y7&creativeASIN=B00CY5HC0U

This might not necessarily teach you how to code an algorithm from 0 to 1, but will give you the basic foundation in order to understand how an algorithm is stacked, how its built, what trading signals you are trying to generate and how to actually back-test and interpret the data.

You can also check his blog epchan.blogspot.com.

There are a wealth of communities as well such as quantopian.com that allow you to fiddle around with existing algorithms, and use their api to backtest and modify. It would be a good starting point, if you just want to go straight into the coding aspect. Some of the posted algorithms come with very detailed comments that can help

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This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.