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I'm new here. And I have so many questions!
Ning Liu
edited Nov 24, 2014

Hi Everybody,

I just stumbled upon Quantopian, and it seems to provide what I have been scrambling to try to put together, all in one website. Which is awesome!

I have read all the FAQ's, but still have a few questions, maybe more experienced users here can help me out. (And this forum doesn't seem dead like some others.)

  1. This Interactive Brokers, are they legit?
  2. I understand they take security very seriously, but still, is there a way to use an API and run my algorithm on my own machine, instead of storing it on their server?
  3. Does anybody do real money live trading? How much fee do Quantopian charge?

Thank you very much for your help! Any information is greatly appreciated!

Ning

8 responses
Ning Liu
Nov 24, 2014

And what's the good looking curve in front of everybody's name? Their recent returns? Pretty impressive!

Ning Liu
Nov 24, 2014

Come on, nobody wants to help?

Mete Atamel
Nov 24, 2014
  1. I haven't run any algos live yet with Interactive Brokers but they seem legit.
  2. Not with the data Quantopian providing for free. If you have your own data feed or don't mind using Yahoo data, you can use Zipline (https://github.com/quantopian/zipline). Zipline is the backtester that Quantopian uses and it's open source. I also went down this path and it takes some time to setup Zipline and there are differences between Zipline and Quantopian APIs that make things difficult but it's definitely doable.
  3. I haven't done live trading yet but some people do, check out this thread: https://www.quantopian.com/posts/success-stories
Ning Liu
Nov 24, 2014

Thanks Mete!

I have been back testing with Yahoo's data with my own code. The daily close data is okay, but the 'live' data is often corrupt, I really need a reliable data source to further my simulation. And Etrade claims to offer real time data with their API, but it's been difficult to set up so far. Even their Java SDK's download link doesn't work.

And I wonder how reliable the live minute-by-minute data here is.

And thanks for sharing the other thread, I'll go read it through now.

Brk Yng
Nov 24, 2014

Is it possible to hook up Zipline with Interactive Brokers API, so that you don't need Quantopian for routing orders from Zipline to IB?

Ning Liu
Nov 24, 2014

Burak,

What do you think about Yahoo's live data? I don't mind the 15 min delay, but I always get some zero or nan price values, which is frustrating, I'm not sure if it's because I did the Yql query wrong or something.

Dan Dunn
Nov 25, 2014

NIng, you should deploy a live algorithm for free with Quantopian (not using IB) if you want to test the quality of the live data. You can paper trade your algorithm as long as you like. When you're comfortable, then you can hook it up to IB and trade real money.

You're certainly welcome to run algos on your own servers - but as you note, you need your own data source, your own execution platform, your own broker integration, etc. You'll find more discussion about that in the Zipline user group than here on Quantopian.

Disclaimer

The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian. In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.

Ning Liu
Nov 25, 2014

Thank you for the response Dan!

I have been trying to plug my algorithms in Quantopian, but have run into some issues, as I raised in another post, I think they only allow a limited number of stocks in your universe. I'm hoping to get that resolved.

Because I'm starting to come around on the idea of putting my algorithm on the website, since the ease of backtesting and paper trading here is so tempting.

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The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian.

In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.