In live trading, how to allocate portion of capital to an algo?

Quantopian's community platform is shutting down. Please read this post for more information and download your code.

Back to Community

In live trading, how to allocate portion of capital to an algo?

edited Aug 15, 2016

Newbie here and probably an obvious answer, but I couldn't find it --

If I have say, $100K in an account, and I want to "give" algo1 $10K and algo2 $20K as starting capital, and then from that point forward they each get to trade whatever they've got (including +/- whatever the algo has made or lost), how do I do that?

In paper trading, I see you just specify the capital when initially launching the live trade, but how does that work with a real money account and one with multiple positions in the portfolio?

2 responses

Mohammad Forouzani

You cant trade multiple algos in the same account.

The way to do this would be to create subaccounts in IB, put the right amount of money in each account, and assign an algo to each account.

Keep in mind that if you leave any IB account empty for too long, IB will close the account - I find this really annoying for catering for withdrawals without disrupting the algos.

Thank you Mohammad -- I used IB for years but didn't think about using subaccounts. That would work...

You've successfully submitted a support ticket.

Our support team will be in touch soon.

Need help? Contact support.

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.

About Quantopian

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.