I have an algorithm I would like to paper trade, but I already have three contest entries with several months of historical data. I would rather not cancel those entries. So I'm wondering, is it possible to paper trade algorithms besides entering them in the competition?
Yes, go to your backtest and hit Live Trade. Then hit Quantopian as your broker. It will also let you choose how much you want in the account. Which helps if you want to in-sample test a small capital strategy.
When you run a backtest, click "Live Trade Algorithm", it is right next to "Share Results", in the top right corner. But it is below "All Backtests", "Algorithm", and "Backtest". If you hit "Live Trade Algorithm" then hit Quantopian as your broker it will let you paper trade.
I'm curious what you're using the paper trading UI for.
In general, you can run a backtest over a timeframe and it is the exact same as doing live trading. Is there something you're doing that you like seeing the minute-to-minute? Just curious about the use case.
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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.
Hi Dan: I'm developing a new algorithm from scratch with the hope of building something worthy of receiving an allocation. When developing my competition algorithm I found a few small things came out of the wash during paper trading that never showed up during backtesting. So I'm paper trading a draft version of my latest algorithm with a similar hope.
Some of the issues I found while paper trading my competition algorithm, like intra-day slippage, I couldn't see without the fast resolution. Other issues, like subtle dynamics when building up the initial positions, I could have found during back testing, but I noticed because I was checking the behaviour of my competition algorithms every day, and happened to notice a transient that didn't occur during any of my backtests. I was standardizing the start/stop dates for my backtests, so I had only checked the initialization routines for a few time periods, which didn't occur to me until paper trading.
I realize there's a risk of survivorship bias if I do too much paper trading, so I try to be careful of this and generally don't stop/start paper trading unless I have a good reason, like a tweak or bugfix. I also keep two out of sample sets, Jan. 2015-Jan. 2017 and Jan. 2017-present. With the latest algorithm I've only tested the first out of sample set once, and the second set zero times (besides the paper trading starting today).
OK, that's very helpful, thank you.
One tip that might be helpful for you: Build up some skills exploring your backtest results in the research environment. First run get_backtest_results. From there you can either explore the data yourself, or run a tearsheet, or both. They will make the backtest a more powerful tool for you, I think.
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.
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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.