I say if you have a strategy that's promising that will work with such a small amount of capital you should just go for it, and if it manages to survive real world trading conditions (real-world slippage, HFT front-running, etc.) there's no reason to limit yourself to playing with house money. I personally put all my extra income into my brokerage account. (Haven't withdrawn my Q winnings yet though since they're so meager.)

At only $1k your algorithm probably can't afford a brokerage with fees, which precludes QuantConnect (last I checked they only integrate with IB). I think the best route is to reach out to the Alpaca team about getting in on their beta -- it sounds like they plan on having a zipline-live integration. Everything about them is better than Robinhood -- better data resolution, better API documentation, etc.

Thanks Viridian Hawk -

Yes, Alpaca sounds like it might be a fit. I'll have to review their documentation. I can't sort out if they'll just be offering an interface ("Our API is a simple, powerful HTTP REST and WebSocket interface") or if algos will be uploaded to them, and run in the cloud. From the sound of things, it is the former, with free(?) data integration to the client (which I would be responsible for setting up and running, either from a home-based pc/server, or a cloud instance). We'll see.

if you have a strategy that's promising that will work with such a small amount of capital you should just go for it

I don't have a strategy, and I would probably start with something completely benign, to get the mechanics down first.

RE: Alpaca, I believe they are launching with the barebones API, which is free and documented here: https://docs.alpaca.markets They even have websockets for streaming real-time market data, so that's impressive. It sounds like they are just launching with a minimum viable product (the API) and then building out the more advanced features based on beta tester feedback, some of which will be pay features. When I talked with them they mentioned a hosted solution, cryptocurrency support, AI/machine learning,

Here's a link to get on the Alpaca wait list:

http://alpaca.markets/?ref=8449daa2ba1c

I guess I get bumped up in line, if you use it.

Just curious - is anyone manually trading on Robinhood, with an algo on Quantopian to provide the trades? This might be a simple option...

Ideally, it would be kinda cool to roll the money into the 1337 Street Fund, but I'd have to figure out how to pose as an accredited investor, and I'm guessing there's a minimum investment, too (something > $1K).

@Grant to your manual trading point.

Personally, I use IB over Robinhood. Thankfully, I tweaked my strategy to work with low frequency and fewer positions, so I just manually trade positions during the day. I find low frequency or few positions work well on low capital anyway.

Grant, I've developed mostly monthly strategies that combine 1 ETF with 8 stocks so it isn't too much work to manually trade them. I've been doing this on Robinhood for about a year now and have a pretty good chunk of change in the account. It's also where I put the $6K from my previous contest winnings.

I'm still unsure if my trades are helping anything over going into a Vanguard target date fund. Time will tell, and I think I'll need to wait for a recession of some kind to see if the strategy I've been using does any good at picking up on that trend ahead of time.

The strategy has two components. First it looks at sector trends and scales bond allocations by the number of sectors that are bearish. If none are, then no bond ETF but per bearish sector (20:200 day SMA) it puts 16% in bonds up to a cap at 80%. It compares a shorter term momentum score between short and long term bonds (20:60 SMA) to determine which bond ETF to allocate to. The rest of the allocation is evenly split between 8 stocks that are defined from a variety of factors in pipeline. Although it mostly boils down to a momentum and value strategy to select these stocks with emphasis on cash flow and an effort to select uncorrelated stocks.

Thanks Stephen -

Yes, something like that might be interesting. However, as you say, it is question of whether a Vanguard option would make more sense in the long run. I'm probably interested in something more speculative.

This just launched:

https://unhedged.io/

Another potential option, and should be well-aligned with Quantopian, since it is based on zipline-live. My understanding is that they'll start with Interactive Brokers integration.

Very cool! Thanks for that link @Grant. I've joined the waiting list. My guess (and hope) is that Q may partner with someone in the future to offer a premium (paid for) service for live trading again, but that it's probably not a priority for them in the near future. There could also be a potential conflict of interest as well as you could possibly front-run your own algo with your own money if you also have an allocation algo running.

If I had any winnings to invest (which I don't) I'd probably look at buying some index ETF on a regular basis (to get the cost averaging effect if the market does poorly in the short term), until it's grown to something more substantial that could handle a custom algo without getting killed by trading costs. There are plenty of leveraged index ETFs to pick from too if I wanted to take on more risk. Note that I'm not an investment advisor, and this is just what I would do with any potential winnings. :)

@ Joakim -

See also https://zipline-live.slack.com/.

Yes, leveraged ETFs are probably worth a look. There's the whole question of hedging, with $1000 capital, and not being able to short...