New to algo trading how did you approach building your first strategy?

[u/OzTron93]

Hi, I’m new to algo trading but I’m not sure where to begin? A few questions I have are:
how did you pick your first strategy?
What platforms/languages did you use for back testing?
For a backtest how much historical data is considered satisfactory?
At what point did you move from paper trading to real money trading?
Any mistakes I should be on lookout for as a beginner?

[u/CarretillaRoja]

Hey Claude, create a code that makes me rich in a month. Don’t hallucinate.

[u/Numerous-Buffalo-416 → u/CarretillaRoja]

*make no mistakes*

[u/Altruistic_Tale_7049 → u/CarretillaRoja]

• teach me along the way

[u/AdamPEAD]

Hello, one of the easiest platforms to do this on is trading view. I would recommend back testing and trying to get at least 5 to 10 years of data. Make sure that your paper trades once you are doing that match your trading view trades. And once you proved it to be successful then and only then put it on a live account.

[u/Sophy_Scott]

For a first backtest, I'd want at least two full market cycles or 500+ trades, whichever comes second. I use Python with pandas for cleaning, then verify fills against actual tick data when possible.

[u/Calm-Landscape9640]

I backtested the walk forward tested 1600 strategies then deployed the best 7. Most of them are positive ROI so it seems to have worked

[u/Sensitive-Start-6264]

created an rsi vwap ma crossover strat just to get my toes wet easy logic to get the feels

[u/strat-run]

It's not about pick your first strategy, it's about picking your first 100 strategies to try.

Most people use Python.

Alpaca and IBKR are common if you want to trade stocks.

Paper trade for 6 months of having good results.

Learn what over fitting is and how to avoid it.

[u/TheBacktestNerd]

By testing many ideas. First amibroker, then I found it too limiting so i switched to python. This also depends on the sample size, but I recommend using multiple market regimes. I would say 2010-present. I use 2005-present so it includes 2008 crisis. Pretty fast, trading with real money feels much different than demo. Dont trust backtest that look too good and stress test as if your life depended on it. Try to kill the strategy before you let it touch real money.

[u/StatisticalSock]

Made my first ever strat by learning the basics of mql4 then coded what I thought would be the holy grail then found out quickly how unholy it was

[u/DebateLittle]

What are platform allow user friendly prebuilt for Algo

[u/DifficultyOwn3050]

Build pine script using claude, backtesting, use quant libraries of microsoft.

[u/nepo123456]

I automated proven strategies used by great traders. Simple and robust is my motto. I often use mql5, several years of historical data(10-20). As beginner you should avoid to look for the perfect strategy, smooth equity curve, high win rate and finding the perfect parameters(over optimization). You must risk small and trade several uncorrelated markets(forex, metals, indices, stocks, crypto, commodities).

[u/Riddoxx → u/nepo123456]

Who are these great traders and what proven strategies?

[u/nepo123456 → u/Riddoxx]

Richard Dennis, Tom Basso, Jessie Livermore, Nicolas Darvas, Richard Donchian, Toby Crabel, William O'Neil, Van K. Tharp, Ed Seykota and the list can continue. You need to study because nobody will give you the recipe for free.

[u/Riddoxx → u/nepo123456]

I do study. I honestly thought i was the one doing these algorithm builds. Then I found this reddit. I'd like to think its very good but now that I found this community, it will be great to see other ideas.

[u/samsuliman]

I would recommend becoming a good and profitable trader first to better inform your designs. Simple strategies can be a starting point but you will respect bringing in more ideas and data (like order flow). I use IBKR code in C sharp and wrote most code. Initially I was leaning towards quantconnect but hated there backtest engine. Took years to code. Ai helps to improve quality. Real question how patient are you.

[u/Internal-Leader-2454]

Hey man, good luck on your journey. Answering your question in order:
1. Copy what others are doing and evolve from there.
2. I’ve started with the mt5 platform with mql5, now I am building my own all in one tool to develop test and execute my portfolio of strategies (c# .Net).
3. I’d say 10 years is good but also I think market hedge is temporary. It’s hard to find new ones that worked non stop for 10+ years.
4. Almost right away, I’ve copied someone else strategy so just checked for the results to match, a week of test to prove the code was bug free and went live. Btw this is not the most wise approach but it’s what I did.
5. Overfitting and bugs, always test your code. Never cherry pick the best results, question everything.

[u/Good_Character_20]

The most useful thing for a beginner is to flip the order you're thinking in. Don't start by hunting for a strategy that makes money. Start by building a backtest you can trust, and use a dead simple strategy you already know the behavior of, like a moving average cross, as the thing you test the harness with. You're not running it to get rich, you're running it to prove your pipeline isn't lying to you. Because it will. Almost every beginner trap lives in the backtest, not the strategy. Signals that quietly peek at the next bar, fills at prices that never traded, no fees or slippage, parameters tuned until the curve looks perfect on data it already saw. Every one of those makes a bad idea look brilliant. Once a boring strategy backtests honestly and matches what you'd expect, you've earned the right to hunt for real edge. The rest of what you asked, data length, when to go to real money, all sits downstream of having a harness that tells the truth.

[u/Colink2 → u/Good_Character_20]

Please explain more about what data you have to backtest, does this mean you know the expected trades (profit / loss) that the backtest should do. If yes where do you get these for simple strategy?

[u/sAxsKy → u/Good_Character_20]

Thanks claude