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If you have some question if it even possible, feel free to ask. It take some time, because you have to try everything out. You Need very very good Programming Skills.
You can programm almost everything you want, it is just a question of Skills.
I already do. It's been a long journey/obsession for almost 10 years now. All intraday trading is fully automated, but I determine which strategies to run/not run based on the current trend and volatility market regime. Other trading is part discretionary backed with data-driven signals on daily time frames.
As for platforms, I've gone from NT 6.5, then 7, then to 8, but since I also day-trade options now I've moved over to custom C# code talking to my IB account. I still use Ninja to generate daily time frame signals and to model trading ideas quickly or when I need lots of stock/futures historical data to backtest, but I maintain some large SQL databases I am using more an more and using NT less and less as time goes by.
I'm still amazed at how few brokers offer APIs to their platform to retail traders. I see that changing, but the larger firms don't seem to care, it seems to be coming from the grass-roots or new/upstart firms. In crypto, every exchange that matters has an API. I'm hoping the new "small" exchange, announced by Sosnoff recently, will have APIs for retail traders & developers or at least so their brokers can offer it to their clients.
Auto-trading is not a quick path to retirement though. Operating them, updating data daily, and constantly researching the changing nature of the market and other types of strategies is still a lot of work, so it's not a "turn on the computer ATM machine and spend the day at the beach" sort of life, at least not for me (yet?). The intellectual challenge keeps me engaged. The profits are nice too
What you describe is semi-autotrading. It's simply not possible to completely automate trading and also be sustainably profitable..
So when I say that there is no such thing as a profitable autotrader, I'm referring to "turn on the computer ATM machine and spend the day at the beach" , set and forget, 100% automatic.
I decide on entering / exiting a trade according to fundmental data (eg. Supply & demand, Seasonals, COT data), deciding each trade separately. Time horizon for my trades is weeks to months.
I've always said, that anything can be programmed.
The impossible just takes longer and costs more.
A few years ago, self-driving cars were thought impossible.
Today they are quickly becoming an impossible reality.
I have no doubt it is possible.
But at my age (69) I would rather spend my remaining years enjoying life and not programming the impossible just to prove it can be done.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
While I probably agree with this absolute statement, I think the pursuit of automation is worthwhile, whether you're automating entries and exits with limit orders and OCO exit brackets, or trying to devise entry/exit/sizing/risk mgt heuristics. A 100% hands-off black box, that is sustainably profitable is hard to do, would be difficult to build but may be possible. You'd have to enjoy the pursuit to get there.