Book Image

Getting Started with Forex Trading Using Python

By : Alex Krishtop
Book Image

Getting Started with Forex Trading Using Python

By: Alex Krishtop

Overview of this book

Algorithm-based trading is a popular choice for Python programmers due to its apparent simplicity. However, very few traders get the results they want, partly because they aren’t able to capture the complexity of the factors that influence the market. Getting Started with Forex Trading Using Python helps you understand the market and build an application that reaps desirable results. The book is a comprehensive guide to everything that is market-related: data, orders, trading venues, and risk. From the programming side, you’ll learn the general architecture of trading applications, systemic risk management, de-facto industry standards such as FIX protocol, and practical examples of using simple Python codes. You’ll gain an understanding of how to connect to data sources and brokers, implement trading logic, and perform realistic tests. Throughout the book, you’ll be encouraged to further study the intricacies of algo trading with the help of code snippets. By the end of this book, you’ll have a deep understanding of the fx market from the perspective of a professional trader. You’ll learn to retrieve market data, clean it, filter it, compress it into various formats, apply trading logic, emulate the execution of orders, and test the trading app before trading live.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction to FX Trading Strategy Development
5
Part 2: General Architecture of a Trading Application and A Detailed Study of Its Components
11
Part 3: Orders, Trading Strategies, and Their Performance
15
Part 4: Strategies, Performance Analysis, and Vistas

FX Market Overview from a Developer's Standpoint

The FX market has long been very attractive for developers, mostly because there’s a lot of free stuff associated with this market, such as market data, trading software, and various third-party solutions. However, the quality of freely available solutions is frequently so low that it’s in fact not possible to use them for any serious trading.

The main problem with trading in the FX markets is their strong fragmentation. Historically, FX was an interbank market with no dedicated center. So, trading venues offer not only different trading platforms but also different market data, different types of orders, and different access to liquidity. This fragmentation may be quite confusing, so it’s essential to obtain a sufficient level of understanding in order to avoid making mistakes, which at times can be quite painful.

In this chapter, we will look at this market from a developer’s standpoint to discover...