Book Image

Python Algorithmic Trading Cookbook

By : Pushpak Dagade
Book Image

Python Algorithmic Trading Cookbook

By: Pushpak Dagade

Overview of this book

If you want to find out how you can build a solid foundation in algorithmic trading using Python, this cookbook is here to help. Starting by setting up the Python environment for trading and connectivity with brokers, you’ll then learn the important aspects of financial markets. As you progress, you’ll learn to fetch financial instruments, query and calculate various types of candles and historical data, and finally, compute and plot technical indicators. Next, you’ll learn how to place various types of orders, such as regular, bracket, and cover orders, and understand their state transitions. Later chapters will cover backtesting, paper trading, and finally real trading for the algorithmic strategies that you've created. You’ll even understand how to automate trading and find the right strategy for making effective decisions that would otherwise be impossible for human traders. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use Python libraries to conduct key tasks in the algorithmic trading ecosystem. Note: For demonstration, we're using Zerodha, an Indian Stock Market broker. If you're not an Indian resident, you won't be able to use Zerodha and therefore will not be able to test the examples directly. However, you can take inspiration from the book and apply the concepts across your preferred stock market broker of choice.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

The market depth of a financial instrument

The market depth of a financial instrument is a chronological list of data on buyers and sellers in the market. The buyers list is a list of prices and their respective quantities at which the buyers are willing to buy the instrument for. Similarly, the sellers list is a list of prices and their respective quantities at which the sellers are willing to sell the instrument for. If you are new to the concept of market depth, the explanation in the How it works… section of this recipe will give you more clarity.

Market depth helps in predicting where the price of an instrument is heading. It also helps to understand whether an order with a large quantity can change the price significantly or not. Market depth is dynamic in nature, meaning it changes constantly during the live trading hours. This recipe helps find out the market depth of a financial instrument in real time.

Getting ready

Make sure the broker_connection and instrument1 objects...