Which Programming Language Can Be The Best

Best Programming Languages for Algorithmic Trading

The answer to the question “what is the best software for algorithmic trading?” is very much related to the answer to the question “which programming language should I choose?”. Software is a fancy word for a computer program and when it comes to computer programs, “programming language” is a key term. Just like Apple’s IOS operating system and Samsung’s Android operating system, programming languages actually do the same thing but in their own ways. They have their own styles, patterns, preferences, similarities and differences.

Most Popular Programming Languages

“Hello World” is the cliché statement every beginner programmer has their first code print on the computer screen and maybe “Hello Money” should be the first statement any algorithmic trader first injects into the script of their investment algorithm software. No matter which coding language you choose, you are supposed to be using the basic features such as printing values, defining variables, doing basic operations like division, multiplication, addition or subtraction etc. However, basic features can be brought together to devise highly complex set-ups just like the way a finite number of letters can be juggled in order to create an indefinite number of words, which can also be ordered in countless different ways. 

What Can Trading Algorithm do?

Tools available in programming languages are so many that almost any action that people take online can be mimicked with the help of software. Whenever we go online, we click on things, read stuff, do copy-paste operations or download and upload files. All these digital operations can easily be done with automation. For instance, a programming library offered by the programming language “Python” allows software designers to access websites and navigate through those websites without any real person sitting in front of the computer. In other words, automation for web browser interaction can be achieved via this specific library, which is named “Selenium”.

Selenium is Gold

Selenium works in a rather simple way! Once you have installed the required library, you can import “Selenium” in any text editor such as Sublime Text, Atom, PyCharm or even Notepad. In order to activate and use Selenium, you are supposed to install a driver, which can be done through a few lines of code. There are several Selenium drivers for different web browsers like Google Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. The driver can be seen as your digital servant, which will practically do anything for you.

Check the price for me!

To simulate a simple automated forex algorithmic trading software that can be coded using Selenium, all of the following actions can be performed with certain commands in Python programming language. As the first step, you can instruct the Selenium library to go to a website you have interest in visiting.

“browser.get (‘www.investing.com’)”: This short line of code will instruct your software to access the website you have included in brackets.   In this example, it will be opening the web browser of your choice and loading the page at the given URL, which is www.investing.com.

“find_element_by_xpath(xpath for any item)”: “Find_element” command helps you to navigate within the website you have accessed. A basic knowledge of “html” and how websites are built is likely to be a prerequisite to understand this step. Simply by right-clicking on an item on the website and clicking “inspect”, you can see the html code of the item. The software designer needs to feed these html details into the code so that Selenium can know how it can access the item in question. In our example, once the home page is loaded, we can access and click on the section “Cripto”, which is going to direct us to the page devoted to cryptocurrencies. In order to make sure that Selenium knows the exact location of this clickable item on the home page, xpath for “Cripto” section must be provided in brackets in find_element command.

“click()”: “Click” function performs the action of left-clicking. You need to use this function to click on the item you have found via find_element function. In other words, you instruct the Selenium to perform the required actions step by step. In our example, the page “Cripto” will load to show real-time prices for several cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, BNB etc.

Once again, with the help of find_element function, you can access the price, market cap or volume of any cryptocurrency available on the page. All the rest is up to your imagination and your way of trading. For instance, by getting the prices for Bitcoin and Ethereum, you define new variables and assign these values to the variables in order to calculate the ratio of Bitcoin/Ethereum price if you believe that this ratio could indicate anything significant to you. Likewise, you can compare the volumes of different currencies so as to understand relative demands for these assets.  You can also store these values in csv or text files for analytical purposes later on.

Can’t be bothered?

All this coding process to create your own stock trading algorithm software might seem mind-boggling though. In that case, keep in mind that there are thousands of coding geeks out there who can help you design your software. To put it in another way, it is a question of “do it” or “have it done”.

If you decide to go for the latter, luckily you have some cost-effective options available. An algorithmic trading start-up, Zeus Capital has four different trading algorithms in its toolkit and these algorithms can offer up to 10% return on your capital.