Hey guys I am starting a project at some point where I and some others want to make a computer that does automatic trading. I was wondering how to interface with a bank account and with the stock exchange?
Remember the robin hood app that was talked about on the tek, that offers trading without fees? Looks like they have an API. You might see if you can get access. https://support.robinhood.com/hc/en-us/articles/203585145-Robinhood-API
This might be cool. The only thing is that it will depend a lot on latency. The best possible setup would be a bot physically close to the exchange. I thought about making one too, but the big firms that are normally used require a partnership. I think it's something like you have to give them 100,000$ minimum and access to all of your banking accounts as collateral. I could be completely wrong, I don't remember all of the details.
You need to go after the Forex. This is the most charted and trend friendly market besides futures + you can make practice live account on the "Ancient", still commonly used Meta Trader 4 Platform- they also have bot guides/templates where you can start on this. You can also minimize risk by using very tiny amounts of money $10-$50 depending on where you sign up until you can get your bot fine tuned with proper risk management.
I think going after stocks you are not going to have the right leverage and I am sure your bot will probably not be able to read news. I have Traded stocks forex and futures since i was 14, now I 20 and I am still a market enthusiast.
All good ideas, I will try and find some econ majors interested into the project. I am computer science so I can do the tech part.