A modest proposal

[Kevin_in_GA]

I just came out of a work meeting where the following observation was made – “I’d rather have a lot of ability and little motivation than a lot of motivation but little ability.” That got me thinking about NT and these forums – I can objectively assess that I am in the latter group, and that there are lots of people there with me. I also can tell that there are a lot of people in that more desirable former group that are really not all that inclined to put their talents to work on problems of interest to others but not to them.

There's a third group as well. The NinjaTrader Customer Service folks, who are both talented and motivated to help, but are not usually allowed to write code on request. Despite their skills and probable willingness to do so, they usually refer requests to either the help files or to a certified Ninjascript consultant.

As a result, many newbies get frustrated. I think everyone would agree that the learning curve for C# is steep, and many start out only to give up shortly thereafter. What I would love to see would be a more collaborative effort to create code that benefits everyone, and does more than just answer a narrowly defined need. For example, NT has the ability to be a fully automated trading program - quietly running nightly scans and using the results to trade the next day, all with little or no user involvement. The problem is that the pieces have not been assembled to do this, sort of like having a Porsche in the garage with half of its engine spread out on the floor. If a few people took the time to put the pieces together, the end result would be much more useful and valuable.

What would be very helpful for most users would be if there were flexible templates into which user-defined code could be placed that would make sure that the code worked correctly. As an example:

1. I might want to run an optimization on a specific strategy each weekend, and have the optimized variables automatically updated in my trading strategy and ready for the opening bell on Monday.
2. I might want to use a user-defined stock screen each night at 8 PM, and have the selected stocks update a predefined instrument list. I can write my specific screening criteria and just insert it into the right spot in the templates and – viola – it works.

For me, this type of code framework would be tremendously helpful, and I think a lot of it might require C# code not included in the standard NT documentation. I think this can really only come from a group effort to continuously improve and develop new tools.

If there is sufficient interest from the forum members, I propose that a collaborative effort be started to develop the code necessary to get the various pieces of NT (MA, Optimizer, Strategy, and Charting) to work together seamlessly and drive a truly autonomous trading system. The process will be open, the code freely shared with all members, and hopefully the end result is worthwhile to all who participate.

If you are interested in helping develop something like this, please let me know. This offer is to everyone here, from absolute beginner to experts and the NT support staff as well, if you are able to do so.

Thanks,

Kevin