Are you still wanting to help newbs? I’ve found some alpha that probably would be simple to code for most but I can’t seem to figure it out on my own. Would love to chat 
I’m always down to help!
Hi Josh,
Total Noob here but looking to help out where I can, pretty tech savy (6+ years dev) but just scratching the surface in Algo-trading, but love it already!
I am looking for people to kick start a conversation on how to improve/work with Alpaca and general discussion!
Hi Erik! I agree, working with the Alpaca API is a lot of fun. I won’t make the claim that I’m the all knowing Alpaca Guru, however I have been working with the API for some time now and have become pretty comfortable with it. I would be delighted to engage in said discussion!
Josh - Love your willingness to help others, and your attitude / perspective in general. I’m an algo trader / data scientist / P.M. that stumbled upon Alpaca when looking for historical data to backtest on my personal servers (so the IP remains mine & not the firm I work for). Still tinkering with things here, but should be able to figure things out. If not, I hope it’s okay if I send a question or two in your direction. Similarly, if you have any burning questions on signal processing, data science / ML or systematic trading in general, feel free to shoot them my way. l’m all about information exchange, esp. with others who are also so open & willing to help the community.
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@Metaprog Absolutely, I’m eager to help with any issues or questions. I’m also a learning as well so periodically I may look for solutions or advice. I’m currently working on implementing buy/sell signals in my algorithm and I’ve got a list of content that I intend on creating to help others. Thanks for reaching out and I look forward to any inquiries.
Hi Josh,
I am new to alpaca and don’t quite understand where I can go to find all the different commands and functions that I can call with alpaca. where might I go to find all that info?
Thanks,
Cory
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Hello @coryzuber,
Here’s some links that you’ll want to know.
API Documentation:
Main Repository:
Slack Channel:
If you are using python, the following examples will be useful:
- https://github.com/alpacahq/samplealgo01
- https://github.com/alpacahq/Momentum-Trading-Example
- https://github.com/alpacahq/example-hftish
REST API Tools like Insomnia or PostMan will be helpful and allow you to test requests.
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Hello Josh,
Thanks for the videos. I would like to see more when you post. Thank you for the video!
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No problem! I’m going to post more videos, my apologies I’ve been very very busy and it’s been hard to squeeze in time for any content.
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Can I get in a request for a video? - I’m on a Mac, trying to install pylivetrader using anaconda. If there was a video that showed how to do this from start to finish, from a beginner’s perspective, it would be very helpful for me and I’m sure for others. Thanks for offering your help around here!
@WillowTime sure no problem, it will probably take a few days before I can upload a polished video, but I’ll let you know once it’s up.
Josh
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Hey josh! Im trying to build a very basic algo but I feel like I dont even know where to start. I think i have enough knowledge to do the REST API key thing.
For algos… my knowledge is about the extent of excel if statements haha.
I’m trying to input a list of tickers… let’s just say AMZN, GOOG, and AAPL… and my rule would be… if it opens lower than the previous close then buy x amount of the stock.
Then for the sell…
Once it hits +1% from that fill price… implement a 1% trailing stop.
I feel like if I see this code… i could teach myself how to implement other rules and such and be on my way.
Can you help? Thanks
Hi Josh, I am trying to get the zapier integration with Alpaca to trade with my paper account first until It is tested, but I am not able to get teh account information from my Alpaca paper account, just my live account and I do not want trade my real money until I test it with the paper account first. Any Idea how to do that? the GF
Hi GJF,
Zapier integration currently works only with live trading. That said, it is not technically impossible to support paper trading, so please weigh your use case to help us understand the needs to support papertrading with Zapier. Thanks!
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Hi Hitoshi:
Another important addition or improvement to the Zapier integration would be to also be able to look up all open Alpaca positions in an account to get the: symbol, number of shares and position type( long or short). The reason being is with Zapier, if we have these and we are reversing a trade going from long to short for example, this information will allow us to place a new order for the same number of shares in the opposite direction for example. With out this information, it will be very hard to do this without custom coding in Zapier, which will shrink your user audience vs if you exposed this data as a Zapier module option. I would call the drop down option in the Zapier Alpaca module: “Get Open Positions” Thoughts? GF
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@Brian_Devereaux Welcome to the community. The first place I would recommend starting would be the documentation which can be found here: https://alpaca.markets/docs/. Next, I would definitely recommend looking through the GitHub repository: https://github.com/alpacahq. You can find many examples in the repository using various languages, I would highly recommend using Python to process market data. The Slack group is another great place to learn: https://alpaca.markets/slack. I’m also on Upwork if you’d rather work with a development team to develop a trading application: https://www.upwork.com/fl/joshcogburn2.
Links:
Documentation: https://alpaca.markets/docs/
Repository: https://github.com/alpacahq
Slack: https://alpaca.markets/slack
Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/fl/joshcogburn2
Hello @GJF,
This is a great question, Hitoshi is the CTO of Alpaca and definitely has a more thorough understanding of the scope of Alpaca’s integration capabilities than I.
@hitoshi Thanks for your swift response on this topic.
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Thanks for more details. Definitely helpful. So are you flipping the position between long and short based on some other conditions?
I have pine script algos that generate Tradingview alerts. The algos are constantly changing from long to short positions to generate positive return regardless of what direction the stock price is headed. So I am constantly needing to reverse positions(long/short). I cannot do this with the correct number of shares with each trade unless i can look up in Alapca how many shares i had for example in a long positon, so I can then reverse that number of shares into a short position. By having an open position lookup with the zapier integration, I will be able to do this. Hope this clarifies. GF