I started looking online for my first algo trading course. As someone who’s learned a lot of things on his own, I’ve acquired some preferences for what I want out of an introductory course.
Here are the top 3 things I look for:
- The course has to be free. I’m not going to spend $500 only to realise that I don’t enjoy the topic.
- It needs to make me do something on my own ASAP. Professional football players don’t start by reading books about the sport.
- I need to understand why I’m doing whatever they’re telling me to do. Just at a basic level.
Armed with those criteria, I ventured out on the web for the perfect intro tutorial. I started by looking at what people recommend on Reddit. It’s mostly books; the most famous one seems to be Quantitative Trading by Ernest P. Chan. I tend to be skeptical of books because they can easily become outdated.
So then I move to YouTube. I type learn algorithmic trading in the search bar, and I get quite a few relevant videos. I spot that freeCodeCamp, a brand I’m familiar with, has a couple of recordings - an older one that lasts 4 hours,
and a newer one that’s only 3 hours in length. I can’t tell much between these two courses so I go for the newer one.
And so my journey begins.