
Ask HN: Is anybody doing algo Forex trading? - jetti
I&#x27;m looking into doing some algo forex trading and am curious if there is anybody here who also participates in specifically forex algo trading.<p>For those who do, I have a few questions that aren&#x27;t going to give away your algorithm.<p><pre><code>  1. How did you get your data to backtest? I&#x27;m using Oanda and they have historical data but it doesn&#x27;t seem to work right (probably an issue on my side) but a csv dump would be ideal.

  2. How long are your periods? I was thinking of going 5 to 15 minutes but don&#x27;t know if that is too short.</code></pre>
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gradschool
I'm sorry you're not getting much of a response. May I suggest consulting the
forums at [https://forum.wilmott.com](https://forum.wilmott.com) ? The
participants there are extremely knowledgeable financial industry
professionals. It sounds like your just starting out so maybe it's not too
late to give you my two cents. FX trading is unsuitable for outsiders because
unlike the securities markets which are heavily regulated and somewhat
centralized, FX brokers are difficult to catch in the act of deliberately
giving you a bad price or execution because no one can verify the conditions
that prevailed at the moment of your trade. If you find the perfect algorithm,
your outsize returns will come to the attention of intermediaries with sticky
fingers.

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jetti
Thank you for your response. Forex was appealing to me because of the lower
amount needed to start, lower commissions (the broker I am looking at uses the
spread) and no day trading regulations. Perhaps I will start doing securities
instead of forex.

