I will be presenting a fast-paced overview of my journey from freelance software development to successful stock options trading for income, using mostly free software tools and web platforms.
Think stock options are complicated and risky? You probably don’t know the whole story because it’s rarely explained well for DIY investors. I will attempt to fix that in just two hours! This will be an unusual introduction to options trading from the perspective of a self-taught developer (not Wall Street) with a logical and practical approach to evaluating the relative risk/reward of owning stocks verses options, and how to get started with your own options brokerage account and custom software.
I will also showcase the collection of tools I use to automate stock market data collection, filtering opportunities and selecting option strategies that extract income from the machines that run Wall Street. The tools discussed will include Excel, E*Trade, IBKR, Seeking Alpha, BarChart, Yahoo, Twitter and brokerage-provided source codes. Excel automates the import and visualization of market data, overlaid with actual trades to provide real advantage to individual investors at very low cost. The trick is to adapt spreadsheet capabilities to complement brokerage account features. It’s also possible (and legal) to automate trades with the web APIs provided by brokerage firms with their sample codes in Java, Python and Node.js.
This talk is not for everyone. But, my approach leverages the skill set of software developers for those that are ready to actively manage their own investments by picking stocks or ETFs and exploring the option chains. I only invest for income. This is not day-trading or volatility-trading. But, of course, if you’re happy with your S&P index funds and just want to learn something new about how Wall Street works, you are welcome too!
This talk will be at the regular, monthly meeting of the D/FW Unix Users Group on Thursday, April 13, 2023, at 7:00 pm at Improving, in Plano. This is a free event, open to the public and pizza is usually provided by Improving.
The Improving office is at 5445 Legacy Drive, Suite 100, Plano, Texas. The doors to the building are locked at 6:00 pm, but someone will be available to let people in after 6:00. There will be a note on the doors with a phone number to call to get someone to let you in.
