Introduction
Many successful systematic traders haven't learned how to develop algos and earn money with them from school or their work, they have learned this with free resources that are available for everyone.
The best thing about these free resources is that they are accessible to everyone via the internet, the bad thing is that there are a lot of "trading gurus" and fake information that won't help you on your journey. To truly find what is good for your trading and valuable you need to search deep into nerdy forums and read hours of content to find those truly valuable lessons.
This is the reason for this list, we have gathered our personal favorites when it comes to free knowledge in all different forms so you don't have to spend hundreds of hours to find a good forum or the perfect podcast for you to improve your systematic trading. If you want to find resources to listen to, to read about, or to look at, we have all of these in the list below.
What is Systematic Trading and Why Should You Learn It?
Systematic trading is a method of trading that uses predefined rules and algorithms to make trading decisions. This approach allows for consistent, emotion-free execution and most of the time leads to more reliable results if you do it correctly. Unlike discretionary trading, which can be influenced by emotions or gut feelings, systematic trading relies on data and robust strategies to make decisions.
Systematic trading can be learned by anyone, you don't need a PhD or a data science education to learn and understand this type of trading. With the resources from this list, you will gain valuable skills and a basic understanding of strategy development and data analysis to be able to earn money and become consistently profitable with your algos.
Blogs
Blogs are great for reading more in-depth guides and detailed strategies for free, just like we do here on Algomatic Trading. There are a lot of different blogs out there and some can be almost impossible to find without any knowledge about their existence.
The Relaxed Trader provides great info about specific strategies and is great at explaining coding and trading solutions in an easy-to-understand way. Kurt, the man behind this blog has more than 18 years of experience with trading and coding the financial markets.
Quantified Strategies is one of the biggest systematic trading blogs, they explain many different strategies for free and also discuss ideas and skills that can help you become a better systematic trader.
QuantInsti has a huge amount of free content for systematic traders, everything from strategies, python coding guides, and machine learning to risk and portfolio management.
Forums and Online Communities
Trading forums have been my most valuable free resource when learning systematic trading. In forums you can do so much more than just explore other people's ideas and strategies, you can also discuss problems and issues with trading or coding.
ProRealCode is the coding/trading forum for ProRealTime, in this forum you can find libraries with custom-made strategies, indicators, and screeners and also discuss strategies and questions that you want answers to.
MQL5 is the forum for the well-known trading platform MT5, here you can read about anything with the MT5 coding language but also general trading ideas and problems.
Here is a list of our favorite Reddit Communities:
Podcasts
Better System Trader by Andrew Swanscott, is definitely number one on this list as the lessons and knowledge that Andrew and his guests share are top-notch and the best you can probably get for free. This is a pure systematic trading podcast and I have listened to almost every episode. If you haven't listened to this podcast yet, it's time for it.
Top Traders Unplugged by Niels Kaastrup-Larsen is a very high-quality podcast with several interviews with some of the best systematic traders and hedge fund managers. The lessons that you can learn from these successful traders are priceless and everyone with a Spotify account can listen to this podcast.
Chat With Traders by Tessa Dao is a podcast that interviews many different kinds of traders so not every episode is relevant if you want to focus on systematic trading. This doesn't mean however that you can learn extremely useful stuff from all episodes.
Books
These books aren't free, they cost a few bucks but we want to include them anyway because they are probably the biggest return on investment you can get. These books can transform your trading from basic to more advanced in a few hundred pages when you otherwise might have to spend a few hundred hours exploring blogs and forums for specifically these lessons.
Systematic Trading by Robert Carver is probably the best book for beginners. If you want to get into systematic trading seriously you should get your hands on one of these, if you are more of an advanced trader you will also find some really useful chapters in this book.
Quantitive Momentum by Wesley R. Gray & Jack R. Vogel, if you are interested in primarily momentum trading this book is for you. This book won't give you a strategy to import to your platform but it will help you understand momentum and create your strategy.
Automated Stock Trading Systems by Laurens Bensdorp, you shouldn't see this book as a resource for strategies but as an inspirational guide for you to create your diversified portfolio with multiple strategies. This is a great book for learning diversification and getting new ideas.
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas is probably the most well-known book on this list, this is not only a book for discretionary traders but it is incredibly valuable for systematic traders as well. You might think that systematic trading is emotionless, but it isn't. The execution might be emotionless but when your strategy falls into a drawdown you will feel just as bad whether you or your algo took the trade and this book will help you with dealing with all those emotions when you are in a drawdown. Every good trader has read this book at least once on their journey to success.
If you are interested in one or more of these books you can get them HERE.
How to Use These Resources Effectively
There is no specific order for these resources, they all have their own lessons for you to learn. Generally, books contain more advanced and in-depth explanations so if you are a beginner trader I would start with podcasts and blogs. Forums can have very advanced discussions and problem-solving posts but also very basic stuff so these can be useful anytime.
Conclusion
With 12 free resources and 4 books, you have a lot of different paths you can take to learn systematic trading. If you want to listen to experienced and successful traders and hedge fund managers you can listen to any of the podcasts. If you are more into discussions then any of the forums or Reddit communities we mentioned might be of interest to you. For all those heavy readers you might want to read in-depth blog posts or get some of the books we mentioned. Whether you are a beginner or a more advanced systematic trader, some of the resources we mentioned will be for you.
We have multiple blog posts with both strategies and guides here on Algomatic, if you haven't explored them I would start with reading "How to Create Winning Mean Reversion Strategies". For all of you interested in exploring new strategies I would check out the "Strategies" section and sign up on the email list for a free strategy.
FAQ
Q: What is the best free resource for beginners in systematic trading?
A: A combination of podcasts, blogs and forums is the best, using all of these free resources is the best as they all have different valuable lessons.
Q: How much time should I dedicate to learning systematic trading?
A: As much as you can and have time to spend on it, there is no strict rule of how many hours you need to spend, but don't have any expectations that you are going to create or find a system and become profitable within days or months, systematic trading is something that you usually learn for years before you start to see some good performance, so you better start today:)
Q: Can I become profitable with just free resources? A: Of course you can, a lot of successful traders have reached profitability with free resources however if you want to speed up the learning process by expanding the variety of resources you can spend a few bucks on books.
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