Algorithmic trading, and where the difficulty actually sits
In algorithmic trading the strategy is usually the shortest part of the code, and the difficulty sits in execution, position sizing and the conditions under which the system stops, because a strategy that is right most of the time can still lose everything on the occasion it is not.
Algorithmic trading means a program deciding and placing trades according to rules. The rules get the attention and they are the smallest part of the work.
The strategy fits on a page
Most do. Entry rule, exit rule, sizing rule. If that were the whole job it would be an afternoon, and the reason it is not is that a rule which works on paper meets a market that does not fill instantly, at the price you saw, in the size you wanted.
Execution is where the edge goes
The price you saw is not the price you get. Crossing the spread, moving the book with your own size, and being filled only on the side you did not want are ordinary events, and a strategy with a thin edge loses it entirely to them. This is the gap between a backtest and a live account, and it is usually larger than the edge being traded.
Risk code outnumbers strategy code
How much to risk. What happens on a partial fill. What happens when the venue stops responding mid-position. When to stop entirely. None of it is the idea, and all of it decides whether the idea survives contact with a bad day.
The failure that actually costs everything
Not a wrong prediction, which loses one trade. A system that keeps trading through a condition it was never designed for: a stale feed, a halted market, a fill it did not expect. It then loses in a loop, quickly, usually unattended. Building the stop before the strategy is the only reliable protection.
What to check before going live
That your data is current and that you would know if it were not. Most catastrophic automated losses trace back to a system acting confidently on information that had stopped updating, which is why a feed that reports its own staleness is worth more than a faster one.
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