Built a multi-asset algo trading bot from scratch. 4 weeks of paper trading, thinking about going live.
u/ComradeZuvarna ·
Reddit — r/algotrading
· May 14, 2026 at 23:25
· ⬆ 19 pts
· 💬 26 comments
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AI Summary
Summary
The author built a Python-based multi-asset trading bot (Nexus) running 6 strategies on 45 symbols across equities/ETFs and crypto, paper-traded for 4 weeks with $1k simulated capital, netting ~$25 on 480 trades with conservative exposure.
The thesis is that a diversified, risk-managed algo can generate small but steady profits, and the author is considering a small live test ($500–$1,000) after paper trading.
Quality assessment: This is early-stage prototyping speculation, not well-researched DD. 4 weeks of paper data is insufficient, and the author explicitly expresses uncertainty about going live.
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Comments26
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Hey everyone,
I've been lurking here for a while and finally have something worth sharing. Over the last couple of months I built **Nexus**, a Python-based trading bot that runs 24/7 on a VPS and trades both US equities/ETFs (via Alpaca) and crypto (via Binance) simultaneously.
**What it does:**
* 6 strategies running in parallel: momentum, mean reversion, pairs/stat-arb, volatility mean-reversion, factor rotation, and an event-driven strategy
* \~45 symbols total (25 equity/ETF, 20 crypto)
* Half-Kelly position sizing, regime detection (HMM 3-state), hard circuit breakers
* Built a small dashboard to monitor it all
**Where I'm at:**
It's been running in paper mode for about 4 weeks on a $1,000 simulated bankroll. \~480 resolved trades, up about $25. Nothing explosive, but it hasn't blown up either. Momentum and factor rotation are doing the heavy lifting. Pairs trader failed backtesting so it's currently blocked. Event-driven is breakeven after a lot of noise.
**Before I flip the switch to live, a few things I'm genuinely uncertain about:**
1. Is 480 paper trades enough to have any confidence in going live, or am I kidding myself?
2. My event-driven strategy uses Claude (LLM) to score news, anyone have experience with this being actually useful vs just noisy?
3. I'm planning to start with \~$500–$1,000 real capital. Obvious question: is that too small to be meaningful given commissions/slippage on the equity side?
4. The PnL has been steadily treading on the profitable side although the profit does not look super crazy. That's also because only around 29% of my 1K bankroll has been exposed so far. I have kept it conservative by design with a max of $30 per trade as a limit. Any thoughts on this?
Happy to answer questions. Attaching some dashboard screenshots.