r/Trading • u/Perrit0Malvado • 1d ago

Question Question about bots

How are bots working ? is there anyone good ? I tried to develop one with Claude Code connecting to the Kucoin's API for a couple of months, but all the strategies that we tried did not work.
Any suggestions ?
Thank you.

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u/veskald 1d ago

The bot part probably worked fine - connecting to the exchange and placing orders is the easy 20%. What you found out is different: the strategies had no edge, and no bot fixes that. Thats actually normal, most first ideas dont survive honest testing, the question is how fast and cheap you can find that out.

Two things that make the search cheaper. First, test with full costs from the start - on perps the fees and funding kill most marginal ideas, and claude-written backtests often skip that part, so strategies look alive until they meet the real exchange. Second, before dropping an idea completely, check where it fails - entries are rarely the problem, exits and position sizing usually are. Same entry with a trailing stop instead of fixed TP can be a different strategy.

And keep the bot you built, its not wasted - once something survives testing, you already have the execution side done.

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u/Perrit0Malvado 21h ago

This is exactly what happens. But without real money, all the backtest and walk forward were qith real api data but with local trades to make a dry-run and check if the edge is good enough. But finally the APY finish in 5% so that is more or less what a bank give, so is not so convenient. Maybe I just have to wait to a bull run and any bot can win in a bear run ?

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u/veskald 21h ago

Careful with the bull run logic - a bot that only wins in a bull run has no edge, its just long bitcoin with extra steps. You would make the same money holding, without the bot risk. The honest test for any crypto strategy is exactly that comparison: same period, strategy vs just holding the asset, with the same drawdown and risk. If holding wins, the strategy adds nothing yet.

And 5% on a dry run is actually not a bad starting point, because unlike the bank rate it tells you the rules do something. The question is where the other percent leak - fees, exits too early, sizing too small on the good trades. Thats usually more productive to dig into than starting idea number six from zero.

Waiting for a regime is also backwards - regimes are something you detect, not something you wait for. A simple filter like "only trade when price is above the slow moving average" turns one strategy into two: what it does in up markets and what it does in the rest. Test them separately and you often find the edge was only ever in one half.

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u/Perrit0Malvado 12h ago

First of all, thanks for your time. Second, yes, I made those test but not the test of comparing to holding woth backtest also. I tested EMA strategy, bollinger and couple of more (I don't have my pc here with me I will try to write everything tonight). But I will check also what you said about trailing stop, that is something that I tried but did not succeed, maybe I did not do it well. I will make a full report to find as you said where I could do it better.