Hey there, it's your old man developer. I'm a 38-year-old side-hustle engineer, tinkering with AI agents and automated trading bots on weeknights and weekends.
Developing an automated trading bot often means a long road after you get an idea. Translating a strategy into code, backtesting it with historical data, tuning parameters... it can easily take weeks. And usually, most ideas get trashed at the backtesting stage with a simple "this is useless." This kind of rework is soul-crushing for a solo developer.
Recently, a new strategy popped into my head: "Aren't undervalued small-cap stocks more likely to be acquired (TOB) by larger companies?" If a TOB (Tender Offer Bid) is announced, the stock price usually skyrockets. So, if this hypothesis was true, I might be able to play it smart.
Normally, I'd start coding the backtest from here:
"Define conditions for undervalued small-caps, simulate TOB occurrences with historical stock data, calculate returns..."
