A few friends and I chat about stocks, share ideas, and encourage each other. A few months ago, I realized we needed some automation to help us find winners. I chose to use a serverless solution to build this system.
There are many good stocks and finding them takes time. We can find them by reading articles, using stock tools, getting tips from Twitter, and many other ways. With so many ways to find stock candidates, we needed to define the process.
Finding a Screener
We decided FinViz.com was a good source to start our automation. One of our team members is a good stock analyst. He created a screener that we used for a long while.
Example FinViz Screener
Creating a Web Scraper
After a while, we noticed we were forgetting to check this screener. That is when automation became handy. I wrote a Python web scraper using BeautifulSoup to get the top 10 stock symbols from the screener.
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
FINVIZ_BASE = "https://finviz.com"
FINVIZ_PATH = os.environ.get('FINVIZ_PATH')
FINVIZ_DATA = {}
FINVIZ_HEADERS = {
'User-Agent': 'My Trading App/0.0.1'
}
response = requests.get(
f'{FINVIZ_BASE}{FINVIZ_PATH}',
headers=FINVIZ_HEADERS,
data=FINVIZ_DATA
)
soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text.encode('utf8'), 'html.parser')
## look for symbols
for link in soup.find_all('a'):
if link.get('href').startswith('quote.ashx?t='):
symbol = link.string
if symbol:
## assumes this html code
## <a class="tab-link" href="quote.ashx?t=TWTR&ty=c&p=d&b=1">TWTR</a>
symbols.append(symbol)
I needed a way to run this web scraper on a timer. I could have set up a server to run the Python code on a CRON, but I did not want to maintain the server. I decided to use a serverless solution to reduce maintenance and keep my costs low.
I set up an AWS Lambda function with a Python runtime, and deployed it using AWS CDK. I configured CloudWatch rules to set up a CRON to trigger the Lambda function. Now the web scraper runs per the schedule.
Posting to Slack
We were already using Slack to chat, so it was the ideal medium to post the top ten symbols. I created a Slack app that posted the findings to an #alerts channel and the #general channel. The #alert channel posts had detailed information (e.g., chart images). The #general channel posts had the summary information. We did this to not overwhelm the discussion in the #general channel.
Example of the #alert channel post.
Example of the #general channel post.
Creating stats
As you might have guessed, it became difficult to see patterns without some type of stats. We had good intel, but how do we decide which stocks to pick without some type of histogram.
We wrote the stock symbols to a DynamoDB table, and the date when they appeared in the alert.
import boto3
STATS_TABLE_NAME = os.environ.get('STATS_TABLE_NAME')
STATS_TTL_NAME = os.environ.get('STATS_TTL_NAME')
STATS_TTL_DAYS = int(os.environ.get('STATS_TTL_DAYS')
client = boto3.client('dynamodb')
for symbol in symbols:
client.update_item(
TableName=STATS_TABLE_NAME,
Key={
'PK': {
'S': symbol,
},
'SK': {
'S': f'#{sk_prefix}#',
},
},
AttributeUpdates={
STATS_TTL_NAME: {
'Value': {
'N': f'{ttl}'
},
'Action': 'PUT',
},
scan_name: {
'Value': {
'BOOL': True,
},
'Action': 'PUT',
},
},
)
We then created another Lambda function to post a text-based histogram.
Example histogram post to the #general channel.
Conclusion
With a little code we implemented automation to our manual investment process. We were able to extend this approach to scrape different investment sources. Furthermore, it costs $0.00 per month by taking advantage of the serverless capabilities in the AWS free tier.
A Note from the Author
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Stay secure,
Miguel
A Note from the Author
Join my mailing list to receive updates about my writing.
Visit miguelacallesmba.com/subscribe and sign up.
Stay secure,
Miguel
About the Author
Miguel is a Principal Security Engineer and is the author of the " Serverless Security " book. He has worked on multiple serverless projects as a developer and security engineer, contributed to open-source serverless projects, and worked on large military systems in various engineering roles.
Disclaimer: This is NOT investment advice.
Originally published on MiguelACallesMBA.com
Photo by William Iven on Unsplash
Top comments (9)
You have to set your headers properly or it will give you an unauthorized response. See this article for the headers to copy: stackoverflow.com/questions/621238...
Nice work!
My suggestion - try and complete the automation to the point your app is trading for you. To begin with, give it a few weeks of dry run, using an online service to mock your trades and follow the portfolio and see how it behaves. Once you gain trust, let it "play" with some real money with a small budget. Pretty soon you'll be able to notice the subtle improvements it requires and if not completely replace you - trade those stocks that get a very high score.
That would be cool :)
That's a good point. I have been contemplating that since I created the post. Thanks!
I had ideas along those lines (got the domain investorscreens.com a while back) but a little more focused on fundamental analysis, pulling in and analyzing SEC filings and also separating out market/sector price movements vs individual stock price.
Can I join your slack?
The Slack group is private at the moment. If you'd like, I can publish the Slack posts to a different Slack group. Feel free to DM me.
This is great. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you found it useful.
What is your sell strategy?
I use the Investors Business Daily rules as a guideline:
1) Minimize losses to 8%
2) Sell all or most of the position at 20-25% gain.
I also use the 10 DMA and 50 DMA to decide when to sell. If it falls below the 10 DMA, I can lock in gains. If it falls below the 50 DMA, I consider selling all.
That is my general approach.