I wanted to add a response here for every aspirational algotrader: you can lose a lot of money very quickly. I hobbied in algotrading through my twenties, learned a lot more than I expected too, worked out the math, and made $600 in a matter of 15 minutes on my first day before losing $1000 the same day. That's when I decided to pull the plug. I already knew that it would be more profitable finding contracting gigs then inevitably writing off 100s of hours I spent researching, doing the math, and coding over the years, but decided I would regret it if I never tried.
That's right, I don't advise anyone to invest more than what you're comfortable losing: besides making dumb decisions even such things as an innocuous gap in your test coverage can lead to losing everything you have in a zap. In my opinion there's also no need for margin account right away. Focus on paper trading and only invest a few hundred bucks in real account just to get the feeling of it and to realize what are the little things that paper trading misses.
