We run an IB gateway and in the Quantopian UI you enter your IB credentials - but we do not store your password. You then deploy your algo and see a dashboard with updates from the market.
To begin coding, clone the sample algorithm on the front page to get familiarized with the IDE. You can then backtest the strategy, for free, using historical data from 2002 - Now. When you run a full backtest, you can see how your algorithm would have performed in the past - you can see your returns, Sharpe ratio, and other metrics.
Once you're comfortable with the syntax and mechanisms, the community is a great place to look for trading ideas to try on your own. Try cloning an algorithm posted in a thread to begin experimenting. If you get stuck, post to the forums - they're a friendly bunch and will be happy to help out.
Of course, past performance is not indicative of future results. When you're ready, you can paper-trade your algo (trade using fake money) on the live market. It's free on Quantopian and a risk-free method to see how your algo performs in the market. And then, the last step is to connect your account to Interactive Brokers and begin live trading with real money. This blog post was an update of the live trading pilot program.
(Disclaimer: I work for Quantopian. But I'd be happy to help answer any questions! Feel free to reach out to us directly as well, [email protected])
Fore more info see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hye1L86s43M