Algorithms now execute more trades in a second than a human can in a lifetime. But behind the hype, most algorithmic traders lose money, and the promise of “AI that prints passive income” is a dangerous myth. This book strips away the marketing to reveal how quant trading actually works: how data is collected, cleaned, and fed into models; how machine learning can (and often can’t) find patterns; and why backtesting success rarely translates to live markets. You’ll learn the engineering of trading bots, the role of market microstructure, and the new rules regulators are writing. No formulas, no code required—just clear explanations of the statistical thinking, the real risks (including total loss), and the ethical boundaries. Whether you’re a curious investor, a data scientist exploring finance, or someone considering building a bot, this book gives you the honest foundation you need before risking a single dollar. Part of The AI Trading Library.