# Build a Local RAG Chatbot for Trading Research Using Ollama + Termux (Zero API Cost)

> Source: <https://dev.to/shaktitiwari/build-a-local-rag-chatbot-for-trading-research-using-ollama-termux-zero-api-cost-5df4>
> Published: 2026-08-25 12:31:40+00:00

Most "AI trading assistant" products are black boxes: your notes, strategy docs, and market notes get shipped to a third-party API, billed per token, and stored who-knows-where. For a retail NIFTY trader or a quant researcher, that is the worst of all worlds — you pay continuously, you leak your edge, and you cannot audit what the model actually read.

This guide shows how to build a **Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot that runs 100% locally** on an Android phone using Termux + Ollama. It ingests your own research (PDFs, markdown notes, option-chain exports) and answers questions grounded only in that data. No OpenAI key. No Anthropic key. No monthly bill. No data leaving the device.

OBSERVED: Running

`ollama run llama3.2`

on a mid-range phone inside Termux is slow but usable for document Q&A (3–8 tokens/sec). On a laptop it is smooth.

SOURCE: Local testing on Termux 0.118, Ollama 0.3.x, Android 14.

DERIVED: For production research volumes, run Ollama on a spare x64 machine and point Termux at it over LAN.

A four-part pipeline:

The whole thing is ~200 lines of Python. No paid APIs.

```
pkg update && pkg upgrade -y
pkg install python clang ffmpeg -y
pip install ollama numpy
```

Install Ollama inside Termux:

```
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
```

NOTE: The official install script targets Linux. On Termux you often need the community build. If the script fails, install the

`ollama`

package via a Termux-compatible binary or run Ollama on a LAN machine and use`ollama serve`

remotely.

Pull a small model and an embedding model:

```
ollama pull llama3.2
ollama pull nomic-embed-text
```

Create a `docs/`

folder and drop in your material: strategy notes (`.md`

), exported option-chain snapshots (`.csv`

), PDFs of NISM material, etc.

``` python
import os, glob, re

def load_text(path):
    if path.endswith(".md") or path.endswith(".txt"):
        return open(path, encoding="utf-8", errors="ignore").read()
    if path.endswith(".csv"):
        return open(path, encoding="utf-8", errors="ignore").read()
    # PDF would need PyPDF2; keep it simple for the guide
    return ""

raw = []
for p in glob.glob("docs/*"):
    txt = load_text(p)
    if txt:
        raw.append((p, txt))

print(f"Loaded {len(raw)} documents")
```

Naive splitting breaks tables and sentences. Use a sliding window with overlap so context survives the cut.

``` python
def chunk(text, size=600, overlap=100):
    words = text.split()
    out = []
    i = 0
    while i < len(words):
        out.append(" ".join(words[i:i+size]))
        i += size - overlap
    return out

chunks = []
meta = []
for name, txt in raw:
    for c in chunk(txt):
        chunks.append(c)
        meta.append(name)

print(f"Total chunks: {len(chunks)}")
```

DERIVED: A 600-word window with 100-word overlap keeps most option-chain tables and bullet lists intact while staying under the embedding model's token limit.

Use `nomic-embed-text`

through Ollama's API. This runs on-device.

``` python
import ollama, numpy as np

def embed(texts):
    vecs = []
    for t in texts:
        r = ollama.embeddings(model="nomic-embed-text", prompt=t)
        vecs.append(r["embedding"])
    return np.array(vecs)

X = embed(chunks)
np.save("index_vecs.npy", X)
import json
json.dump(meta, open("index_meta.json","w"))
print("Embedded", X.shape)
```

No data left your phone. The embeddings are computed by the local model.

At query time, embed the question and find the nearest chunks with cosine similarity.

``` python
def retrieve(query, k=4):
    q = ollama.embeddings(model="nomic-embed-text", prompt=query)["embedding"]
    q = np.array(q)
    sims = X @ q / (np.linalg.norm(X, axis=1) * np.linalg.norm(q) + 1e-9)
    top = sims.argsort()[-k:][::-1]
    return [chunks[i] for i in top]

context = "\n\n".join(retrieve("What was our stop-loss rule for NIFTY weekly expiry?"))
print(context[:800])
```

The key RAG rule: **the LLM may only use the retrieved context.** We force this by prepending the context and instructing the model to say "not in my notes" when absent.

``` python
def answer(query):
    ctx = "\n\n".join(retrieve(query, k=4))
    prompt = f"""Answer ONLY using the context below. If the answer is not in the context, say "Not in my research notes."

CONTEXT:
{ctx}

QUESTION: {query}
ANSWER:"""
    r = ollama.generate(model="llama3.2", prompt=prompt, options={"temperature":0})
    return r["response"]

print(answer("Summarize our PCR-based filter for Bank Nifty entries"))
```

Because the prompt carries the source text, the model cannot invent facts it was not given. That is the entire point of RAG for trading research: **reproducible, citable answers from your own edge.**

| Concern | Cloud assistant | Local RAG (this guide) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Per-token billing | One-time, free after setup |
| Data privacy | Docs sent to vendor | Never leaves device |
| Auditability | Opaque | You hold the chunks |
| Hallucination | Possible | Constrained to context |
| Internet needed | Yes | No (after model download) |

OBSERVED: For a 50-document research folder (~300 chunks), retrieval is sub-second on-device; full answer generation takes 5–15s on phone, <2s on laptop.

`size`

to 900, or use `mxbai-embed-large`

for better recall.`temperature`

to 0, and add an explicit "quote the source sentence" instruction.`ollama serve`

there, then point `OLLAMA_HOST`

at it from Termux.`PyPDF2`

extraction; keep PDFs text-layer clean.`chromadb`

or `faiss`

when chunks exceed ~5,000.`docs/`

folder in Git so the knowledge base is reproducible.**Can this run fully offline?**

Yes — after you download `llama3.2`

and `nomic-embed-text`

once over Wi-Fi, all inference and embedding happen on-device. No internet required for Q&A.

**Is the RAG answer guaranteed accurate?**

No model is. RAG reduces hallucination by constraining the model to retrieved context, but you must still verify trading decisions yourself. This is research tooling, not advice.

**Why not just use ChatGPT with file upload?**

File upload sends your documents to a third party, bills per token, and gives you no audit trail of what was read. For proprietary strategy notes, local RAG is the only privacy-preserving option.

**What model should I use on a low-end phone?**

`llama3.2`

(3B) is the practical floor. For embeddings, `nomic-embed-text`

is small and good. On a laptop, `llama3.1:8b`

gives noticeably better reasoning.

**How is this related to a trading AI engine?**

The same retrieval + grounding principle powers production trading research: capture real market data, store it, retrieve relevant slices, and let a model reason strictly from evidence — not from memory or hype.

Building a local RAG chatbot is the difference between *renting* intelligence and *owning* a research tool. For a NIFTY or options trader sitting on years of notes, the math is simple: a one-time setup, zero recurring cost, full privacy, and answers you can trace back to the exact chunk you wrote.

The code here is deliberately minimal so you can read every line. Clone it, point `docs/`

at your own research, and you have a private analyst that never sleeps and never bills you.

*Shakti Tiwari is an AI/ML builder and NISM-Series-XII certified educator, not a SEBI-registered research analyst. This is educational content, not trading advice.*