Quote from hftvol:
See this is where you really do not understand the picture, so it seems: This industry, this market is maybe one of the hardest industries in the world to make money. If you are after easy money you are better off in tons of other industries. This is a highly competitive industry where hedge funds and banks plank down hundreds of millions of dollars to get things to work the way they want it to work. This system is not designed for an average "normal" programmer to succeed. Dude, I have worked for over 10 years as professional exotic options market maker (caps, floors, swaptions, and FI structured notes), traded proprietary books on the options and cash equity, and futures side, have traded for over 4 years exclusively foreign exchange products, have known C++ since university, deem myself an advanced C# programmer with intricate knowledge of the CLR and .Net platform and I myself need to work hard every single day, sit for hours in front of the screen, need to constantly re-innovate for what? To STAY COMPETITIVE. You nor anyone else makes money with pipe dreams. If you think you can beat me, or anyone else who spends much more than I could ever imagine to extract alpha in this industry, with a 500 dollar platform or with a little programming here and there then you are absurd. This is not career for a "normal" programmer. Sorry to deliver you this shocking news. If you want to succeed then you gotta work your ass off and work harder than you ever have. The rewards are there but they are not laying on the ground for lazy people to pick up. Period.