New quantitative trading software

[sle]

Since everyone has been more or less supportive, let me pour some rain on your parade. Granted, my experience is not really retail, but so

• Software products for research require some understanding of the subject. After reading the post above (with the IF and AND etc) and combining it with mere two years of experience, I don't think you have the required knowledge.
• Harder problems like systematic trading seem to be better addressed by custom built solutions. Most people in the industry roll their own research solutions, primarily because approaches are so different.
• In my experience, almost every commercial product or provider I've seen has been more or less shit once you use it enough. WEX was a notable exceptions, I think;
• Trading software companies are very hard to monetize. The best exit that you could expect is trying to sell your product and the associated IP to a nascent retail broker, IMHO.

 

[cruisecontrol]

Sterling has been updated many times since 2014. Most of our clients use Lightspeed trader.

I'm sure it's been updated, but has that particular issue been fixed? When I contacted them they wouldn't even acknowledge that it was a bug. It was really bizarre.

 

[Agoraeus]

Since everyone has been more or less supportive, let me pour some rain on your parade. Granted, my experience is not really retail, but so

• Software products for research require some understanding of the subject. After reading the post above (with the IF and AND etc) and combining it with mere two years of experience, I don't think you have the required knowledge.
• Harder problems like systematic trading seem to be better addressed by custom built solutions. Most people in the industry roll their own research solutions, primarily because approaches are so different.
• In my experience, almost every commercial product or provider I've seen has been more or less shit once you use it enough. WEX was a notable exceptions, I think;
• Trading software companies are very hard to monetize. The best exit that you could expect is trying to sell your product and the associated IP to a nascent retail broker, IMHO.

Thanks for the advice. I think you misunderstood the the comment I made in regards to the IF and And statement. When describing any trading strategy you have ever come across are you not able to verbalize it with those statements? And that is something that a computer can understand. A mere two years is me trading for myself. Not the time I spent in finance building models but of course using software that the bank provided. I agree that most require a custom built solution, but for most of the trading that people here do mid frequency or swing trading a customer solution is not needed when their strategy is not overly complicated. So unless some is able to program in python for example and conduct their own research, then build themselves a piece of software to execute it then I think people will think about using something like this. How do you test to see if something is stationary? Did you even know that when building a mean reverting strategy that needs to be the first question answered (I don't mean you specifically, I mean in general) Or perhaps using a Kalman filter etc? Just trying to level the playing field for guys like me trying to make a living trading but dont have the mathematical or technical skills to take their ideas and bring them to the market. Main goal is not to make money from this, its to build a tool that people will use. I will be using this myself as it will streamline a lot of my research and deployment of models. I figured I would offer it to everyone.

 

[Robert Morse]

I'm sure it's been updated, but has that particular issue been fixed? When I contacted them they wouldn't even acknowledge that it was a bug. It was really bizarre.

From that ET forum:
1) Sterling cannot run continuously for more than 24 hours without crashing. Lightspeed Trader and Sterling servers are available from 4am to 8pm. They do not Crash at that time, they are down as the exchanges are down. No reason to run them 24 hours a day.
(2) Sterling cannot handle network disconnections without crashing. Have no idea what they are referring to and the comment is way too general. I have automated trading clients on Sterling with API will no issues.

 

[sle]

When describing any trading strategy you have ever come across are you not able to verbalize it with those statements?

I'd say that majority of professional quant trading strategies can not be described with binary "if" and "and".

 

[Agoraeus]

I'd say that majority of professional quant trading strategies can not be described with binary "if" and "and".

Exactly professional. Which entail a lot of high level mathematics. Most people are not doing that on an individual level. You are confusing the two.

 

[sle]

Exactly professional. Which entail a lot of high level mathematics. Most people are not doing that on an individual level. You are confusing the two.

Most of that "high level mathematics" is taught in high school (well, in civilized countries). The fact that retail traders are not doing it is simply due to the lack of skill and effort, in my opinion. A more interesting question is, if you know the right way (i.e. not using the "if" statements and "indicators"), why would you want to go down that road?

 

[cruisecontrol]

From that ET forum:
1) Sterling cannot run continuously for more than 24 hours without crashing. Lightspeed Trader and Sterling servers are available from 4am to 8pm. They do not Crash at that time, they are down as the exchanges are down. No reason to run them 24 hours a day.
(2) Sterling cannot handle network disconnections without crashing. Have no idea what they are referring to and the comment is way too general. I have automated trading clients on Sterling with API will no issues.

The question is: Is the current version of sterling able to operate 24/7 without crashing? The version I tried in 2014 was not able to do so. Sterling acknowledged as much via email, even bizarrely claiming that this somehow wasn't a problem.

 

[Robert Morse]

The question is: Is the current version of sterling able to operate 24/7 without crashing? The version I tried in 2014 was not able to do so. Sterling acknowledged as much via email, even bizarrely claiming that this somehow wasn't a problem.

I answered your question. It does not operate 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It operates Monday to Friday from 4 am to 8pm and is very stable.

 

[cruisecontrol]

I answered your question. It does not operate 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It operates Monday to Friday from 4 am to 8pm and is very stable.

You sound just like the sterling tech support people. You did not answer the question at all. Do you understand the concept of a "crash" as it relates to software systems? Does sterling still crash itself: (1) every time the internet connection is interrupted and (2) once a day, as the 2014 version did, or have these issues been fixed now? If you don't know the answer that's fine, just say so.

EDIT: what exactly do you mean when you say "does not operate"? Is this a way of saying that it crashes without using the word crash? I'm obviously well aware that you cannot "operate" in the sense of trading the markets while they are closed. When I say operate, I mean the software continues to run as opposed to closing itself or crashing - this is a requirement for any fully automated system.