Would you pay $27,000 for software?
- Thread starter Batman28
- Start date
That is spelled, Spock.
Do your own work. "Waste" your own time. Go down your own "worthless" paths. I wouldn't take the joy of discovery away from you, and what is more, I have learned more by "wasting" my time down dead ends than most of the time that I just got the answer. This (cointegration etc) may be another worthless "dead end. "
If you don't know that truism of life, you were an engineer but never a scientist...
nitro
I met a person at UBS recently who was saying how they want to replace traders with computers in the industry ASAP. first, because computers are much more efficient, second, why pay so much to a human. she said she didin't expect many human traders in the market in 10 years.
I later met a quant at a stat-arbitrage hedge fund in london. he was saying how if you actually look at the volumes traded in exchanges in the past 5-8 years, most are executed by algorithms, and it is rising. he said that is the future.
do you know how markets changed when everyone had access to the news? or even the arriaval of internet? but now electronic trading has changed the whole picture.
if you ignore such important analytics, when computers are much more efficient, I just can't see how you can maintain your edge. the industry is moving, and it is moving NOW. u might aswell try to stay by it or might get left behind. I tel you what, go play poker with a BOT and feel what you'd be up against. I find it difficult to understand why some people on here think bankers or Hedge funds spend millions on Phds and research for nothing. some time ago in history, men used to fight with swords.. now they have rockets and nuclear weopons. I wonder what happend to those great sword fighters.. however great they were with their sword. this is a war over money, might as well use every tool u have.
I evaluated Expo several years back.
It is an excellent product but didn't suit my needs. It was more for the program trading/arb/pairs/basket trading crowd. Definitely instutional grade piece of kit. On top of the apparent $27K price tag you need to add another ~$2K per month for an institutional quality datafeed (think bloomie, reuters etc). Last I looked IB was not on their supported data vendor list - LMAO.
bolter
It is an excellent product but didn't suit my needs. It was more for the program trading/arb/pairs/basket trading crowd. Definitely instutional grade piece of kit. On top of the apparent $27K price tag you need to add another ~$2K per month for an institutional quality datafeed (think bloomie, reuters etc). Last I looked IB was not on their supported data vendor list - LMAO.
bolter
Nice quote Bats (I mean in its entirety).
Since it is a product which is most likely geared for the small business/institutional market more so than the individual (smaller) retail market, the question(s) I'd have to ask you are:
1. What type of capital are working with as a % of the potential outlay. I would think (but don't know), that anything greater than 5% or 10% of your total capital base is way too expensive!, and more to the point ...
2. If you DO NOT currently have a method with positive expectation now, how is any analytical tool, no matter how sophisticated, going to help you get one?
3. If you DO have a method with positive expectation, by what factor will this tool increase your profitability/scalability? Does it warrant the expense?
If you're already using a methodology which requires such a tool (that's all machines are ... tools), then by all means, go for it, but if you don't have a good methodology already, no tool is going to give you one.
My thoughts.
Best,
Jimmy Jam
1. I don't trade, not working with any capital. I may start trading some day. From what I know, I like something with real time time series analysis that allows you to forecast. this can of-course be done manually, real time is a different story. but I understand your point, you gotta be able to afford it.
2. there is no such thing as a method with positive expectations. but over time, one can have a better judgement than others. most who have such good judgements, base there judgement from some perspecive (technical/mechanical, psychological, fundamental, statistical, economic/econometrics). All these involove some level of analysis, some little, some more. if there is an tool out there that makes your analysis more efficient, than it can help, thus surely making you more successful. note efficient is about learning, so if you are bad, you'll learn you're bad much sooner than longer. in this case, having a software that can carry out analysis real-time than having a team of lagged analysts is the preferred choice. so in short, it's about what tool is in who's hands.. some tools are of no use to technical traders, while fundamental investors have little interest in RSIs etc.. so it's not about tools making anyone money. it's about supporting that perspective by making judgements much more efficient.
3. similar as to above. but if we assume the perspective is credible, and we have good judgement, the factor is only limited to the limits of our perspective.
and you are right, this tool/software only has added value for those who's perspective requires it.
hope that makes sense. regards.
My .02 = all of this mindf***k stuff is more suited to a talking head or economist than to a trader
It just doesn't have anything to do with actual current real-time supply/demand, volume, trend and price action - in other words, making money as a trader! (risk management also)
All of this stuff will just give you more excuses and more grail-chasing and efforts at over-optimization while you are losing money.
I know this because if you were able to trade profitably, you would not even consider buying this.
Here is a better idea - save the $27K, don't trade real money for a while, use the IB Papertrader and play out your ideas with as few as indicators as possible. Learn price action, volume and trendspotting.
A lot of people spend a lot of money on stuff like this because they have not faced the truth about themselves - that they still don't understand the simplest truths about masses/markets - so they think that the answer is to wallow in "predictive" minutia to support their delusion that they are not chasing their tails.
Best wishes.