Hairbrained Scheme
Yesterday, during a particularly relaxing piece of lounging around just before heading to Tai Chi I had the crazy idea that perhaps I didn’t need to find a new job. You see, I write applications for investment banks. These applications then go on to allow them to make oodles of money. They, in turn pay me oodles of money (until they go and loose it all on some stupid scheme and fire everyone, but that’s beside the point). Why not cut out the middle man and write applications for myself. In short, why not become an Algo Trader at home?
In theory the whole scheme is disgustingly simple. You take live, realtime market data, run it through a set of algorithms and have the program buy and sell trades for you. Provided the algorithm is sound you make money. Of course the devil is in the detail. How do I get a real time market feed that I can access programatically rather than using someone else’s software? How much does it cost? Do any brokers provide direct access to their trading systems?
I know it can be done in theory, hell, I’ve written large chunks of an Interest Rate Swap electronic trading platform before I just need to find out what it’s like in practice. Anyway, today I’m doing some research into it and hopefully I’ll have some books on the subject arriving tomorrow.
Great idea - assuming your algorithm is sound of course!
I also note that you associate their gains as a product of your work, but don’t associate their losses as such…. Hmmmmm
Yes, I was thinking the same….
Well the loses can be directly attributed to the mortgages team who, pretty much singlehandedly, wiped out the [near record] profits of most of the other teams within the bank with their wonderful theory that the American housing market could only grow and wouldn’t collapse. So, yes, I can say I helped them make money and didn’t help them loose it.
Goron, you know this already, so stop stirring
I only said it to provoke a response
According to the Oxford Compact English Dictionary, the word is actually Harebrained, as in a brain the size of a Hare (which is a mammal of the genus Lepus), rather than Hairbrained which is obviously a brain that sprouts hair.
For one who is about to storm the stock market, one must be precise I feel.
I expect you’ll be known as the Dom Jones on the international money market.
I stand (or more precisely sit) corrected. If we’re being precise the international money market is not the stock market. After having done a lot of reading on the subject I suspect I won’t be known at all