Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

TraderStav posted:

- Ninjatrader is a great (top 3) charting platform, not just execution platform.

Maybe right on charting (though not sure how CQG isn't in the OP - it's generally regarded as best with esignal 2nd), but not sure about execution. Certainly in futures it comes way behind TT, Stellar, and CQG for popularity in professional environments - no idea what the best stock frontends are.

quote:

I want to bring up, what was discussed in the other thread near the end, that we need to eliminate the penny stock rule, and instead limit the companies we are allowed to discuss by market capitalization instead of share price.

Don't think any objective limits are needed - I think you know a "penny stock" when you see it, whatever the share price/market cap is.

f2a fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Apr 7, 2010

# ¿ Jan 28, 2010 22:59

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 10:28

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Cheesemaster200 posted:

If that graphic wasn't AIG, I am unsure if it would hold the same weight as it once did. Kind of ironic given what it is trying to portray, its time period, and what actually happened.

Not trying to question its message, but it is just kind of funny.

The actual result is irrelevant - at the time, a lot of people were coming into the thread saying that they thought a particular stock was a buy due to how far it had fallen, which is obviously a terrible way of making decisions. The chart was a troll, and a better explanation of why this is a bad way of valuing companies was this:

quote:

Interesting Citi datapoint:

If you bought C when it was 90% off its highs, and held until now, you would currently be down about 50% - at one point you would've been down just over 80%.

Also, I think I've probably said this on almost every page of the thread, but shares can be made worthless even if a company is too big to fail.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2010 23:25

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

This thread:

*posts statistically insignificant evidence of performance in order to justify what may or may not have been a good decision*

edit: basically I think Fooled by Randomness should be mandatory reading for this forum, and all traders for that matter.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2010 21:35

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Don Wrigley posted:

Actually, 2/3 of Goldman's profit comes from trading, though nobody knows the split between prop trading and client trading (I'd guess it's more of the former).

I seem to remember someone getting hold of some audited records of GS's prop trading, which suggested it was pretty much unprofitable. I'd be surprised if they're making most in prop given how easy it must be for them market making, what with much of the competition disappearing.

Also there's a pretty fine line between the two - I bet it's pretty easy to be a prop trader if you happen to be sat on the GS trading floor, chinese walls or not...

Hobologist posted:

I can understand how Goldman Sachs gives stocks an excuse to correct, but the journalists are saying it is also dropping the price of oil and gold.

I suppose they are named Goldman, which explains the gold thing, but I really don't see any stronger connection.

Don't know about oil, but Paulson is heavily invested in gold, so maybe fears that he could be forced to liquidate? I doubt that's the case, and even if it is, it's probably massively overblown.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2010 19:45

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

My understanding is that most HFT is market making, often breaking even and aiming to earn rebates for providing liquidity. Also heard that the big players are specialist companies (GETCO etc) rather than the banks.

Flash trading appears to be a bit of a myth based on a misunderstanding by the NYT and perpetuated by ZH. A flash order is basically an Immediate-or-Cancel, which is like putting in a limit order to buy between the best bid and best ask, then pulling it straight away if it doesn't get filled. The idea is that people (or more likely, computers) will be looking to sell at a particular price, but not willing to quote it.

f2a fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Apr 19, 2010

# ¿ Apr 19, 2010 20:37

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Christobevii3 posted:

Aahahah 13% now wtf. Supposedly the exposure to European banks is similar to the size of Lehman brothers blowing up, overnight lending crisis anyone?

If euribor and eurodollar front months are to believed, you might be right. Then again, it won't be clear if it's just an overreaction till tomorrow morning.

Worth a look at the charts if you can find them - compare the ranges to a normal day. Symbols are I M0 on LIFFE and GE M0 on CME.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2010 20:37

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

LactoseO.D.'d posted:

Dear ECB,

Please send bailout packages to the following countries: Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Then we can just be done with it. If I have to sit through drawn out negotiations and political posturing for each of these one at a time like I did with Greece, and their resulting market action, I'm going to go crazy.

ECB isn't allowed to bail anyone out (though arguably they broke the rule by fiddling with collateral requirements, and are rumoured to announce some legally sketchy bond buying later this week), so it has to be a political solution.

Euro fixed income is still pricing in death - new lows today in short end bor, new highs in back end and bunds, Greek/German 10 year spread wider by about 90bp. ECB press conference could be interesting on Thursday.

# ¿ May 4, 2010 18:38

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Jacques LeVert posted:

ECB press conferences tend to be boring and without spectacle. It'll be the usual stuff, Trichet whining about being utterly vigilant, pressure on the euro remains but we have good faith it'll be resolved painlessly, economic recovery is still taking place, bla bla bla. Let's be in the clear, the ECB is never going to raise rates in this environment. Not a single chance.

I would be seriously surprised if Trichet says something different for a change. Most likely its going to be soothing words and markets can't decide whether to believe it or do the exact opposite. Remember, Greece has been denying it was in dire straits up until 2 weeks or so before the 110 bn euros were agreed upon by the EU, IMF and Greece.

If he says the word "vigilant", fixed income will go into meltdown - can't see that word coming up for a while. I agree that a hike is absolutely off the table, more chance of a cut if anything. The interesting part will be whether he decides to do more LTROs, or even bond purchasing.

Also, he got abused in the Q+A after the last press conference, partly for his insistence that Greece would be fine, and partly because he tried to claim that changing the collateral framework wasn't a stealth bailout. Given what they did to it after the latest downgrade, it's going to be hard to keep defending that line.

# ¿ May 4, 2010 20:48

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

fougera posted:

Where do you get news from? I'm not sure if the function on optionshouse is any good.

If you mean live news, RANsquawk is the best value I know of, and they do a free trial.

# ¿ May 4, 2010 20:49

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Hobologist posted:

A ban on naked credit default swaps would have prevented a lot of the problem in the first place

Why? I thought that the outstanding CDS exposure on the Eurozone countries which are in trouble was even less than the ones that aren't, and certainly under 5% of outstanding debt, if not under 2%. Also I seem to remember the bond spreads widening before CDS - everything seems to imply that bonds have led CDS and not the other way around.

# ¿ May 19, 2010 19:40

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

I WANT TO EAT BABBY posted:

I thought that he was referencing the meltdown of 2008/2009 not the current European problems. The current EU sovereign debt woes were definitely not caused by CDS speculation and "wolf packs" which is one thing that makes the German response so puzzling.

I thought it sounded like the current problems. Just in case, here's a source which reckons $9bn CDS on $400bn debt: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/04/26/211756/greek-2-year-bond-yield-rises-above-13-per-cent/

Even the 2008/2009 meltdown is dubious - how exactly did naked CDS cause it? The problem a lot of people seem to have is that people could insure debt they didn't own, but the big losses came from the CDS writers. AIG wrote a lot of CDS - does it matter whether the people on the other side were hedging or speculating?

# ¿ May 19, 2010 20:12

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

I WANT TO EAT BABBY posted:

That's a fair point and I'm not saying that naked CDS was a sole cause of anything. I do think it's possible that the degree of fuckage may have been diminished were AIG only writing swaps for debt owners.

Even this is a bit sketchy, though I haven't really seen the right figures to judge.

If the worry behind naked shorts was really risk related, surely people should've been calling on AIG to short bonds against the CDS, given that the writer is the person taking all the risk?

# ¿ May 19, 2010 20:56

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

I WANT TO EAT BABBY posted:

Well wasn't that the source of anger after the fact, that AIG had no hedges on against the CDS?

That would be sensible, but most of the anger seems to stem from CDS buyers using insurance-type contracts without an insurable interest. When politicians/journalists talk about banning or regulating naked CDS, they almost always seem to be talking about people buying protection without owning the underlying bonds - the writers having a massive unhedged tail risk isn't really seen as an issue.

# ¿ May 20, 2010 09:19

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Dr. Jackal posted:

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

might as well go to a casino

In fairness, the same can be said for the vast majority of stockpicking.

# ¿ May 26, 2010 17:45

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

LactoseO.D.'d posted:

If your goal is day trading, I think the most valid starter question is, 'what are you doing for capital?' Also, stop buying books and use your university library. Few trading books are worth reading, let alone keeping or spending money for.

Pretty much this - don't bother with books. Just get a demo account and watch the market. Take trades based on your gut instinct and try to get a feel for it. The only way to learn is to get involved, so just make loads of trades - don't even worry about making (fake) money when you start.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2010 19:28

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Dr. Jackal posted:

Who's the 2nd I?

Portugal/Ireland/Italy/Greece/Spain

# ¿ Sep 26, 2010 21:24

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

IratelyBlank posted:

I'm a little confused on the charting/execution programs. Are the charting programs basically just news feeds that constantly update stock prices? Do these need to connect to any special service or do they work out of the box? I have used Zecco in the past to trade stocks when everything hit rock bottom and made some good money off of it and now I want to get back into it again. Will any of the execution programs listen in the OP work with Zecco? I tried getting it running and it is all very confusing as to what each thing actually does and what it needs to connect to.

If you don't know why you need execution software, you almost certainly don't need it - it only really becomes necessary for intraday trading, and while Xtrader might be seen as essential for some people, it would be overkill for the vast majority of those reading this thread.

Charting software just lets you look at charts of historical prices - you need to pay for a datafeed if you want real-time data, but again, it might be overkill depending how you trade. If you're taking a reasonably long term view, you might want to forget paying CQG $500 per month and just use this:

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AGE

# ¿ Oct 3, 2010 10:13

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Hobologist posted:

On the other hand, James Montier discovered that there is a .98 correlation between historical growth and projected growth, and a -.9 correlation between projected growth and actual growth.

Bonus chart:

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/10/22/17316/montier-analysts-are-rubbish/

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 20:58

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

MentosMan posted:

Which websites does everyone typically follow? I'm relatively new to investing, and I'm curious where everyone gets their information on emerging commodities, industries and what not. MotleyFool is listed in the OP, but it doesn't seem to have a particularly good reputation in this thread and half their recommendations seem to fail spectacularly. Any others? Someone mentioned SeekingAlpha, which I've really liked thus far (obviously WSJ, google finance and that too)

FT Alphaville is very good.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2010 19:15

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Josh Lyman posted:

If I wanted to get intraday currency prices for the past 2-3 years, where should I look? I would be willing to pay for this information.

Can't vouch for the quality:

http://ratedata.gaincapital.com/

# ¿ Dec 23, 2010 16:35

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

ikillhostages posted:

I really know nothing about SIRI, I just found it funny that they recommended to avoid when the stock went up like 1000%. Which is my whole question on how reliable those resources are (stock grade/ratings).

As a group, analysts aren't exactly brilliant at predicting the future:

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/10/22/17316/montier-analysts-are-rubbish/

# ¿ Dec 28, 2010 13:51

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Frogmanv2 posted:

Whelp, lets hope this poo poo works. WHN just traded at $0.041. Coincidently after i posted my chart, they came out with an announcement that one of the wives of the directors has just bought some more shares, now taking her total up to 9 mil and a bit. I wonder if the wife of a director would know something I dont?

Maybe she bought it based on technical analysis?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2011 18:55

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Facebook seem so dominant - where does the growth come from? Seems like they either maintain their position, or lose it....

# ¿ Apr 19, 2011 18:33

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Gold may not produce any cashflow, but it's a yellow metal, therefore

# ¿ Apr 20, 2011 21:00

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Orgasmo posted:

This may sound like a stupid question, but why doesn't the European Central Bank itself consider injecting more cash into Greece since member countries cannot do it themselves?

You got it backwards - member countries have to bail them out because it's outside the ECB's mandate - even the bond buying program was controversial.

# ¿ May 10, 2011 17:25

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Plastic Jesus posted:

I don't know anything about eSignal, but Interactive Brokers has an API for all of their data, both live and historical, that you can use if you have an account with them. AFAIK you can just deposit $25k and use their data to your heart's content without actually trading through them, but i could be wrong.

I haven't looked at IB data, but apparently the quality is low (at least if you're looking at the sub-minute level.)

I get live data from XTAPI, which is very good, but expensive at $1400 a month for all futures exchanges (about $600 I think for a single exchange). That includes XTrader though, so you should be able to get data alone much cheaper.

Depending on what kind of quality you need, maybe look at NxCore (reasonably high end) or IQFeed (lower end). I haven't tried either, so obviously can't vouch for quality. Bloomberg is probably excessive.

As for eSignal, don't know about live, but the historical does contain some bad prints, and I believe the API costs extra (not 100% on this).

# ¿ Aug 15, 2011 19:35

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

Right but historically selling in May and going away has been pretty good. But most people (including myself) stayed in because, according to data, the effect isn't as strong during election years.

What kind of sample size are we talking about here?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2012 17:02

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Does anybody have some recommendations for a good screener software? Here is what I am looking for:

1. I can provide my own strategies to it in a normal, public language--not just an internalized scripting language. I'm thinking like C++, Java or C#.
2. Can do historical backtesting using the screening system. So assuming my algorithm is selecting equities it can test entering and exiting them across a year of 1-minute data.
3. Could eventually deploy and track as many things as possible at once. I should be limited by my datafeed, and not the software. Here I assume good hardware from the current generation.

I'm hearing that TradeStation is getting antiquated and is liable to run slow. So I'm wondering instead about stuff like OpenQuant or MultiCharts. There are a lot of things out there and they don't really broadcast what all they can do with their screeners.

Do you really need to test and implement on the same platform? If you're doing anything non-trivial, you'll probably be better backtesting in something you can hack together quickly which already has plenty of stats built in - either MATLAB, R, or python with numpy/scipy/pandas. Performance isn't an issue, as you'll always spend more time coding than running stuff.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2012 18:22

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

Forex is the most efficient market on the planet since currency information is so symmetrical.

How do you measure efficiency?

# ¿ Aug 2, 2012 19:19

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Is there a good forum to hang out on for automated trading stuff? I had been trying Elite Trader, but half the posts are "hurr indicators blah PRICE ACTION ALL THE WAY." The way "price action" gets thrown around makes me think the term has no meaning anymore. I'm trying to find a crew of programmer people messing around with trading.

Nuclear Phynance is pretty good - very strictly moderated, which is good for the signal/noise ratio.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2012 18:29

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

asmallrabbit posted:

Well I have to get to the $100k level first. Likely tone the risk down much more at that level, but I'm comfortable with it at this point. I've spent far more then this on other stuff, and this can actually get me somewhere, so it's both educational, fun and potentially profitable.

If it's fun, you're doing it wrong...

# ¿ Apr 6, 2013 16:52

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

booshi posted:

Does anyone know how a lot of forecasting/rating is handled? What methods are used? I have a light summer coming up, and I'm a CS grad student, so I'd love to take a crack at maybe training a Hidden Markov Model against the market just to see how it fares. Or maybe a few modeling techniques I am familiar with.

You might want to take a look at the nuclear phynance forums - just make sure you read a lot before posting, as they can be a bit hostile to newcomers.

# ¿ May 16, 2013 22:59

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

RushMix posted:

So, a quick and dirty theoretical opinion kind of question: If I were one of the average people in this thread, and wanted to make about $500 a month with 10-20 hours of focused effort and 10-20 hours of passive monitoring, how much play money would I need to start with?

If this seems too personal, I'd be happy to make it into a anonymous google docs poll or something.

Yes, this isn't how stocks work, bla bla bla. I'm just asking for vague opinions based on your past results.

If you're one of the average people in this thread, you won't make money.

Realistically, you can't make $500 per month actively trading - either you're very good, and will make far more than that, or you're average, and will not profit in the long run. One of these is far more likely than the other...

# ¿ Aug 1, 2013 20:16

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

evilwaldo posted:

Everyone is day trading options on Apple, Google, Tesla, and any other high priced stock.

You just intraday trade the options with the volatility and make a killing if you know what you are doing.

It is part of the reason they do not split.

Dynamic hedging with a view on IV?

# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 21:57

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

fougera posted:

Question:
Why are 21 and 45 days significant? Just cuz the lines match up?

Presumably because 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 etc.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2013 20:45

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

El Pato posted:

Quick question

Do we talk about intraday trading in here? And if so, what do you guys think of trading stocks from Brazil and Canada?

I recently began trading in a prop firm, but one month after joining and trading US stock, the owner decided he wanted us to trade either Brazil or Canada stock. Its so goddamn slow.

Are there exchange rebates, and are these being passed on to you?

# ¿ Nov 24, 2013 22:37

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 10:28

f2a: Feb 17, 2005; the pound is stronger than the dolla, holla

El Pato posted:

Yeah, on US and Canadian stock I get paid for limit orders and I pay for market orders, in Brazil I pay for limited and market orders. Is this what you meant?

Yes, I was just wondering what the appeal of Brazilian stocks was. Some less reputable firms might have their traders trade products with generous rebate schemes, and then keep the rebates for themselves. Lots of breakeven traders would then give them a profitable business model...

Incidentally, what kind of prop firm are we talking about? Don't need to name names, just wondering if it's a proper salaried job, or a free shot at earning a percentage of profits, or they want you to put money down/pay for "training".

# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 21:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better