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I'm a self-taught quant, not an 'active' investor, but here's what I do. I use factors like trend and momentum to develop algorithms. Then I backtest my algorit

I'm a self-taught quant, not an 'active' investor, but here's what I do. I use factors like trend and momentum to develop algorithms. Then I backtest my algorithms against decades of data. Then I buy/sell stocks based 100% on what the algorithm says to do. If you hand pick stocks, you will lose. A simple index fund will destroy you over, say, 10 years. I'm happy to back up that claim with cash if you will make your picks public. $1,000 to the charity of your choice.

hood_syntax 9y ago
Two questions, if you're up for answering them: * Where's the best place to get data for testing purposes? *What kind of trades do you do? Is it mostly buying and selling actual stocks, or do you go after more complicated trades like shorts/puts/options?
- baccredited 9y ago
  >* Where's the best place to get data for testing purposes? If you open and fund an account at tradier.com they give you access to a REST API that includes some good stuff. I also pay $50/mo for some additional data from ycharts.com. But you can also use some free libraries that pull from yahoo and they sorta work. >*What kind of trades do you do? Is it mostly buying and selling actual stocks, or do you go after more complicated trades like shorts/puts/options? My algorithms are long-only and I buy stocks and hold them for at least one year. If the algorithm could exceed the high cost of short-term capital gains, I would hold for a shorter period. You could also try quantopian.com for some super short term trading. I personally think that is a poor use of time. I REALLY wish there was some place I could enter competitions and make my trades public. I'm using motifinvesting.com for now but would enter trades at other places if I could. I played around with instavest.com (a YC company) which was promising for a while but it stopped working and I suspect they are on life support or something.
  - hood_syntax 9y ago
    Thanks for the info, I appreciate it
  - smartician 9y ago
    What do you think of portfolio123.com? I'm looking to get my feet wet in quant stuff, but the high price is scaring me off. Right now I'm running simple momentum models on macro index ETFs using Yahoo data (monthly trades).

hood_syntax 9y ago

Two questions, if you're up for answering them: * Where's the best place to get data for testing purposes? *What kind of trades do you do? Is it mostly buying and selling actual stocks, or do you go after more complicated trades like shorts/puts/options?

baccredited 9y ago
>* Where's the best place to get data for testing purposes? If you open and fund an account at tradier.com they give you access to a REST API that includes some good stuff. I also pay $50/mo for some additional data from ycharts.com. But you can also use some free libraries that pull from yahoo and they sorta work. >*What kind of trades do you do? Is it mostly buying and selling actual stocks, or do you go after more complicated trades like shorts/puts/options? My algorithms are long-only and I buy stocks and hold them for at least one year. If the algorithm could exceed the high cost of short-term capital gains, I would hold for a shorter period. You could also try quantopian.com for some super short term trading. I personally think that is a poor use of time. I REALLY wish there was some place I could enter competitions and make my trades public. I'm using motifinvesting.com for now but would enter trades at other places if I could. I played around with instavest.com (a YC company) which was promising for a while but it stopped working and I suspect they are on life support or something.
- hood_syntax 9y ago
  Thanks for the info, I appreciate it
- smartician 9y ago
  What do you think of portfolio123.com? I'm looking to get my feet wet in quant stuff, but the high price is scaring me off. Right now I'm running simple momentum models on macro index ETFs using Yahoo data (monthly trades).