
Show HN: Stock Trading from Google Spreadsheet - umitanuki
I&#x27;ve shared copy-able G sheet with full script that calls stock trading API.
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;spreadsheets&#x2F;d&#x2F;1RLvSmDEfS7U2OrqlUYvv_8KpHJ15tzACK_JvmRYXm1k&#x2F;edit#gid=0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;spreadsheets&#x2F;d&#x2F;1RLvSmDEfS7U2OrqlUYvv...</a><p>I&#x27;m sure many of you guys do some trick over stocks in spreadsheet. Full explanation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;automation-generation&#x2F;manage-your-stocks-from-google-spreadsheet-using-api-43026db44289" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;automation-generation&#x2F;manage-your-stocks-...</a>
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foolsgold
I worked for one of the largest financials services companies in the world and
they __STILL __use excel to drive their trading activities. They are so large
and so complex that it 's impossible to convert them because no one completely
understands how it all works. They were developed by traders/market experts
with no help from IT, for years IT didn't even knew they existed.

These spreadsheets are truly amazing, I've only seen glimpses of these
spreadsheets but they were massive, nothing like needed to have servers in the
local network cabinet and running cables for keyboard, video and mouse,
because you needed 1/2 a Tb of ram in order to open the spreadsheet.

~~~
laminar_flow
Also worked for some large financial firms, and can confirm that there is a
disconnect between Excel models created by traders and IT. One interesting
development was the acquisition of ClearFactr by Goldman [1]. Seems like they
hope it will centralize some of these models into one sytem, making them
accessible across the firm (Excel sheets can even be imported).

GS has had a centralized risk/pricing system for over 20 years now that is
pretty powerful [2]. Fun fact: GS was able to calculate their total exposure
to the Lehman collapse 12 hours after it happened using this.

1\. [https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-buy-
financial-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-buy-financial-
modeling-startup-2018-11) 2\. [https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-
en/276170/secdb-quartz...](https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-
en/276170/secdb-quartz-athena-analytics)

~~~
mruts
I worked at a financial services company that created portfolio analytics
software. My job pretty much consisted of turning our analysts' excel models
into high performance Scala code.

The company wasn't very successful, we just couldn't convince portfolio
managers to pay for our software. Even the analysts at hedge funds didn't like
to use our software. My theory is that a bunch of analysts need to justify
their jobs with incredibly inefficient and error-prone excel workflows. Our
software would have eliminated a lot of what they do in a day, and therefore,
would eliminate their jobs as well.

It is terrifying that trillions of dollars of assets are run on excel, but the
inertia is too strong.

~~~
sticazzi
No, it would be terrifying that trillions of dollars are run by programmers.
If the hedge fund guy says that Excel is fine, then Excel is fine.

~~~
mruts
Well considering their terrible returns net of fees and the massive outflows
into passive, I think it's about time the industry did some soul-searching.

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anonu
Trading driven from a spreadsheet brings back horrible memories of my earliest
days on Wall Street. Excel was usually hacked in the most grotesque ways: tick
data coming in, updating cells and signals and driving actual orders out the
other end. Add to the fact that you're running on a desktop computer thats
already struggling with a dozen other applications consuming market data, CPU
cycles and driving 6 monitors...

I was usually called in to debug these things. My approach was always super
minimalist... How do I make the 1 change that will get this all back on its
feet again? .... without looking at any of the VBA or the weird DLLs lurking
in the shadows.

Having said all that - Google Sheets is actually a different beast. I still
wouldn't trade through it. Also, I've been eyeing Alpaca for a while - I like
what they're doing. Best of luck to them....

~~~
anovikov
And people trusted real money to such a crap solution?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
As opposed to another crap solution some small band of programmers could come
up with?

If it works...

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onion2k
There was a really nice example of a Vue app that uses Sheets as an API on
Codepen the other day -
[https://codepen.io/quinlo/pen/eQrRMM](https://codepen.io/quinlo/pen/eQrRMM)

------
DailyHN
I don't think many people realize the flexibility of Google Sheets + Scripts.

When I need an ad-hoc flexible internal tool, Google sheets is usually the
first place I start building.

~~~
giarc
I'm actually building a product right now that will live entirely on Google
Sheets.

~~~
DailyHN
Awesome, can you tell us more?

I'm building out "Idea Meritocracy" tools like those found in
Principles(Dalio).

The Google Forms integration is really powerful for mobile input. And event
triggers are great for managing what's inputted to the form.

~~~
giarc
Should be ready for beta release very shortly. Focus is on improving
communications between small businesses and their customers. I thought about
building out a standalone web app, but Google Sheets was easy enough for a
MVP. Spreadsheets are generally well known and familiar enough for small
business owners/operators to use so it could always live as a sheet.

There are a few competitors right now, but they lack a certain feature that I
think is important.

Can share more when ready... aka when I've purchased the domain name so it
doesn't get squatted.

~~~
DailyHN
So it's a CRM? Or a single CRM feature?

Does it use any proprietary or other APIs outside of the sheets scripts?

Ping me when it's ready for beta testers

Brian at angularjobs.com

~~~
giarc
No not a CRM. It's likely a feature in many CRMs though.

It uses an outside API and that's a big change from existing solutions. Sorry
for being cryptic, but if I shared the API it would be obvious. I just want to
put final touches on it before doing a Show HN. At that point it'll be obvious
:)

~~~
scottmcdot
Keen to see this. Can you please reply to this message when you share to HN?

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Down_n_Out
Does something like this exist in Europe? _Free_ trading would be a dream.
Paying 7,5 EUR to 15 EUR or more for each transaction gets old quick.

 _Free_ : Or paying a very little amount compared with what is considered the
norm.

~~~
cfontes
[https://stocks.getbux.com/](https://stocks.getbux.com/) we will be launching
it next year!

Disclaimer: I work at BUX.

~~~
dig1
Any plans for trading API? I presume you are from Netherlands, what exchanges
you'll cover? What are limits to EU vs non-EU residents?

EDIT: formatting...

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rodolfobandeira
You can just use Google Finance directly from your Google Spreadsheet.

Reference:
[https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093281?hl=en](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093281?hl=en)

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ykevinator
I can't believe I've never heard of alpaca before.

~~~
hellofunk
Looks like the press release was only a few weeks ago. I wish they provided
some way to access historical data, however. I struggle to find accessible and
inexpensive histories.

~~~
umitanuki
You will access to the historical data. [https://docs.alpaca.markets/web-
api/market-data/](https://docs.alpaca.markets/web-api/market-data/) working to
cover more

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hackerews
Smart to have a SUBMIT button.

POST requests with Google Sheets is generally a bad idea since you can't
explicitly control when they're sent.

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jason_slack
So many firms still use Excel to drive trades. When I started out I was using
GNumeric and still sometimes use it for quick ideas before coding a strategy
in c++

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lucas03
These common excel spreadsheets used by investors are partly why I am writing
my web application. It focuses on DGI investing and dividends in general and I
have a lot o plans and room for improvements, but e.g. automatic dividend
calendar must be 100 times better than keeping track of dividends in google
spreadsheet manually :D

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TheGrassyKnoll
DGI == Dividend Growth Investing

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nodesocket
I'm really curious what a simple algorithm would be? I know that penny stock
traders usually operate within the first hour of trading mostly looking for
stocks that are poised to gap open on some event looking to catch upward
momentum, even if only 1% or 2%.

Would be awesome to see how this could be accomplished with the Alpaca API.

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blairanderson
removing emotion from the actual decision to make equity purchases should be
the main priority for products right now. Would be great to see more programs
"building your own ETF".

\- choose your investment theory \- set the variables \- get monthly/quarterly
updates to SELL:X / BUY:Y

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cpr
Nifty! What’s the catch? ;-)

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paulcnichols
Cool, but first thought was a sarcastic “What could possibly wrong?”

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syntaxing
Is there a catch to Alpaca? How do they make money?

~~~
conistonwater
Companies like that usually sell the order flow to market makers.

~~~
jcfrei
Good explanation of Robinhood's business model by Matt Levine:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-16/carl-i...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-16/carl-
icahn-wants-to-fight-dell-again)

~~~
umitanuki
And by Evan [https://medium.com/automation-generation/commission-free-
tra...](https://medium.com/automation-generation/commission-free-trading-is-
it-helping-or-hurting-you-dc5fdc22ca6a)

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thedangler
I wish Alpaca worked for Canadians. There is Questtrade, but comparing the
documentation, it isn't as nice to work with.

~~~
umitanuki
We are working hard to support non-US users!

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robertsd247
Cool. I like useful posts. All posts should be useful. But not all posts are
useful. Most are not useful. Now I have lost my faith in humanity. :(

