

Becoming really rich with C# - nathanwdavis
http://blogs.msdn.com/lucabol/archive/2009/09/22/becoming-really-rich-with-c.aspx

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mynameishere
I spent a few months trying to ferret out incorrectly priced options. The
truth is...there are 1000s of hedge funds, not to mention Goldman Sachs, who
have mathematicians on staff who will beat you at every turn. Unless you find
some as-yet uncounted variable, like the moistness of the ferns in Ghana as
they relate to next month's Cocoa crop, forget it. Everything is priced in,
and even-odds is the best possible bet.

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fauigerzigerk
Would you be playing against them or would you just ride the wave they create?

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nathanwdavis
This interesting because I do pretty much the same thing on my website
<http://ETFtable.com> except that is for all ETFs, it is sortable, filterable,
and I do all the technical analysis in the browser in Javascript.

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ratsbane
Nicely done. When I first clicked on it I though it was a java applet but
then, on looking at the source, I see you're using the Yahoo User Interface
library.

Where is the source of your ETF data?

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spitfire
This guy is going to lose all his money.

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_pius
Why?

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barrkel
You can read more about it here:

[http://marketprognosticator.blogspot.com/2009/07/real-
vampir...](http://marketprognosticator.blogspot.com/2009/07/real-vampire-
squid-on-face-of-humanity.html)

(I posted this in reply to Luca's post when I first read it.)

The basic idea is that you chase the herd. The problem comes from two areas.
If sentiment changes, and there's a big herd, the price can change very
quickly, and you might not be fast enough to come away with gains. The other
problem is the transaction cost (commission, stamp duty, capital gains tax,
etc.) of chasing the momentum, continually trading stocks, eating away at
gains.

~~~
known
I believe 99% of flaws in stock exchanges can be prevented if every trade is
subjected to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry#Adverse_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry#Adverse_Selection)

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ilyak
You can do that in something like python in 2x less lines.

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fauigerzigerk
I can do it in LZW in 10 times fewer bytes than you can do it in Python :) I
think comparing statically typed languages to dynamically typed languages
takes more than counting. You also have to test and maintain the system.
Others have to make sense of the code you write, etc. And now show me your 2x
fewer lines of Python code :-)

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ilyak
I just meant that C# isn't that good and never will be as good for quick
scripting. Only if you don't know anything else.

But I've changed my mind. For math, he'd better take mathlab-octave.

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stingraycharles
_I just meant that C# isn't that good and never will be as good for quick
scripting. Only if you don't know anything else._

Often, the best tool for the job is the language you feel most comfortable
with.

~~~
camccann
The best tool for a job is almost always to select a language you are already
comfortable with, which is exactly why it's beneficial to be conversant in
multiple languages of different styles.

If all you know how to use is a hammer it may be faster on a given task to
nail everything together instead of learning other tools. But if you take the
time to learn other techniques before you need them, it'll pay off in the long
term.

