
Ask HN: Is it feasible to do high-frequency trading as an individual? - antichaos
My stock broker offers a programming API. The trading fee is close to $10/order. With that price point, it seems pretty expensive to do high-frequency algo trading. Are there any much cheaper options for me to experiment with hi-freq trading? Or is it a dumb idea that I should give up?
======
nlh
I'll share some experience a friend had with this stuff. I don't have the low-
level details, but this should be enough to make an informed decision.

He was working on what he termed "high speed automated trading" -- basically
all in this realm of picking pennies up in front of bulldozers.

He's a very smart and talented guy -- Harvard Physics/Comp. Sci double major,
etc. So we're not talking about an amateur throwing around some code.

He spent about 6 months and over $50k setting up his system -- he had
developed some algorithms to trade spreads between different securites (on the
CBOE, the NYSE, and NASDAQ). He built a relationship with a clearing agent, a
direct broker, etc. He got machines in colo facilities as close to the
exchanges as possible (one data center in Chicago, one in Jersey City, etc.)
SLAs on low-latency DS3 lines, etc. The whole nine yards.

I'd call it a "pro-sumer" level setup -- everything done by one guy, but done
basically as well as a bigger firm would set it all up.

Here's what he discovered after about a week of trading: He didn't have even
remotely a shot at competing. Like, not even close. If he had 10ms pings to
the exchanges, someone else had 5ms. If he got down to 2ms, someone else who
was physically at the exchange itself had 1ms. He got killed with commissions
-- even if he did make a few $$ on some trades, it vanished with commissions.

Why? Because he was competing against guys who paid NO commissions. The
broker-dealers and clearing companies themselves had internal automated
trading setups. They had deeper relationships and deals that traded
commissions for a cut of the profits, etc.

In other words, he figured out pretty quickly that this is not an algorithm
game or speed game - it, like many things on Wall Street - is a 'who you know'
game. No matter how smart, how fast, how sophisticated you are as an outsider,
the likelihood is that someone on the inside has a similar trade idea and can
do it faster and cheaper than you.

Now, the corollary to that: My friend is smart, but he also tends to give up
too easily ;) Clearly if you've got an idea for a better/smarter/more
innovative trade, then you'll make money on it. But that's a trade idea, not a
speed advantage.

So just recognize that there's potential to make money, but "same idea, just
faster" won't cut it.

~~~
matwood
Yeah, he learned the hard way that you can't expect to compete in the pros
without pro level access. The thing is though that the pros are dealing with
ms or seconds when he should have been looking at things outside their range
like minutes or hours or possibly even days.

The currency market is even more cut throat (hey, insider trading is
encouraged! :) ), but I have a friend who works with a single other guy
managing about 10M leveraged out close to 100M. All they do is trade currency.
On a typical day they make 1-2 trades for their clients and the rest of the
time play golf and hang out. Pretty much the ideal job :)

They got started years ago while in grad school by writing an algo to analyze
currencies. After showing it worked they rounded up a bit of funding and have
gone on from there. Ever since then they have just honed and tweaked the
algorithm and both make a good living off the commissions from working a
couple hours/day.

------
dhyasama
Stay away from HFT, big players will eat your lunch. HFT isn't even a game of
milliseconds anymore, it's a game of microseconds. You can still do well with
algorithmic trading where speed of execution isn't an issue. Work on your
strategy, test it on historical data, execute it manually, if it works then
automate part or all of it.

~~~
larsberg
Yup. NASDAQ will even tell you what the current latencies are for their coloc:
<http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=inet> Microseconds indeed.

Alternatively, you might consider going overseas if you aren't prepared to pay
coloc fees and do custom FPGA or realtime work. Some of the exchanges,
particularly in Asia (except Japan) still have clearing times measured in
seconds.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Why doesn't government step in and quantise trading terms to be a whole day
(or similar time)? It seems wrong to me that with potentially equal
performance two traders can get different returns based on the microsecond
difference in their latency between their server and the exchanges central
server.

Does anyone still by the whole line about exchanges being their to create
fluidity in the market.

It all seems a big scam, the more I learn about it the less I feel the highest
returns go to those who perform the greatest scams fleecing off value created
elsewhere (manufacturing, services, ..).

------
nudge
It's not a dumb idea, but you certainly should give up. The high frequency
game is one you will lose, because many of the large investment banks have
relationships with the stock exchanges allowing them to get information faster
- and respond to that information faster - than other traders.

See this NYT article (including the graphic) for more:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html>

~~~
vecter
That article is 85% hype. It reads like an editorial, not a news article. What
exactly do you mean by "relationships with the stock exchanges"? If by that,
you mean they pay the exchanges for colocation (which anyone can do), then
yes, I would agree. If you mean the banks and exchanges are cronies and that
the exchanges give the banks free perks because they're golf buddies, then
that's wrong.

The edge you are talking about in terms of "previewing orders" seems to refer
to flash orders. Those no longer exist (which I think is good), but I doubt
they were a high source of revenue or edge, given their low volume relative to
the rest of market activity.

~~~
wglb
There are several problems with this article; some errors (or simply incorrect
terminology) and some things that are no longer true.

There is a difference between "algo" trading, also known as "program trading"
and HFT. The algorithms in HFT kind of boil down to "get it there fast".

The thing that is no longer true is the flash orders (pointed out elsewhere in
these comments) are no longer allowed. This is the reference to flash orders.

The trick to being a HFT is to be big enough and fast enough that the
exchanges pay _you_ to trade. Thus, you don't necessarily have to make a
profit on these trades. Then you are really a liquidity provider. Being an HFT
is about size, speed and execution mostly, and ideas not so much. My advice is
to not go after that market. It is likely that you are three or five orders of
magnitude too small.

Other strategies are more interesting for the small guy. Maybe become a MFT
(medium frequency trader), whatever that is.

------
steveplace
Since everyone has said no so far, I'll go ahead and say it's possible, but
very difficult.

HFT algo commission is much lower than $10/trade. IBKR offers 0.008/sh, and it
can get much lower if you trade in volume.

Like others said, it is a game of milliseconds. So you need to own a server
near the exchanges in new york (i.e. <http://www.ubiquityservers.com/data-
center/new-york.php>).

The best way to start learning is develop algos _not_ for HFT. Instead of
milliseconds think about 15 min - daily holds. If you're trading under 25k,
you're only allowed to make 3 intraday trades a week.

So find a broker that has a FIX api, buy some data for backtesting, code some
stuff out using R/python, and forward test your strat using papertrading for
about a month-- then put real money to work.

~~~
lrm242
IB's unbundled commission structure is cheap, but I wouldn't recommend them
for HFT. HFT, as defined by the industry, is basically very heavy on the order
flow with the majority of those orders going un-executed. IB charges an insane
cancel fee for orders that are direct routed. If you let IB route the order
with their SMART algorithm then you have no idea where it might land. I'd
speculate that IB charges such a crazy cancel fee because they don't want high
volume limit order traders competing with their Timber Hill market making
outfit.

Agree with everything else you said re: time frame, etc.

~~~
steveplace
IBs cancellation fee on options is pretty absurd. For the solution needed
there are much more specialized firms; however, starting off it's a pretty
decent start.

------
chipsy
I would ignore the "HFT" moniker and focus on the algorithmic part. HFT is a
big-money game for companies who can afford to build a data center next to the
exchange. But a longer-term strategy based on technical indicators can still
do very well.

My main recommendation would be to take things slowly, browse through the COTS
options in the field(which are plentiful), and make some of your own trades in
order to learn and develop your strategy.

------
IsaacL
Someone on reddit a few months back was succesful at this:

"I used to work as a software engineer and started developing and trading
automated strategies in my spare time in 2006. I went full time in 2007 and
have been profitable every quarter since. AMAA"

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9s9d7/iama_100_automat...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9s9d7/iama_100_automated_independent_retail_trader_i/)

~~~
sstrudeau
automated != high frequency

~~~
dedward
Bingo.

I know a few algorithmic position traders.... and it's got sweet nothing to do
with high-frequency, or even day-trades usually. They have their algorithms,
software they've developed to handle analysis, and get them in and out
according to plan - I believe they research their target sector a bit, fire up
their algorithm machines, and then manually execute (or at least approve their
software to execute) the plan they had in place - and it's all position based.
They know when they're getting out of any position, up or down - whether that
happens the same day or in days or weeks, or months.

Lots of neat software, but not day-trading and not HFT.

------
lrm242
True high-frequency is very hard. Most of these guys got started in the
1999/2000 time frame and didn't have to deal with many of the start-up issues
that new entrants face. For example, just consider the data you need to trade
that quickly. Not only is the real-time feed expensive, but if you want to
source the data from the execution venue then you have a lot of code to write.
The amount of data is also quite large. For example, the US equities market
executes approximately 45 million trades per day and there are about 700
million quotes per day, not including the non-top of book quote activity in
the various ECNs. I collect between 2 and 4 GB of data per day, if you were to
go direct to the execution venues you'd be looking at >50 GB per day,
probably.

So, anyway, the "true" high-frequency game is very tough today because we're
already 10+ years into it. The markets have changed and the edge has gotten
smaller, but there is still plently for a lowly individual automated trader to
scratch away at.

Instead of looking for millisecond opportunities, look for second or minute
opportunities. Go where the big guys can't because there isn't enough
capacity. Can you find an edge that, on average, keeps you in a trade 30
seconds, for example? There's still plenty of alpha left, just don't step onto
their playground and expect to get onto the swing set.

A few practical notes:

* You need to look into unbundled or cost-plus commission structures. These fee structures charge a per share commission and pass through all fees and rebates from the executing venue. This is required to do any sort of size with reasonable cost.

* Most "retail" brokers are not sufficient for any sort of high-volume algorithmic trading. Interactive Brokers is barely ok if you are in any way interested in limit order trading because they have fairly large cancel fees for direct routed orders. If you're model doesn't rely heavily on strictly offering liquidity or you're ok with letting IB route your order then IB is ok and offers an unbundled commission structure. Lightspeed Trading and Lime Brokerage are two that cater to active individual and institutions.

* Data storage is a big deal. Effective storage of regular (evenly spaced) and irregular time series will require you to engineer something. There are commercial solutions, but you can't afford them. When you're dealing with high-volume intraday trading this is one of the first issues you'll face. How do you store, query, and manipulate data that includes 45 million new rows per day? The relational DBs fall apart pretty quickly and even if they didn't they won't give you the time series operations you need/want.

* Data feeds are expensive, but required. Look at DTN NxCore. It is a full market feed that will give you the best you can get w/o going direct to the exchange. Some brokers will give you access to raw exchange feeds, but you'll need to engineer feed handlers and a ticker plant for them. This is a non-trivial task, but not impossible. Once you've done that, you'll need to figure out how to get all that lovely data off your co-located server and back to your home base for analysis. Network engineering will be required because your broker doesn't want you pushing 10-20GB per day through their network connection, so you'll need a circuit from an on-premise carrier.

* The banks are players in HFT, but not the original or best. Most of the guys that started it are still independent. Look at GETCO, RGM Advisors, etc.

* Flash orders, what most folks in this thread are refering to when they say the exchange gives the HFT firm a first look, are no more. That edge existed, and I'm sure HFT took advantage, but no HFT firm was built on flash orders. When they started flash orders didn't exist.

It is possible to be a successful, independent, automated trader. It is even
possible to do it on a purely intraday, high-volume basis. Don't get caught up
in the hype of needing to be high-frequency or not.

\---

EDIT: The other thing I forgot to mention is that naked sponsored access is
likely going away. This is a near-requirement for "true" HFT. Any future
regulation won't affect any of the existing players because they're all grown
up now and most have their own broker/dealers. Some form of sponsored access
will likely still exist, but pre-trade risk checks will probably be required
and will therefore still leave you're broker between you and the market.

~~~
anigbrowl
(very off topic) _How do you store, query, and manipulate data that includes
45 million new rows per day?_

Perhaps one shouldn't? I've always been a bit fascinated by the analytical
tools in brokerage software - with a pretty good understanding of DSP and an
appreciation for the fact that asset prices are somewhat periodic, it's hard
to overlook the fundamental similarities between stock graphs and audio
waveforms. Once you start performing FFTs or wavelet transforms and get a
'feel' for dealing with signals, patterns become very seductive...possibly too
seductive: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect>

Might there be another approach? You wouldn't prepare to go to the store by
reviewing and analyzing the 1287 individual footsteps of your previous trip,
or try to predict the content of a HN thread by textual analysis of all
previous threads. Do we do so at a subconscious level, then? Not really - or
rather, our subconscious tends to forget about things as soon as they cease to
be important, which in the case of things like walking is a period of seconds
or less. Processing large volumes of data is computationally expensive, but it
turns out that simple rules can yield results that are both complex and
useful, as in flocking and swarming behavior: see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boids> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_Intelligence>, plus everything from the
wisdom of crowds to nonlinear dynamic systems (aka chaotic ones) like Newton's
basin or the logistic equation.

I feel there are two other fundamental problems with the massive dataset +
analysis approach. One is that you're not working in a closed system, and
there's no sensible way to quantify unexpected events. 'Bigcorp CEO in Sex
Scandal!' might cause the price of Bigcorp to tank if it's a major distraction
or their largest customer base is among rural conservatives. If Bigcorp makes
racing cars, it might just be good publicity! Now you can do some kinds of
interesting posthoc analysis (eg for news stories that contain a stock symbol,
measure the correlation between # of textually similar stories and stock
volume/prices using a distributed windowing function) but we're a long way
from having a browser plugin that trades based on the contents of your RSS
feed.

Another problem is that of feedback. As you've discussed so ably above, people
who spot an arbitrage opportunity will mine the hell out of it. And as we all
know, traders are extremely subject to herding behavior even though all
training suggests they do otherwise. Sure there are systematic contrarians,
but I bet that if you just want to do academic analysis you could find a
contrarian coefficient and quantify its damping effect on price or volume
movements.

So rather than crunching vast quantities of stored data, I wonder if it might
be better to treat price movements not as absolutes which you hope will reach
a particular ceiling or floor, but as differential vector data with a short
half-life. So far AI and modeling approaches seem to have focused on
prediction (surprise) and don't perform especially well. I think it would be
more interesting to map correlation variations for as large a number of nodes
(listed securities) as possible - think how we intuitively appreciate the
dynamics of a school of fish when watching a nature documentary, without
performing any detailed analysis of individual fish trajectories.

Of course this still involves processing a lot of data, but storing it is less
important because are only seeking to become more familiar with high-level
behaviors inside that system. There's more to fishing than running trawlers!

~~~
lrm242
Good thoughts, and I don't particularly disagree. Regardless of any derivative
you might obtain from the data, most folks want to retain high-fidelity
historical data for two reasons:

(a) Future analysis techniques are unknown. Today you might be using method X,
but tomorrow you might want to try method Y which calls for an entirely
different massaging of the raw data.

(b) Backtesting and replay. Simulations and replays of previous trading events
are valuable not only for testing a model but also testing the particulars of
new "infrastructure" code.

Both require high-fidelity source data. This stuff is so hard to come by and
costs so much money that most people want to be safe and save it forever.

To your point on analysis: it is rare that one would directly analyze the
source data itself. You'll almost always want to transform the data into
something more manageable for model development. The most crude form of this
is idea of "bars". Instead of looking at tick data, traders tried to reduce
the noise by looking at arbitrary aggregations of that data: 1 minute, 1 hour,
1 day, etc. Technical analysis using moving averages and other indicators are
also examples.

~~~
anigbrowl
Seems like hosting a large hifi dataset in the cloud (eg rolling last 5 years)
and charging a small fee to crawl it might be a good opportunity. Or maybe
there's no margin in it when people are prepared to pay $$$ as you describe
even if they're reinventing the wheel in the process.

Not that I'm a mathematical or economic genius of any kind, but I continue to
be surprised at how primitive financial analytics seem. When people do find
something interesting (eg Li's Gaussian Copula) they almost invariably make a
fetish out of it and hurl themselves off the nearest cliff shortly afterwards.
Economics faculties are as much to blame as anyone, I feel.

~~~
wglb
It is likely that you can't share that tick data--there are redistribution
restrictions.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Stock exchange data is closed? I find that rather strange.

~~~
lrm242
It's not closed, but to purchase re-distribution rights is very expensive.

------
groksalot
Cheaper? How. 10/order makes no sense at all if you are ordering 10-20 shares
at a time. It makes a lot of sense if your orders are 100,000-200,000 (or
more) shares at a time. Individual traders (most often) only do the 10-20
shares or so... Check to see if your broker has limits on the number of
shares/order.

High frequency algo trading, as presently committed to by the big banks,
relies (as others have noted) on advanced notification (if only, at times,
milliseconds in advance...) which, as an individual, you probably won't get.
But that just means you can't make use of the same algorithms as the banks.
You'll want to derive your own algorithms to exploit some specific pattern(s)
that are different from those that rely on advanced word. It's possible, but
unless you're already in possession of some wealth, unlikely that you'll be
able to design, implement and tweak your algorithm to profitability in
anything like a year or so. I certainly wouldn't try it as anything less than
a full time occupation... certainly not something that can be done as an
'experiment'.

------
zemblamatic
The only person likely to get rich off that is the broker...

~~~
aspiringsensei
Sadly "that" likely describes far more than HFT. I've been wondering for a
while if performance was inversely correlated with portfolio turnover in
actively managed portfolios.

Without having proved it out, I am almost certain it is.

~~~
aspiringsensei
And as I think about it, the reason for that might actually be that portfolio
turnover mitigates concentration risk if it is not excessive.

------
spitfire
No.

Your ping time will be > 20ms. factor in a bit of latency in the data feed and
call it 30ms. Nyquist says you'll get aliasing unless you sample 2xfreq. So
The highest frequency you can possibly trade is 60ms. Not at all high
frequency.

And I really doubt you'll get a 20ms ping time. I get 100ms to my broker. Can
you do mid-frequency trading? Absolutely. But you don't have the money or
access to resources required for hifi trading.

Also, $10/trade is VERY high. I'm using interactive brokers, which is
$2/side+some costs which are small enough I don't bother accounting for them.

------
robryan
What about low frequency algorithmic trading? As in you run a program that is
looking to make money holding a position for hours to days so the exact buy
price isn't as big a deal. Or does it become to much of a game of chance then?

~~~
gorm
Trouble is that you still need to guess what kind of market you are in. Such
systems often only work in some trending markets and you can easily loose what
you have gained when market goes against you.

------
patrickgzill
You should give up ... reason is that HFT costs for the big houses are just a
fraction of what you are paying, like less than a penny per trade. You could
not hope to gain back in margin, what you lose in transaction costs.

------
captaincrunch
High Frequency trading, is really meant for people or companies that have
their servers in the same network as the exchange they are HF'ing on. In fact,
true HF'ers buy and sell in fractions of a second, some lasting seconds, or
minutes.

I've researched this, and tried doing the same, but, in the end, trade fee's,
and commissions kill the idea dead. In fact, HF Trading falls under Day
Trading, which required that you must have the legal minimum $25,000 in equity
on hand to day trade... that is the main thing that killed it for me... read
for yourself: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_trading>

If you'd like to try it out before you trade live (here comes the shameless
plug), you can use the trade simulation I made (buy/sell/sell short) and set
your trade fee's and commissions totally free at <https://algxchange.com>

------
s2r2
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1431834>

------
fanboy123
"In other words, he figured out pretty quickly that this is not an algorithm
game or speed game - it, like many things on Wall Street - is a 'who you know'
game. No matter how smart, how fast, how sophisticated you are as an outsider,
the likelihood is that someone on the inside has a similar trade idea and can
do it faster and cheaper than you."

For every wall st question posted to HN this is the answer. It's a lot of
money in somebody else's backyard. The game's played in that backyard are
always rigged against the outsider.

------
wglb
Check out Interactive Brokers at <http://www.interactivebrokers.com/>. Their
brokerage fees are substantially lower than that.

------
alphaBetaGamma
As others have said, I think focusing on HFT is a _bad_ idea. You are going to
be in competition with other players in the market. What are your weaknesses
compared to them:

1) You are alone; you are competing with teams mixing 3-4 math/physics ph.d.'s
and 3-4 programmers that might implement their algos on the latest GPUs (and
this is _very_ time consuming).

2) You have no experience. You are competing with _very_ smart people that
have been playing this game for years.

3) You (probably) have little money. So you want to minimize cost of
historical data acquisition, data storage, data analysis, hardware,
collocation …

IMH, these points pretty much rule out HF trading.

You also have some advantages compared to the competition. One of them is that
you have little money, so you can invest in assets that are illiquid to
someone that wants to move a lot of cash.

I think it is possible to trade as an individual; hard but possible. And if
you are successful at some non-crazy frequency -- a few days, a few hours, a
few minutes -- then, maybe, maybe have a look at HF.

And another thing, if you can, go shopping for a broker with lower fees.
$10/trade? It looks as if you did not do basic homework -- but mabe you live
in a country where that's the cheapest you can get.

------
adn37
As already said both here and in previous threads: HFT is for _big_ players;
requires:

\- hosting on exchanges premises to cut roundtrip delay (µS speaking). Also,
very often, you'll be throttled depending on how much you pay. For entry fees,
you'll be limited to ridiculous rate such as 20 msgs/sec.

\- man years of development. Basically, when starting from scratch, we develop
Direct Market Access gateways (i.e, custom/proprietary access to exchanges) in
3 to 5 man-months (using an in house framework). And they sit on top of other
products that have dedicated teams working fulltime for years.

\- upkeep: exchanges update their systems once/twice a year. Migrations take
somewhere from a few hours to weeks, or a from scratch when they rewrite their
complete API. If you can't keep up with the updates, you won't be able to
trade.

And here, we're only speaking about trading. As highlighted, you also need
market data, both retrieval and processing. Then and only then you'll be able
to seriously start trading. (and then you'll want to do some back office
stuff)

> The trading fee is close to $10/order

Deal breaker, especially for HFT.

------
wowik
HFT is a game of speed and low fees. Not a single individuals broker can offer
substantial speed (microseconds count) and fees (cents count). It is a game
for prime brokers and big institutionals. Moreover it is true that some
exchanges (like NYSE) offer lower latencies for a serious monthly fee (not the
one an individual can afford). Thus I don't think one person can solve all
these complexities, however this topic is a good startup field with lots of
ineffeciencies and unsolved problems.

Algorithmic trading is an option, though needs careful research on topics of
broker setup (InteractiveBrokers should be a good starting point, ThinkOrSwim
is another good one, both has rather tolerant programming APIs) and software
for time series analysis and trading (among the most popular are Marketcetera
and WealthLab + lots of libraries like Incanter and Weka). On some of these
topics <http://elitetrader.com> forum should be helpful.

------
tsycho
Successful HFT desks are either large broker-dealers, or sophisticated hedge
funds, both of which are well-capitalized, have expensive infrastructure,
great location (close to exchanges to minimize lag), ultra-low trading
commissions etc. Furthermore, only the hedge funds are pure prop groups. Most
the broker-dealer desks act as market makers and aggregators for internal
flows (almost free money).

So it's going to be very hard for you to compete with them, even if you come
up with better algorithms.

I recommend looking at mid-frequency or low-frequency algorithms, which will
offset the impact of your higher trading commissions and don't get affected
much by infrastructure and location issues.

And yes, $10 per order is too much unless you talking really big money. Check
out IB, FXCM etc.

------
chrisduesing
As an individual it is unlikely. Your best bet would be to develop an
algorithm with massive amounts of recent historical data that shows you could
hypothetically be profitable. Shop that to trading firms or angel investors
and use their capital to get a direct feed. You probably won't be able to do
this to a major exchange, but there are lots of other options. If you find a
smaller market you can also potentially get a market maker agreement. This
will mean that you have to have certain positions open at all times, but you
can place any orders you want in addition to those, and all of them will have
$0 fees.

All that said, I would suggest you stick with vanilla algo trading to start,
and leave HFT to the big boys (until you are one).

------
brosephius
your internet-based API is nowhere near fast enough to compete with legit HFT
firms. low to medium frequency with longer holding periods, sure, but real HFT
via your broker's API? not gonna happen.

------
omellet
If you're not connecting directly to the exchanges, no.

------
seanMeverett
I like lrm242's comments. I started my own high freq algo firm back in 2007
and crushed it for awhile. In the end though, the governing dynamics of the
marketplace change and can change very rapidly, so any machine learning or
neural networking you do perform can become obsolete fairly quickly. Unless
you've developed HAL you're probably going to have a rough go of it
alone...hope this helps!

------
drallison
High frequency low latency trading is an fascinating area. If you do decide to
make a go of it and have the algorithm, the collocation site, the
relationships, and the money, you might want to work with Maxeler
Technologies, <http://www.maxeler.com>, which has the acceleration technology
that is need to make it happen.

------
siculars
There is a talk being given by Andrew Sheppard on O'Reilly right now talking
about using GPU programming to speed up number crunching, specifically in the
financial arena.

<https://oreilly.connectsolutions.com/gpufinance/event/>

I believe the talk will be recorded and made available for later viewing.

------
what
A little OT: People here are always talking about trading stocks, anyone
dabble in forex?

~~~
SkyMarshal
A caveat emptor on FX trading worth reading: <http://tickerforum.org/akcs-
www?post=23331>

~~~
what
Yeah, there are lots of bucket shops.

The claims about costs are stated in a weird way. The absolute cost of the
trade doesn't change based on your leverage, just the cost as percentage of
the margin requirement. I guess they're just trying to say you can blow up
your account faster with high leverage.

You can also find brokers that don't do roll over and will even pay you
interest on open positions for certain pairs.

------
swah
I can't even get real time (meaning not delayed by 15 minutes) stock quotes
for my startup here in Brazil.

~~~
dedward
Can't sign up for an IB account?

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bwb
etrade is about to come out with an API and programmers could use it to do
some really cool HF trading.

