
Turning my obsession in the stock market into a side project - blakbelt78
https://eduardosasso.co/blog/turning-my-obsession-in-the-stock-market-into-a-side-project/
======
pembrook
The number one issue I have with a lot of finance newsletters is the lack of
historical context so I think it's extremely valuable you featured historical
data right next to the daily data to give context on how small daily moves
actually are (minus this latest bout of volatility). I think that has a lot of
overlooked behavioral value, why not also feature 20 & 30y data, considering
this is the time series many young investors will need to consider for
retirement?

I find myself often googling to check S&P futures so this email would remove
that step for me. Might also be cool if the email had other features like Tax
Loss Harvest notifications when an ETF you're watching drops more than X%.

I did some research on the finance newsletter space myself a while back,
here's some of my favorites I ran across:

• [https://capitalminded.com](https://capitalminded.com) (more long term index
fund focused)

• [https://verdadcap.com](https://verdadcap.com) (more nerdy quant/value
stuff)

• Matt Levine's Money Stuff (couldn't find the sign up link but it's always
great)

• [https://www.finimize.com](https://www.finimize.com) (general news)

• [https://www.epsilontheory.com](https://www.epsilontheory.com) (somewhat
annoying but also interesting at times)

•
[https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives](https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives)
(value/quant stuff from a billionaire hedge fund manager)

Tried Robinhood Snacks but can't get over the feeling it's written by low paid
interns and doesn't offer any actual insight, just condensed mainstream
narratives.

~~~
blakbelt78
I like to see the historical data so I can put the numbers in perspective,
Yahoo Finance doesn't provide 20, 30y time frame that's the main reason.
Thanks for the list I'll check them out.

------
santamex
You should have a look at this nice and free stock market API. Also well
documented.

[https://financialmodelingprep.com/](https://financialmodelingprep.com/)

~~~
themodelplumber
Whoa! I love it, thank you for sharing this. It seems like it's a free API for
personal use with some rate limitations.

------
readme
Awesome project, I am sure it will help me lose lots of money.

~~~
blakbelt78
Same. Thank you.

------
blakbelt78
Github link for anyone interested in checking the code
[https://github.com/eduardosasso/bullish](https://github.com/eduardosasso/bullish)

~~~
jmcqk6
Why does it say "Buy High, Sell Low" instead of "Buy Low, Sell High?" What it
says leads to losing a lot of money...

~~~
blakbelt78
That's just for fun. I guess I've been hanging out too much at
r/wallstreetbets

~~~
jmcqk6
You might consider the impact it has on potential customers. I can see how
it's an in joke for r/wsb, but unless your target audience is only that
community, it raises a red flag.

~~~
klohto
Lighten up, the effect of this quote is probably as effective as Code of
Conduct

------
seabass
Nice, simple execution. I have a similar setup with Atom's daily premarket
emails. One piece of feedback. Excluding the futures section, the centered
text of the various timespans within the Performance section is harder to scan
than left-aligned text or a 2x4 table would be.

~~~
blakbelt78
Thanks. Yeah I agree I was just trying to come up with something decent given
my limited design skills.

------
monkeydust
Nice simple idea. It would be cool to see today's current email on the sign up
page so people get idea of what to expect the next day in their inbox.

~~~
blakbelt78
Yeah, I wanted to do that but I was expecting Sendgrid to provide that which
they don't so I need to build something. It's on my TODO list. Thanks for the
feedback.

~~~
nonsapreiche
wow very good idea! but better to see the next week email, to get an idea of
what to expect the next week in the market

------
stanislavb
Nice work mate! It's exciting turning your side projects into reality.
Hopefully there will be thousands of subscribers in a year and you could make
some good money out of it.

p.s. you can replace Google's captcha with hCaptcha ;)
[https://dev.to/stanbright/cloudflare-replaced-recaptcha-
with...](https://dev.to/stanbright/cloudflare-replaced-recaptcha-with-
hcaptcha-i-followed-their-example-it-took-me-18-min-1ipn)

~~~
blakbelt78
Thank you! Yes it is, I really enjoy trying to solve my own problems. SendGrid
provides that signup form and it’s very limited, probably I’ll need to have a
custom one at some point.

------
jldugger
I appreciate the effort, especially the free tier only approach, but... my
framework for data collection and reporting: what behavior, if any, do I
expect to happen as a result of data? If the answer is none, there is no point
in the email / report / pagerduty alert.

> The idea is for the mailing list to go out every weekday before the market
> opens so you can be informed enough to decide if it’s worth paying close
> attention to the market on any given day and make some moves.

Looks like the behaviors this information is intended to induce is:

1\. Gather more data more frequently (reload WSJ / Y! finance? front page?)
2\. Make more trades ("Buy High, Sell Low")

If SP500 futures moving but markets are closed, what action could you possibly
undertake profitably? Market open is a special auction you can't really
arbitrage like that, so you'd be hoping for intraday moves? Are these the
behaviors you _want_ to be inducing? Should retail investors be making trades
during times of high volatility?

I suspect no; retail investors will buy into rallies and sell into slumps,
exactly the behavior Bullish's tagline mocks.

~~~
blakbelt78
The point is for average investors not day traders to get an uncluttered view
of the market before it opens so they can have an idea if a possible big swing
is happening on any given day. I find it useful in my use case since email is
the first thing I check in the morning.

~~~
jldugger
Okay, you read the email and think it says 'maybe a big swing'. what do you
do?

~~~
blakbelt78
Then it's up to you. You can buy the dip, sell whatever.

------
meesterdude
Damn, guess I should have written a blog post. Yesterday I launched the MVP of
my stock news site [http://stockqua.com](http://stockqua.com) with (eventual)
goal to help people build up qualitative & quantitative analysis of stocks &
industries to make better investing decisions.

~~~
blakbelt78
You should. I've been hashing out my ideas in writing lately and it has been
helping me a lot.

------
jamisteven
This was a great read, really enjoy the branding, the feel, the minimalism in
the design etc. From a product perspective, I have a hard time seeing what
value this adds to your average trader, for me this wouldnt help influence any
decision making. For example every morning I listen to Bloomberg's "Five
things to start your day", this is largely actionable information that adds
color and context to movement in the markets. I would think if you can hone
into say sector-specific emails, like technology etc, to help zoom in on what
sectors as a whole, say tech, are looking like this week versus historical,
potential reports driving these changes etc, you may get a larger subscriber
base. ps: the tagline under Bullish logo at the bottom is backwards. Says buy
high sell low.

~~~
blakbelt78
Thank you. It's a simple idea that scratches an itch, I like your idea about
sector-specific info that might be something to look into to. The tagline is
correct it's just for fun!

~~~
jamisteven
Ahh, I was thinking certainly this perfectionist didnt reverse these words on
accident! Also, that shed build, pretty nice, the Al Merick behind the
original garage desk, also nice. I lived in SD for a while, miss it but damn
that water is cold compared to the east coast.

~~~
blakbelt78
thank you!

------
valuearb
Do you adjust returns for dividends?

That’s always been a bugaboo of mine as it makes a big difference over decade+
time frames.

~~~
blakbelt78
Yeah, I'm tracking adjusted closing points.

------
yamoriyamori
> Living the "quarantined" life

> It needs to be something I can finish in a week tops

> Ship it

Love the simple project idea & execution. I'm working on my own side-project
during this isolation period, and your blog post is helping to inspire and
motivate.

~~~
blakbelt78
Awesome. Keep at it!

------
tinyhouse
Very cool! I signed up. I was wondering if you did some research before
picking sendgrid. I see their free tier has a limit of 100 emails a day after
the first month. Their 100K/month is $15/month which is not bad I guess.

~~~
blakbelt78
Yeah, I've done some research and decided to go with Sendgrid because they are
the only ones that offer API in their free tier. Their free marketing campaign
plan offers 2k contacts + 6k emails month which should be plenty to start.

~~~
tinyhouse
Thanks! BTW, no email confirmation after signing up. Not a big deal but wanted
to let you know. I expected email verification.

Update: $15/month is good for up to 50K emails. Not 100K as I initially said.

------
jrs235
This looks cool. However, am I the only one that first saw Bullish▲ and
thought it was really Bullshi▲, in other words a slightly censored Bullshit?
Especially if reading the motto "Buy high sell low" quickly all at once.

~~~
bluetwo
"Buy high, sell low"... isn't that the OPPOSITE of what an investor wants to
do?

~~~
blakbelt78
LOL. That's just me making fun out of it.

~~~
starpilot
It's a really bald joke, like naming your restaurant "Tastes Bad Pizza".
People are just like huh?

------
jakub_g
> Get informed and decide if it’s time to Buy High and Sell Low

Love that tongue-in-cheek accent.

~~~
blakbelt78
Some people get it. Thank you.

------
SomaticPirate
I’m curious why you used Yahoo finance instead of Alpha Vantage?

~~~
blakbelt78
Alpha Vantage API showed inaccurate results from time to time and their
customer support is nonexistent.

~~~
tunesmith
I've noticed the same thing with Alpha Vantage, but I switched to Alpha
Vantage because Yahoo turned off their public API. It's the Yahoo API
available again now?

~~~
blakbelt78
They have an undocumented one that you can check in the network tab on your
browser. this is how the API looks like
[https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v8/finance/chart/%5EGSPC?in...](https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v8/finance/chart/%5EGSPC?interval=1d&range=5d)

------
mi100hael
Neat project.

For something more detailed with top headlines, big movers, earnings
highlights, etc. I really recommend the "Wall Street Breakfast" newsletter
from seekingalpha.com.

------
yoran
In my experience from developing Backtest
([https://backtest.curvo.eu](https://backtest.curvo.eu)), a backtesting tool
for EU index investors, the hardest part has been finding good and reliable
data that goes as far back in time as possible.

I only focus on index data so it's a bit easier but it's still hard. Lots of
scraping, downloading and parsing CSVs, Excel sheets, some puppeteer magic...

Some sources that I use:

\- MSCI data ([https://www.msci.com/end-of-day-data-
search](https://www.msci.com/end-of-day-data-search))

\- Financial Times website (e.g.
[https://markets.ft.com/data/indices/tearsheet/summary?s=SP5M...](https://markets.ft.com/data/indices/tearsheet/summary?s=SP5MVT:CME))

\- Investing.com (e.g. [https://www.investing.com/indices/us-
spx-500](https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500))

\- STOXX

\- DAX

\- FTSE for FTSE stock indexes
([https://research.ftserussell.com/analytics/indexviewer/chart...](https://research.ftserussell.com/analytics/indexviewer/chart?id=346864P&id=746163P&dataType=5Y&from=undefined&currency=EUR&perftype=Total&date=20-Jan-2015&chartType=LineChart&relative=undefined&datefrom=20-Jan-2010&frequency=weekly))

\- Yieldbook.com for FTSE bond indxes
([https://www.yieldbook.com/m/home/index.shtml](https://www.yieldbook.com/m/home/index.shtml))
\- ICE website for ICE bond indexes

\- ...

I'm constantly adding new indexes and sources (see
[https://backtest.curvo.eu/updates](https://backtest.curvo.eu/updates)) but
it's tough!

Some examples of what Backtest does:

\- MSCI World:
[https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgsgygwgkgBAdQPYCcA2AT...](https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgsgygwgkgBAdQPYCcA2ATEAaYoAyAqgIwDsAHMQKwAsxZAnDsQLptA)

\- My portfolio:
[https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgmg9gTghgdgcgM4AIAK0A...](https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgmg9gTghgdgcgM4AIAK0AuAzCAbASwhABphQAZAVQEYAWAZgHYAGGgDnYfdJYDoWATgC6ZEAEkAoixYAhAGJ0ASvIASDGrz71RoKTNl0KAVjCCuWuiLHUWzThxoatHXROlyAKgCklAWTQGYxdhUKA)

If the author has any questions, just reach out to me! Happy to share my
experiences.

~~~
blakbelt78
Yeah, I'm trying to stay away from scrapping, parsing, and that whole mess.
Right now I'm relying on Yahoo Finance undocumented API and possibly IEX Cloud
in the future.

------
cdiamand
Just signed up and looking forward to seeing how this evolves!

We recently launched an investing newsletter at
[https://topstonks.com](https://topstonks.com) (just got our first paying
customer yesterday), which tracks the social sentiment angle of a few weird
places on the internet - WallstreetBets and 4chan.

We're definitely still learning the ropes, but Let me know if you ever want to
talk shop!

~~~
blakbelt78
I've already subscribed to your project, I like your idea quite a bit. I have
some other plans in the pipeline lets see how this one goes first.

------
cdeutsch
You should try out the Investopedia newsletter.
[https://link.investopedia.com/forward/5d121631cac67b640d47dc...](https://link.investopedia.com/forward/5d121631cac67b640d47dc49byh2w.b6ab/5c78e2de)

I like it a lot more than The Morning Brew.

The Morning Brew's jokes get too obscure and make it hard to read.

Caleb does a much better job than the Brew IMO.

------
z023bs
looks cool, very similar to:
[https://snacks.robinhood.com/](https://snacks.robinhood.com/)

------
dharma1
The [https://themarketear.com/](https://themarketear.com/) newsletter is
pretty good

------
zuhayeer
Appreciate the appreciation for a well crafted email. Nowadays it feels like
emails are filled with mindless drivel as a part of some drip campaign or
retention strategy optimizing for a high open rate rather than delight.

Hopefully things change, but over the years, I've become allergic to
subscribing to anything by email – I'd rather go to a website when I want to

~~~
blakbelt78
I partially agree, there are good/informative emails out there. I for one
subscribe to many and unsubscribe to tons all the time and my inbox is tidy,
probably because I'm a little OCD

------
PaywallBuster
Just recently was also thinking about building some small tool to monitor my
trades too. And few days ago start looking at the same yahoo finance library
hah.

Anyway, after reading this, just went ahead and implemented my thing too.

In my case I just need to monitor a specific instrument, a few lines of code
were enough after figuring out how to use the underlying libraries.

~~~
blakbelt78
Great. Yahoo Finance is pretty good and there's
[https://www.iexcloud.io](https://www.iexcloud.io) if you need something more
robust.

------
s_r_n
Great idea! I would probably use this more if you looked at the futures
performance from yesterday's market close to this morning, in addition to past
1 day. The reason why is that I don't care as much about futures specifically,
as I care about what they could predict for the coming market open.

~~~
blakbelt78
Thank you. Right, that's something to think about.

------
secondstring
Just an FYI, the Hey.com hyperlink in the post seems to be a relative path,
just slapping it onto the end of the post route. All of the others work fine,
it looks like you just need to add an `http(s)://` on the front and you'll be
good.

~~~
blakbelt78
Fixed. Thank you.

------
homero
For finance API I've used
[https://iexcloud.io/docs/api/](https://iexcloud.io/docs/api/) which is
free/cheap.

~~~
blakbelt78
Yep their API is solid.

------
anonu
Pre market isn't just for futures like the blog post says. Any security that
has a trading session before the regular session trades "pre market"

------
brentis
Nice. I need a source API for short interest... ideas?

~~~
blakbelt78
From all the API's I've looked at IEX Cloud seems the most comprehensive with
a generous free tier [https://www.iexcloud.io](https://www.iexcloud.io)

~~~
akiselev
You can get access to some of IEX's data for free with higher limits than
IEX's free tier by opening an account with Alpaca. That gives you access to
polygon.io as well, which doesn't limit API requests (Your API ID is used as
the auth token for the polygon.io API).

~~~
blakbelt78
The thing with Alpaca and Polygon I think is that their most affordable plans
are only for personal use I believe.

------
monkeydust
Been using this for a few days.

Would be nice to make use of the subject line more so I might not even have to
open to email (yes more minimalist!)

e.g

DJ +0.22% | S&P +1.2% | ...

------
stringlytyped
I'm getting an error when trying to subscribe: "Error submitting the request.
Please try again later."

~~~
blakbelt78
send me a dm at blakbelt78 at Gmail and I can help you out.

------
Tehchops
Great work!

Building something end-to-end is a valuable experience, even if the end result
might appear outwardly "simple".

~~~
blakbelt78
Yep, it takes commitment even with the simplest idea.

------
rebataur
We build something similar(UI is not polished) for the India's BSE Stock
Market.

It sends buy/sell emails to users every morning(see below for links to
screenshots)

Is there a need for something like in the US/elsewhere ?

[https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pc2eu4dQJh4b6UegsVmR...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pc2eu4dQJh4b6UegsVmRxud5WOJLzfZ0?usp=sharing)

------
peter303
Saves you $2000 a month rent on a Bloomberg terminal. Though I think they have
additional functionallity.

------
sreenug
Super cool. Thanks for doing this

------
RhysU
Thank you. The daily email is missing a closing quote in the "Buy high sell
low

------
TedDoesntTalk
Nice! But why must i enable javascript just to signup for your newsletter?

~~~
blakbelt78
It's probably something with Sendgrid, the signup form is provided by them,
I'll probably need to write a custom one myself at some point.

------
megadethz
I have a personal setup that does something similar to this using Huginn.

------
unixhero
I for one, went ahead and signed up!

------
saadalem
Beautiful project, I like this idea.

~~~
blakbelt78
Thank you! Trying it out to see if it's something useful to more people. I
have a couple of ideas that I would like to add in the future.

------
starpilot
buy high sell low? shouldn't it be the opposite?

~~~
blakbelt78
That was just to make fun

------
lostmsu
Show HN is missing, title is a click-baity, does not summarize the idea.

~~~
bdcravens
After reading the article, the title seems pretty accurate.

OP did a Show HN a few hours ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867313](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867313)

This article seemed to be a deep dive into how the project came to be.

~~~
blakbelt78
Yep. That was the plan.

