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Comment by nightski | Hacker News Reader

I'd agree with the skepticism. That said, it takes a minimum of 25k to get started using something like this in the real world due to the PDT rule (honestly more than that so you don't dip below 25k). It's possible they just aren't ready to throw that kind of capital at it yet.

Also even if they aren't using real money that does not mean they are limited to historical data. You can run algos on live data even without actively trading. What you don't get is how your actions affect the market itself.

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> Also even if they aren't using real money that does not mean they are limited to historical data. You can run algos on live data even without actively trading. What you don't get is how your actions affect the market itself.

That equals to useless toy software in my book. But it's just my opinion.

Edit: Look, I don't want to trash the devs for no reason, but the amount of "finance" academic stuff that claims to produce successful strategies is just ridiculous. At some point people just get tired.

You may well be right that it's a toy (and judging from their docs it seems like it), but it's basically the first step in using an algo for trading. You always test on live market feeds first.

What's presented here is not a full blown strategy, it's just a framework for building signals (+ some of example signals) from which a strategy could be built, or to complement an existing strategy.

The signals presented are too weak to beat their cost and OF to generate money if traded, you would need at least 50 others blended together.

Its like listening to a bass player alone and thinking "I should put that guy in a live concert, he will earn millions", while the reality is you would need a guitarist, a drummer, a singer, etc.

Investopedia says that it only required when day trading on margin.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/patterndaytrader.asp

Cash settlements take several days. So while that is correct, a margin account let's you use funds from the sale of a stock immediately instead of waiting for the settlement to occur. You aren't taking out any margin (with interest) in this case, just using the funds you already have (but haven't settled). Otherwise a cash account limits how much you can trade very quickly since you are waiting on trades to settle.

Equities settle T+2. Without a margin account, Reg T requires that cash be tied up until a trade is settled. It’s not viable to day trade like that.

Doesn't the exchange match people with another person who is buying / selling it? Every single cryptocurrency or video game exchange I have used has settled pretty much instantly.

How hard is decrementing the shares of one user and incrementing the shares of another.

> How hard is decrementing the shares of one user and incrementing the shares of another.

whose database are you incrementing/decrementing in? Real life stock trades happen across multiple exchanges with multiple intermediaries (brokers, market makers, end users). Without a blockchain, this is not trivial to coordinate safely

>whose database are you incrementing/decrementing in

Your own. An an exchange you own 10 total shares and in your database you store who those 10 shares belong to.

> Doesn't the exchange match people with another person who is buying / selling it? Every single cryptocurrency or video game exchange I have used has settled pretty much instantly.

There are multiple exchanges where stocks are traded, and order routing is typically transparent when using retail brokerages. The exchanges only provide the matching engine, while brokers handle custody. The process of transferring the ownership between brokerages is the clearing step which is handled by the DTCC.

Cryptocurrency exchanges provide both the matching engine and custody, so transferring ownership can be done instantly by updating records in the exchange’s database. The clearing step occurs when transferring coins to another wallet or exchange, when the transaction actually hits the blockchain.

> How hard is decrementing the shares of one user and incrementing the shares of another.

It’s surprisingly difficult. Clearinghouses (centralized) and blockchains (decentralized) exist to solve this very problem.

You can settle as quickly as you want if you’re engaged directly with your counterparty. But yes, T+2 is wildly outdated and will likely move to T+1 in the next few years. Longer term, anything less than same-day settlement both wastes capital (of BDs who need to post collateral while their customers’ trades wait to settle) and risks contagion (since each additional day of settlement gives a party more time to go bankrupt) IMO

Don't you mean the opposite? Shorter is better since there is less risk?

Yes, my phrasing was poor. I meant to say “any reform that does not go as far as same-day would be bad”

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