i wonder,what is the BIG deal. Assuming that whatever you stated is true, i doubt it though( why on earth someone would try to do all the stuff together unless he is backed by a sugardad or mom,), anyways, this is what I feel. You made a mistatke. Now accept it. I got humbled, too. So many of us probably learnt lessons in a hard way.What you want to write about? that you coded thousands of line! Don't tell that to people. There are 'shit' people making tons and tons of money without knowing how to write a single line of c++. I can show you a hundred of them. All of them probabaly cann't derive the BS equation(because they cann't apply ITo's lemma correctly). Look at the brokers. WHat you think of them. Most of them cann't solve elementary math,school level. Many of them make money that I cannot imagine. Why you want to throw the stuff. Everything can be sold for a price. try selling it. If it absolute junk then throw it,ofcourse.Just move on, don't feel bitter. Start networking. Try to set up a firm where you will have the deserving guys.I think I gave a fatherly advice, am I correct!!

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodlesWhat you have done is analogous to a bad trade that has you in a losing position. You need to exit your position ASAP, suck it up and realize your losses. If you dawdle, you will stand to keep losing more time & money. Get out now. Option (4) is the only way to go.Yeah, and what I think you should do is analogous to becoming a waiter. That way you will constantly be winning the approval of people, and will get feedback on a job well well done every fifteen minutes. When you carry that heaping plate of noodles to the table, who present will tell you that you haven't done anything? Maybe you can even work towards a "server of the week" plaque. My grandmother worked in diners until she was 68, and never got anything like that.Geez, it's a "bad trade" because he got stressed one night at 6:00, and blamed his losses on this new feeling he had never felt before? If you feel stress, get out! Run! That's no way to live your life!Refresh my memory, is there something other than stress that he complained about here? Most people would recommend a stress-management tactic, like yoga or simply breathing deeply. Not running away from something that made sense for a year. Is any occupation that involves stress a "bad trade?" I would wager that if you showed us a slideshow of your life, Kack, not too many young people would lie awake at night dreaming of being you. Though apparently you have found one, this guy does share your values.

I'd like to know more about this, especially which contracts it trades and where the arbitrage is. I've traded futures for the last 20 years and there is little arbitrage to be had, if any. Having said that, if you have developed a viable STIR matrix trader or similar, you could probably sell it to an ISV. If you want to take things further, drop me a line with some more info.

QuoteOriginally posted by: miltenpointI've traded futures for the last 20 years and there is little arbitrage to be had, if any.This quote seems to take care of that:QuoteOriginally posted by: genie92As far as trading strategies, some of the strategies are very easy if you're fast enough.There have to be stale limit orders every time some market moves. It's just not likely that you'll earn the market rate of return chasing them. But if you're the fastest guy on Earth, with your own radio network tapped into the MCI trunk through a manhole right outside the Globex server farm, who knows? In any case, they won't let you do that without an exchange membership.That quote also sounds like the first line of a business plan. All he needs to do is raise some money, and hire some programmers. Oh, and do a little yoga each day at 4:00...

QuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicI thought about it, but the entire point of this is that I want to 'be my own boss', etc, etc. And I have no degree or experience in the financial industry, plus based on their figures I'd be taking a paycut from my current job which is pretty easy and gives me a lot of time to focus on trading software.--StephenQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeWhy don't you guys go and work for these guys as C++ programmers ?Lime Brokerage Careers.Are you a programmer in your day job ?

QuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicLime Brokerage Careers.Are you a programmer in your day job ?Yeah, or "software engineer level III", whatever you want to call it.

QuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicLime Brokerage Careers.Are you a programmer in your day job ?Yeah, or "software engineer level III", whatever you want to call it.Oh cool. UML? C++, Java ?

QuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicLime Brokerage Careers.Are you a programmer in your day job ?Yeah, or "software engineer level III", whatever you want to call it.Oh cool. UML? C++, Java ?Java, oracle, some UML (rational rose), back-office accounting systemsI know c++ very well but avoid it like the plague. Java + native C code for speed critical parts is killer.

QuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicLime Brokerage Careers.Are you a programmer in your day job ?Yeah, or "software engineer level III", whatever you want to call it.Oh cool. UML? C++, Java ?Java, oracle, some UML (rational rose), back-office accounting systemsI know c++ very well but avoid it like the plague. Java + native C code for speed critical parts is killer.Sounds good. I just do the math, as they say.

QuoteSounds good. I just do the math, as they say.I'm attempting to become a mathematician... been coding since I was 6-yrs old literally.Code is just a tool though, and blindly coding without having the analytical skills to formulate and solve problems isn't going to get you much of anywhere besides some salaried desk job. I came to realize this after being really amazed at some papers I've read related to AI(yes, I said it), but was frustrated because I didn't have the know-how to fully understand the notations and terminology, and also the research is cutting edge so no open source codes are to be found anywhere.I've attempted to go the university route to learn math but I couldn't get past calculus because pencil and paper simply doesn't compute in my head, and even if it does I can't read whatever I just wrote down and I get pissed doing tedious shit that I know I could do in a few keystrokes on the computer. I realize this excercise is meant to teach people the foundations of math, but I don't learn by repetition.. I learn by thinking and I really fealt in class that I was simply being taught to regurgitate simple operations so I could go sit and do some boring engineering crap some day. Also, class goes entirely too slow for me and it's hard to get excitied about finding the roots of sine made-up problem.. show me the applications (money/understanding nature/philosophy/AI).But, when I study on my own and just sit and think and read I can understand the math very intuitively in my head and even 'visualize' abstract concepts, even though some of the concepts are more than 3 dimensional I can somehow sense them visually.. it's hard to explain. New concepts require me to sit and spend quite a bit of time but once I open matlab or mathematica and start playing around with the equations, transforming, graphing, integrating, etc I get a really solid feel of how it works and then it becomes part of my 'toolbox', very similiar to libraries you can download and use when writing a program..I'm attempting to convince a local professor to let me study with her on a self-study basis (optimal control, microeconomics, physics, chaos, numerical methods, etc) but I think she might be wondering if I'm full of shit since my academic record is so poor.TraderJoe, did math come naturally(if there is such a thing) to you?

QuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicQuoteSounds good. I just do the math, as they say.I'm attempting to become a mathematician... been coding since I was 6-yrs old literally.Code is just a tool though, and blindly coding without having the analytical skills to formulate and solve problems isn't going to get you much of anywhere besides some salaried desk job. I came to realize this after being really amazed at some papers I've read related to AI(yes, I said it), but was frustrated because I didn't have the know-how to fully understand the notations and terminology, and also the research is cutting edge so no open source codes are to be found anywhere.I've attempted to go the university route to learn math but I couldn't get past calculus because pencil and paper simply doesn't compute in my head, and even if it does I can't read whatever I just wrote down and I get pissed doing tedious shit that I know I could do in a few keystrokes on the computer. I realize this excercise is meant to teach people the foundations of math, but I don't learn by repetition.. I learn by thinking and I really fealt in class that I was simply being taught to regurgitate simple operations so I could go sit and do some boring engineering crap some day. Also, class goes entirely too slow for me and it's hard to get excitied about finding the roots of sine made-up problem.. show me the applications (money/understanding nature/philosophy/AI).But, when I study on my own and just sit and think and read I can understand the math very intuitively in my head and even 'visualize' abstract concepts, even though some of the concepts are more than 3 dimensional I can somehow sense them visually.. it's hard to explain. New concepts require me to sit and spend quite a bit of time but once I open matlab or mathematica and start playing around with the equations, transforming, graphing, integrating, etc I get a really solid feel of how it works and then it becomes part of my 'toolbox', very similiar to libraries you can download and use when writing a program..I'm attempting to convince a local professor to let me study with her on a self-study basis (optimal control, microeconomics, physics, chaos, numerical methods, etc) but I think she might be wondering if I'm full of shit since my academic record is so poor.TraderJoe, did math come naturally(if there is such a thing) to you?I used to eat maths up at high school and at uni - there were one or two smarter than me at uni though. Still, I made up for it in other ways, e.g., in physics. Hey, one book I read as a youngster and really enjoyed was Flatland. Let me know what you think TJ.

QuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicI used to eat maths up at high school and at uni - there were one or two smarter than me at uni though. Still, I made up for it in other ways, e.g., in physics. Hey, one book I read as a youngster and really enjoyed was Flatland. Let me know what you think TJ.You're the second person to recommend this book... ordering it now.

QuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicI know c++ very well but avoid it like the plague. Java + native C code for speed critical parts is killer.Great - I'm glad someone else doesn't like C++ I was beginning to think everyone in this industry was mad over it. I prefer VB.net to java though.

There's a reason C++/C are preferred on Windows boxes. A lot of the other higher level languages don't offer any clear way to control program execution at its finest levels. For high-speed arbitrage, the Windows time-slice in the thread scheduler actually becomes relevant, and it is impossible to get perfect management of code scheduling when a lot of the code is being run in a black box (e.g., Java Virtual Machine).VB.Net is acceptable where the finest performance improvements are not required. Where performance is vital, you will need to go as directly between yourself and the Windows API as possible, and that will almost surely require C, Assembly, or some low-level language.QuoteOriginally posted by: MikeCroweQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicI know c++ very well but avoid it like the plague. Java + native C code for speed critical parts is killer.Great - I'm glad someone else doesn't like C++ I was beginning to think everyone in this industry was mad over it. I prefer VB.net to java though.

Right, but there are patterns at frequencies that dont depend on 1-ms response times.. I believe a strategy like that is inherently very costly and must be tuned very very carefully and can be very expensive to implement as you have noted.Also, all it takes is for someone to be a few microseconds faster and you're expectation is cut severely.. imho, readability, maintainability, and flexibility are more important for high-level strategy design.. java can actually handle many situations very very quickly and the JVM can optimize some things that aren't possible in compiled code.--StephenQuoteOriginally posted by: genie92There's a reason C++/C are preferred on Windows boxes. A lot of the other higher level languages don't offer any clear way to control program execution at its finest levels. For high-speed arbitrage, the Windows time-slice in the thread scheduler actually becomes relevant, and it is impossible to get perfect management of code scheduling when a lot of the code is being run in a black box (e.g., Java Virtual Machine).VB.Net is acceptable where the finest performance improvements are not required. Where performance is vital, you will need to go as directly between yourself and the Windows API as possible, and that will almost surely require C, Assembly, or some low-level language.QuoteOriginally posted by: MikeCroweQuoteOriginally posted by: crowlogicI know c++ very well but avoid it like the plague. Java + native C code for speed critical parts is killer.Great - I'm glad someone else doesn't like C++ I was beginning to think everyone in this industry was mad over it. I prefer VB.net to java though.