I posted a new topic on Sunday where I was asking Wilmotters if any of them would have an interest in starting a managed account that we could turn into a HF if the track record allowed it. I was offering to provide the initial capital and posted that I was looking for someone who could build an automated trading system using IB and WL for instance. That's not cool!!

I can't see why headhunters are allowed conduct commerical business on this site, but members cannot. On the other hand, it would be terrible if this site became a target for people selling trading systems, software, and other stuff. So I suppose the issue is whether the moderators have the resources to check everyone's bona fides. Your proposal sounds like a fun idea to me. The effort would certainly be worthwhile in terms of learning about the practical problems involved in managing real funds.

StrangeAttractor and Alphabet,We get a lot of spam on this site posing as 'business opportunities.' Members themselves are usually the first to complain about these. Having re-read your previous post, StrangeAttractor, I cannot see how it can be distinguished from spam. (One of the signs is when such a post is a member's first ever ).Please email me, paul@wilmott.com, I am very happy to give you the benefit of the doubt but I want to hear more details first.Alphabet, "I can't see why headhunters are allowed conduct commerical business on this site, but members cannot"...I think you may be missing something quite obvious here!P

I agree that spam would kill the site. That's why I was talking about going through the moderators.

And if he is a spammer, you have to hand it to him: StrangeAttractor is a good name.

He first posted under the name "AlphaQuantys"...not quite so convincing! His new avatar is also a great improvement!Putting up anything remotely spam-like is likely to so rile seasoned members that his venture would be damaged before it had even started...remember GammaPi?!P

my post didn't bear any spam element and I dare you to post it so people can judge. I changed to the StrangeAttractor pseudo because of fear of censorship.

It seems to me that a cold idea from someone who we don't know at all is just noise. Lots of ideas for money making slosh through Wimott.com, and most sink without trace. Some are amusing, others are just a way for us to work through how we think things work.A smarter move would be to research your idea here. The mindset of people here is not just to look at the result, but to look at your how you derived this answer. Someone who can survive the sort of questions that we poke at him probably has a good idea.Headhunters are of course a special case. Their advertising pays for the forum, and they keep their posts to the relevant forum.

QuoteOriginally posted by: StrangeAttractormy post didn't bear any spam element and I dare you to post it so people can judge. I changed to the StrangeAttractor pseudo because of fear of censorship.I'm starting to like this guy.

Aggressive and paranoid, he should feel right at home

I was just asking if there were any good wilmotter out there that could build an automated trading system using IB and WL. I would have provided the capital. If the system made money, we could have used the track record to start a proper hedge fund. I also mentioned that people didn't need to leave their current job neither during the development phase nor during the implementation. I told people to get in touch with me if they felt we could build such a model together. I mentioned we would need to work on defining the trading rules (entry, exit, stop), the money management rules,etc... Do you see any spam in this?

Do I have to use Wealth Lab?You give me an account number at IB, I'll trade your shit all day.MP

As someone who's done a bit of development, I'm intrigued by your up front choice of tools.They may be appropriate, but the implication is that you're just exploring, and locking in to one toolset too early is unfortunately a common cause of project failure.I'd also love to see the contract. I don't want to imply I doubt your integrity, but getting this sort of thing done as a collaborative effort may be at lrast as hard as building the system. One reason for the success of open source is that it avoid arguments over money between developers.

QuoteOriginally posted by: StrangeAttractorI was just asking if there were any good wilmotter out there that could build an automated trading system using IB and WL. I would have provided the capital. If the system made money, we could have used the track record to start a proper hedge fund. I also mentioned that people didn't need to leave their current job neither during the development phase nor during the implementation. I told people to get in touch with me if they felt we could build such a model together. I mentioned we would need to work on defining the trading rules (entry, exit, stop), the money management rules,etc... Do you see any spam in this?hmmm, that sort of reminds me of the broker who makes 1000 calls, tells 500 people XYZ is going up and the other 500 that it is going down. Next day, he repeats the calls with the 500 for whom he made the right "call" on the stock. He repeats a few more times and looks like a genius to a chosen few. And thus, I guess it is an interesting strategy to cull together a bunch of mooks with trading systems, see which ones "win", take the "winners" to the investors, which, I would think may involve a group of lotto winners, and then grab their money with a high fee attached....heheheh...muhahahahaha.

Spot on, Nonius!Ok, here goes. RAND()<0.5 is a buy, RAND()>=0.5 is a sell. Where do I sign?