John At The Center

I just came across a massive resource blog/website with information pertaining to those interested in many aspects of hedge funds that I wanted to share with you.

Hedge Fund Blogger describes its site as “Hedge Funds – 500+ educational articles on Hedge Fund and Fund of Hedge Fund managers, jobs, strategies and investments,” and I was thoroughly impressed at all the information contained on the site and will clearly spend some time there reading many of the articles.

I recently spoke with Richard via email and asked what were some of the main or most popular features on the site and he replied,

“A few of the most unique resources on the blog include the:

• Free Investment Book on Hedge Funds
• Geographical Hedge Fund Guides
• Investment Book Reviews
• Hedge Fund Employment Guide”

Dark pools find matches for blocks of shares without publishing the orders or the identities of the institutions. But that anonymity can also give cover to sharp operators known as “gamers.” These traders sniff out large orders, and then try to use that knowledge to trade against the block at a profit.

“They look for big dumb elephants leaving big footprints,” said Joe Saluzzi, head of equity trading at Themis Trading.

Say, for example, a mutual fund wants to buy a big block of shares and places an order in a dark pool. Unlike on a traditional exchange, nobody can see that order until they match it – at least in theory.

is a distributed computing (DC) project designed to perform computationally intensive simulations of protein folding and other molecular dynamics (MD).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

F@H GPU2 FARM Nvidia

Guy builds Massive folding farm with 51 nVidia Video Cards [Pics] (overclock.net)

Nice chart from New Scientist showing some of the unintended consequences of having traders copying one another’s behavior. Click for a larger version.

As an aside, I’m trying to get the authors of the paper to speak at Money:Tech 2009 conference next year in New York. Fun stuff.

Related to the John O’Brien discussion.

Cantor’s core business in the sector is the Hollywood Stock Exchange (“HSX”), the leading virtual market and predictive service for the entertainment industry.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_June_11/ai_n19207722

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117966689.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

Aiming at building a reputation among both technology and investment types as it expands a subscription service for filtered investment news, Silicon Valley startup SkyGrid Inc. is adding former American Express Co. CEO James Robinson and his RRE Ventures fund as lead investor in an $11 million Series B round set to be announced Wednesday.

SkyGrid sells its service to hedge funds, portfolio managers and individual investors for $500 a month per-person, but offers volume discounts for large customers. The service delivers investment news based on customized portfolio lists, and includes major wire services as well as blogs and other online news and commentary sources, rated by reliability. News is delivered in a color-coded format that identifies whether it is positive or negative, and the company has continually refined its features to customize delivery for different clients.

Pomplun said the filtering technology is entirely automated, and while he declined to discuss criteria built into its algorithms, he said about 25 factors are built into its technology for identifying web content by reputation and relevance.

In a sign of just how far the machines have risen on Wall Street, floor brokers on the New York Stock Exchange have started trading with algorithms.

When NYSE Euronext Inc.’s partner, trading-technology firm Pragma Financial Systems, started up about six years ago, algos were the exclusive preserve of quant traders (ok, computer geeks), according to Pragma President David Mechner. Now, they’re everywhere.

August’s edition of SFO Magazine (Stocks, Futures, and Options) is entitled, “Battered and Bruised – Systems Trading School of Hard Knocks” and is available for your online or at home viewing.

If you’ve ever thought about systems trading, or are currently developing an automated or mechanical trading system, this episode was specifically designed for you.  In it, various authors share their experiences – good and bad – about what has worked for them and what has not, including key pitfalls to avoid and foundations from which to build.

My favorite article so far has been Nigel Bahadur’s “Battered and Bruised” title article, which discusses his multi-year experience from ‘wide-eyed optimist’ to current experienced systems designer.  Nigel runs the Research/Development group for Linda Bradford Raschke’s LBR Group and comes to them with a background in computer programming.

http://blog.afraidtotrade.com/sfo-magazine-all-about-trading-systems/