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Online Share Trading

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Analytics, Insights and Data

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Werner_1
Super Contributor

Hi All, I wanted to start a conversation about analytics, insights and data that you as investors would find usefull to your trading operations. As the world is moving (already moved) strongly into the realm of data and data science, a whole new world emerges. I would like to see what investors require and what would be of value to my friends here. Ideas: daily ranking of shares on the whole market, correlation analysis of shares relative to one another and relative to your portfolio, BETA, ALPHA, etc... what other ideas could add value and would you use?

5 REPLIES 5
Blik2
Contributor

Our business works with digital data to produce somewhat useful products to people who might want, and as such we realise that our data is our currency - or at least partly so.  So much depends on what data / analytics you have and are willing to share, and at what cost to you, in terms of time and resource, and how would your data and analytics be different to what is on offer here...etc etc.  Ok - so thats my question......in terms of data and analysis of financial data, I would really like to see the following available on this site, without extra cost (which I realise is very unlikely to happen):

 

Intra-daily trading data - prices, volumes, etc

A "better" graphing function - I dont have any access to others, but SBKs is limited.....

Function that allows one to download any / all raw data in multiple formats

Ranking and weighting would be useful, for sure, so long as the rank-criteria are known and make sense - and maybe allow user input

Maybe having a few more "standard" trading / investor - type ratios available on each company page

Maybe like-company / similar sector company comparisons - side by side comparisons...???

 

Those would be a few

 

 

Werner_1
Super Contributor

Thanks for the reply Blik... I remember you from years back!
Well from my profession and experience, data is incredibly important and is the the future of everything. 

I think all standard trading platforms offer a certain product relating to data and analytics, this is definately not very advanced as its just the industry standard. I was wondering how many of the users of online trading platforms use portfolio theory calculations, portfolio balancing and so on, e.g. CAPM, Correlations of positions, BETA, ALPHA, etc. when selecting their shares? Also when applying these things do you do it manually on all shares or only on ones you are researching.
My thoughts are that if one creates a platform where users can do certain customisations on data, gain insights from charts that are not the standard run of the mill, e.g. rankings vs correlations to your actual portfolio, one can see tremendous value which isnt offered anywhere else really.
Would people use such things, or do they simply not require this? I use these types of things on my own positions and actively build platforms that can analyse whatever ideas I have, but maybe thats just me?
The idea is that by having an automated analysis/insights platform one will remove many biases investors (all investors) suffer from, we tend to look at the shares we like and not the entire market, theres too many to look at so we need help in churning through all the stuff on a daily basis, we also get excited when we should get scared about a share, these types of platforms could help ground us and result in us not losing money on irrational behaviour....

Any thoughts?

Blik2
Contributor

A tricky one to try fit various investor "shapes" into one or a few sorts of investment strategy "holes".....so to speak.  For myself, my investment patterns are dictated by my life sideshow - I can be a bit more risky, when I have the free capital and lack of commitment to do so.....yet, have to be cautious in tight times.    And especially so, if you have to try to factor in events that are "un-predictable" – Trump winning…..Brexit winning…..Jooste and Steinhoff…..EOH etc  Sure you can hedge against such things, without explicitly knowing which or when might happen….but its hard to write that into an automated investment strategy…..or is it? 

Isnt that what Simon’s Lazy trading System is all about?

Werner_1
Super Contributor

I dont think the solution i am speaking of is an automated trading system, its an insights platform and analytics system that is only to help the investor see whats going on, show whats changing and what options exist, also with the portfolio theory calculations etc one can see what a particular purchase will do to your portfolio, e.g. what risk you will be taking on, how much effected by systematic risk you are, etc. of-course one will not be able to factor in unforseen events, but that is one part of the equation, if well balanced and created in such a way as to not over-extend the risk based on return, one can vastly increase ones odds. An investor's biggest enemy is themselves... they need to be consistent, follow a proven approach, not to say they cannot do their own styles, but certain things are always the same, the risk-reward calculation (Capital Asset Pricing Model) and by doing certain processes to reduce bias one can improve odds on any trading strategy.

Werner_1
Super Contributor

Standard Bank - actually you should build such processes and analytics/insights into this platform, it will give a serious competitive advantage.. you can speak to me if you like for ways to reduce the biases...