Slashdot Mirror
Using Commoditized Computers Setups for Stock Trading?
An anonymous reader asks: "Thanks to Walmart, TigerDirect, and Gnu/Linux, I can get computers at about $200 now. Thanks to Matrox, I have several multi-head video cards. Thanks to a hacker's convention last year, I have a truckload of monitors that haven't been put to use yet. I've been out of the financial markets since 1996. I'm itching to get back in now, especially since conditions will be very favorable shortly. Since I've lost my shirt in the markets already (most investors/traders loose their shirts at least once before striking it rich, and my beating was especially instructive), I'm now ready for better returns. Gnu/Linux is well known to support multiple monitor setups. I've seen 4 monitor setups per box in some financial firms, and I recently read a story on the National Weather Service using 3 monitor setups on another OSDN channel. I've also used a Quotrek trading monitor in the past, for monitoring stocks and other financials in real-time. This was before I was a penguinista. Now that I know a bit about Linux systems, I'd like to know the following: What Gnu/Linux applications can I use to monitor and/or process stocks, options, bonds, financial news, and other related information via low cost Gnu/Linux computing solutions, broadband, and multi-head video cards? Free software only, please"
"I'm not going back to paying hundreds of dollars per month like I did for my Quotrek (an FM receiver for stock quotes, possibly discontinued), or paying many hundreds for proprietary software that may not get the job done, or can't be modified or supported by the community. What free software applications do you use? What is a good multi-monitor layout? Any free software that picks up financial broadcast signals and decodes to a computer screen? Any slashdot tycoons want to help out other Slashdot readers?"
1) In the long term, counting fees and stocks that get delisted (always ignored by those "long-term 15% growth" frauds) the stock market does worse than lending your money to US Government. If you beat the US Government at inefficiency, it can only be on purpose.
2) The stock market is a lottery used to defraud Middle America out of significant portions of their savings to fund the morally decrepit cesspools of blueblood aristrocracy seeping in from Europe.
3) But won't the great stalwarts of American power, the corporations, collapse if we take all money out of the stockmarket ? No, in fact nearly ALL corporate growth is funded internally from profits. The only exceptions are the occasional IPO that isn't a fraud (name one!) startups funded with founder's money, not stock or VC.
Take all your money out of the stock market now. It will only cause the collapse of the remaining Enron and WorldCom pyramid schemes, not true blue real American powerhouses like GM, Monsato, Colt, and LFP publishing. Cash out your 401k's and put the money in the bank, where it will be lent to people like you -- through mortgages and small business loans.
STARVE GORDON GECKO.