Trading the Markets With FOSS Software?

Robert writes "Along with many other techies, I share an interest in the world of finance (bubble-era stock options pulled me in). Unfortunately, as someone with a strong preference for GNU/Linux as my operating system of choice, I have found that software in this area seems quite sparse. For awhile I have made do with Python, R, Gnumeric, Gnucash and a telephone, along with some small utilities I have written myself. What I would like to know is: what FOSS software do you use for financial analysis, trading, system development, and testing in a Un*x environment? Are there programs you would like to see written or ported? Do any brokerages, data providers, or other services provide good support for we the few? And finally, what commercial entities do you know of that are using FOSS software in their operation?"

Comments

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Lehman, Merrill, AIG, HBOS all used lots of FOSS IIRC.

Screw automated trading; screw Ben Bernanke, screw McCain-Bush. I'm going to be foreclosed because I lost my job in the operations dept at Merrill and I can't refinance my mortgage. Why should they get a bailout? Quants screwed over my life and I want them to pay.

Re:Hmmm

[Oswald]

You need to inform yourself. First of all, the housing bubble was primarily fueled by errors on Wall Street, not Washington. The explosive growth of the mortgage-backed security industry created an environment that gave people lots of incentive to do really stupid things, like loan people money without requiring them to invest significantly in what they were purchasing or demonstrate that they had the money to pay back the loan. Secondly, here is just one of many available articles explaining that the really big hit has come from borrowers with good credit ratings and sufficient cash flow who simply do not wish to continue to pay the mortgage on a house that is no longer worth nearly what they paid for it. It turns out that you can default on your mortgage and all they can take is your house, not your other assets (who knew?).

Anyway, it's certainly not "authoritative," but here is a funny and true cartoon that does a pretty fair job of explaining how the screwed up incentives turned normal people in financial fuck-up machines.

Re:Hmmm

[fishbowl]

>Next time buy what you can afford.

Many did, and then saw the economy collapse around them, changing the nature of "what they can afford".

Some of these were unable to liquidate their real estate, because to do so would require them to literally pay a mortgage on the amount of money that the property declined by.

In my case, it has forced me to decline certain job opportunities because relocation is not an option, because of real estate values. (I would not seek, nor do I believe anyone will offer, a $45,000 relocation bonus to start, and that's what it would cost me to walk away from my home, never mind the fact that I like where I'm living and would prefer a *benefit*, not just a break-even proposition, for relocating.)

My story is not at all uncommon. I'm not bankrupt, but I'm at the threshold. And I have university degrees, more than a decade of experience, and the real estate in question is a modest property.

Re:Hmmm

[rfunches]

You do know a 3-month T-bill was, at one point earlier this week, yielding less than par value? People were buying US government bonds guaranteed to lose money because of the fear that everything else would lose more value.

Web-based vs Desktop vs Palmtop

[FraterNLST]

I've started looking at this too as i've picked up some stock recently, and it is a difficult proposition (given that i'm not really willing to pay for a commercial solution).

Personally, I absolutely love the interface of Google's stock ticker - the interface is nice, the information is top notch. The problem being of course that there's way in any of the nine layers i'd trust google with my portfolio information. The big advantage of a local program in my mind is that the information you put in, even if it is only "I want to track these stocks" is kept wholly to yourself and not stored on some remote server where you have to trust the hoster not to take a peek.

In the end i've been using the default stock program that came on the iPhone to watch the stock prices. Thats all it will do, that and a short graph history, and it uses the yahoo info instead of the google, but it's close to realtime and it's stored (I hope) on the iPhone. Course, Yahoo can still see which stocks i'm requesting, so maybe in the end it makes no difference.

Ideal would be a device-based solution that could draw down the information, either from google/yahoo or direct from the *sx, and hold information regarding you portfolio too - but locally, so theres no worry of the monetary values being shunted across the net to the infovores.

Re:doofus

[MadMorf]

Wake up and smell the fascism ??? How about, wake up and smell the socialism?

Uh, how about, "Wake up and smell the Crony Capitalism"?

Re:doofus

[Rich0]

All the little stockholders at AIG are getting the shaft.

Uh, I think that was a foregone conclusion when they hired inept management.

It was essential that every stockholder in AIG lose virtually everything they invested. Otherwise it becomes profitable to mismanage your company and let Uncle Sam buy you out.

I think that some of these resuces were necessary for the good of the greater economy. Sure, they shouldn't be necessary, but regulators messed up and now for the sake of not collapsing into a depression we need to clean up.

If I were in charge the only thing I'd do differently when doing bailouts like these would be:

1. Company is 100% taken over.
2. Stock is declared void. Stockholders get a 1-time eminent domain payment of (value of company assets)-(cost to taxpayers for bailout)/(# shares outstanding). Frankly the stockholders should be happy they don't end up owing money which is what the math certainly will work out to.
3. Corporate officers arrested and face heavy criminal penalties. Costing the taxpayers billions of dollars needs to be made a serious crime. It is certainly worse than robbing the corner store.
4. Government runs company in such a way to preserve the general economy.
5. Eventually company is either dissolved or IPO'ed - with all proceeds going to taxpayers.

If this were how bailouts worked you wouldn't see too many executives asking for them.

Don't get me wrong - the preference is in general to let companies just go bankrupt and not interfere. But, if interference is needed for the greater good than this is how it should be done.

Re:Bush is still culpable

[onefriedrice]

You say that there was no SEC regulation, and that's true. Unfortunately, you have assumed that absence of regulation has been "laissez-faire" (and that it failed), but that is not true.

What we have had has not been proper regulation, but it has not been "laissez-faire" either because the politicians have been butting in and urging the big boys on Wall Street to make money available to people who couldn't afford their houses! That was the point which I made. As you can see, that's not laissez-faire; that's government meddling with the markets as usual, but this time in a form that isn't regulation.

So you see, we both agree with each other that there hasn't been proper regulation, but it's unfair to say that "laissez-faire" has failed when it hasn't even really been applied.

I mean, think about it. It's no coincidence that all of these huge firms which have lasted decades upon decades and have withstood countless trials, including the Great Depression, are now all failing at the same time right now. Under a "laissez-faire" market, that would be one big coincidence.