Tag Archives: Observations

Start up Scene extending to Canary Wharf…

Came across a great article about opening of an accelerator to provide space to new tech companies that build products for the financial industry.  This seems such a great project and it would be a great addition to the financial industry in London. Cant wait to pop in and wonder around.

Found a great conversation about operator overloading. Thought to share.

The Three Basic Rules of Operator Overloading in C++

When it comes to operator overloading in C++, there are three basic rules you should follow. As with all such rules, there are indeed exceptions. Sometimes people have deviated from them and the outcome was not bad code, but such positive deviations are few and far between. At the very least, 99 out of 100 such deviations I have seen were unjustified. However, it might just as well have been 999 out of 1000. So you’d better stick to the following rules.

  1. Whenever the meaning of an operator is not obviously clear and undisputed, it should not be overloaded. Instead, provide a function with a well-chosen name.
    Basically, the first and foremost rule for overloading operators, at its very heart, says: Don’t do it. That might seem strange, because there is a lot to be known about operator overloading and so a lot of articles, book chapters, and other texts deal with all this. But despite this seemingly obvious evidence, there are only a surprisingly few cases where operator overloading is appropriate. The reason is that actually it is hard to understand the semantics behind the application of an operator unless the use of the operator in the application domain is well known and undisputed. Contrary to popular believe, this is hardly ever the case.
  2. Always stick to the operator’s well-known semantics.
    C++ poses no limitations on the semantics of overloaded operators. Your compiler will happily accept code that implements the binary + operator to subtract from its right operand. However, the users of such an operator would never suspect the expression a + b to subtract a from b. Of course, this supposes that the semantics of the operator in the application domain is undisputed.
  3. Always provide all out of a set of related operations.
    Operators are related to each other and to other operations. If your type supports a + b, users will expect to be able to call a += b, too. If it supports prefix increment ++a, they will expect a++to work as well. If they can check whether a < b, they will most certainly expect to also to be able to check whether a > b. If they can copy-construct your type, they expect assignment to work as well.

Full Conversation at Stackoverflow:  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4421706/operator-overloading

Other useful Boost threads  (via: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1237374/1893899)

Bloomberg open Market Data Initiative: Now support Python

This a great initiative by Bloomberg.  http://www.openbloomberg.com/open-api/

Here what BB say ” Now, you can adopt Bloomberg’s market data interfaces without cost or restriction. The widely used Bloomberg API, with its proven and comprehensive interface, supports publish/subscribe and request/response paradigms, as well as authorization and entitlements. Bloomberg intends to work with its customers and the open community to further enhance and extend this powerful technology for financial applications. ”

I can not stress enough how important and wonderful this is and very recently BB have started supporting the python language as well.

Here is a little chatter I picked up at stackOverflow and few other places.

1. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9097382/bloomberg-open-api

2. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4036009/bloomberg-server-api-and-ruby-python

Currently, I extract data from yahoo and for my needs the data available is more than sufficient.

I will now attempt extract live data from bloomberg and will keep you updated as to the progress.

Pair Trading Model : Part 1

I came across the pair trading concept and decided to use engel and granger co-integration technique to device a pair trading model.  I decided to code it in python instead of C++.

I will put the main parts of the code, and possibly you guys can comment. If you want to use it for any thing please go ahead.

Extracting data from Yahoo.finance:


def ystockquote_Extractor (tickers):
floatconvert =[]
tickerValList = []
counter = 0
#if self.Flag == True:
for ticker_ind in tickers:
ticker_Val = ystockqoute.get_historical_prices(ticker_ind, '10122012', '10122011')
counter = counter +1

if counter == 15:
while counter >= 20:
counter = counter +1
counter = 0
print counter,'Pulling Information on:',ticker_ind

# Create empty lists, quick and dirty
stock_Close = [ ]

# Populate lists from downloaded data
for i in range(1, 755):
stock_Close.append( float(ticker_Val [i][4]) )

tickerValList.append(stock_Close)

return tickerValList ### Return Closing Price List for the stock

def callTickerPrices():

Flag = True ## A localtion Flag

## Read: list of stock Market lables from a file
#TickerL = csv.reader(open("ticker_list20.csv","rb"))
tickers = []
print 'reading Ticker Names from File: Lets See...'
#print 'TESTVAL', Cell("E3").value

tickers = Cell("H3").value, Cell("I3").value
print'tickers that are to be read', tickers[0], tickers[1]
print 'going to extract Data From Yahoooo'

tickerValList = ystockquote_Extractor(tickers)
print 'Extraction Complete'
return tickerValList, tickers

Now we will use the extracted values prices to calculate returns: Why should we really use returns instead of the prices. Here is why in the words of another:
“Benefit of using returns, versus prices, is normalization: measuring all variables in a comparable metric, thus enabling evaluation of analytic relationships amongst two or more variables despite originating from price series of unequal values. This is a requirement for many multidimensional statistical analysis and machine learning techniques. For example, interpreting an equity covariance matrix is made sane when the variables are both measured in percentage.”

Source :http://quantivity.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/why-log-returns/# (This is a great blog)

Next: Application of two step Engle and Granger Method:

What you have to do to get paid 5M per year.

I have a journey of about an hour from my home to the City. My area is serviced by Southern and First Capital connect services. Needless to say that there is at-least a one minute delay every day. But that is a different story and i will get to that later.

Every morning while I wait for trains and durring my journey I read articles on  Quora, Reddit, and Bloomberg and yesterday I came across this. (see the link below..)

Here is the gist of the article:

  • Partner Managing Director of Goldman Sachs was commenting about what its like to be him.
  • He works about 50-60 hours now and used to do about 80-90 hours when he was younger.
  • He feels bad about spending less time with his children and wife
  • People are the most important part of the job and they are the people that motivates  him to go to work even now.
  • He earns about 5M a year and lives in Greenwich (NY).
  • People who are commenting on the post were being positive as well as negative.

But I couldnt help relating his comments to my situation and where I work. Here are my thoughts and observations

  • Younger people at my work place currently work around 50-60 hours including my self. Older people come at 7 am ish and go home at about 5 pm.
  • I very much doubt they get 5M a year or anywhere close.
  • they possibly spend more time with their families but I think few of them have divorced or single.
  • I cant really comment on the in a comparative way but there is very little “team work”. Every one is worried about getting there work done or keeping their clients happy. In fact I dont think there is a team working culture in the firm.

So does that mean my colleagues who are older have been not over successful in their career. Was it a choice..What do I need to do to get ahead and should I adopt a laid back or aggressive ( more richer) attitude.

I hope I can figure it out soon.

http://www.quora.com/Goldman-Sachs/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-partner-at-Goldman-Sachs

Still on XP but there is still hope

I used to work on a start-up environment prior to getting into investment banking; it is  an environment of cutting edge technology, latest innovations, and energetic people running around high on caffeine.

The day I started working at my new job, I found it hard to believe that our economy is run and  controlled by people who are almost scared of technology and innovation. I am sure, you may think I am stating the obvious but clearly I feel that is the wrong approach.

Here are some of my observations:

  • People use “search and destroy ” method to type  reports and emails; they type one letter at a time on the keyboard with one finger of each hand.
  • Windows XP is still the only operating system.
  • People call the IT service for simple things like when they cant find an icon on the computer.

I can list a many more reasons but I hope my point is clear. If you were time traveller and happen to materialise in the middle of the office, you are bound to think you got your timing wrong by about 10 years.

You may think having windows XP is not a bad thing or IT service is there to help you with “IT Problem” and you may have a point. But my problem is that people who are so averse to technology and new trends make their living by commenting on companies and possible shifts in the markets. Sounds a bit hypocritical dont you think…

Question 

Do we need to be ultra-conservative interms of technology and innovation to make unbiased objective comments. Wouldn’t the use of new technology make operatios in the investment banking sector more streamlined, fast moving  and more beneficial for the country.

If people are willing to make a shift their view point a little so that they are willing to accept new things I am sure it is a possibility and things will change for the better. But I doubt it is going to happen in a grand scale any time soon.

Signs of Change:

But there is hope. Even though most investment banks operate this way, there are signs that bigger players such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman are adopting new technologies and trends such as social media.

Deutsche Bank has a very big presence in social media. Furthermore, GS employees are also contributing to the revolution.

No less than the managing partner have contributed on quora about working at GS. These are unprecedented moves that shows things are changing.

Read the article here:

http://www.quora.com/Goldman-Sachs/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-partner-at-Goldman-Sachs

 

Lets hope that things will improve for the better.

First Post: An introduction..Lets be honest…. its not going to change your life.

I think its a good idea to begin at the beginning at give a little introduction. I am an intern, working in a medium size investment bank in the city of London. I dont get paid. I do all the dirty work that others are not very knee about such as copying and pasting stuff from one excel sheet to another. I start my day at 4 am and finish until (usually) 6.30 pm.  This blog is a way of telling the world about how I see things. 

 

A disclaimer: Whatever, I say is simply my opinion and does not represent any institution. I am not qualified to give you buy or sell recommendations of stock or any other financial advice. This simply my opinion and experiences.  If you loose money because you listened to something I said, I am not responsible and you are an idiot.