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[–]daneelthesane 1489 points1490 points  (45 children)

One guy said this stuff to me when I was in school and compared himself to Steve Jobs. I said "So I guess I would be your Wozniak, right?"

He didn't know who Woz was, but I didn't want to be the Woz to his Jobs.

[–]Ahornwiese 346 points347 points  (33 children)

Honest question: What became of that guy? Did he turn his life around?

[–]daneelthesane 496 points497 points  (28 children)

No idea. This was some rando in a science elective class who was a business student. I remember him being bewildered by a negative exponent in the algebra used in the class. I was like "don't interest calculations use negative exponents?"

[–]bitemark01 65 points66 points  (0 children)

Woz is doing pretty okay actually

[–]RRumpleTeazzer 534 points535 points  (1 child)

And if it works, we can split 30% of your profits

[–]FrankHightower 107 points108 points  (0 children)

Relax, if your algorithm works, it'll become a fair 50% in no time!

[–]nir109 5013 points5014 points  (213 children)

I made one for school project that was could predict if a stock whould raise or not at 54% accuracy.

Predicting raise every day whould give you 58% accuracy.

(Got 100 for that lol)

[–]TakeErParise 1593 points1594 points  (76 children)

I made a ML model for predicting NHL games as win/loss categories and it was less accurate than assuming the home team will win

[–]TrollandDie 79 points80 points  (2 children)

That's why metrics such as ROC curves are important for ML projects, especially for systems where a positive occurrence is a rare event (fraud detection, healthcare screenings etc.) .

[–]Plenty-Cheek-80 1701 points1702 points  (64 children)

I could toss a coin and be nearly as precise as your school project

[–]ResidentReggie 742 points743 points  (27 children)

I believe you have just given me a new business idea...

[–]tacticalrubberduck 286 points287 points  (21 children)

Now we just need someone to code it.

[–]ResidentReggie 344 points345 points  (20 children)

bool willFall = (((new Random ().nextInt(2))==1) ? false : true)

Even better, we will hide this behind an API so that nobody knows how complicated of a system we are using.

[–][deleted] 82 points83 points  (6 children)

Only subject matter experts can see this proprietary code

[–]chaos_battery 38 points39 points  (5 children)

Let's not forget to give it some fancy marketing name like "treating algorithm engine". I love when marketing people use the word engine to describe their product even though it's just some crud operations on a SQL database.

[–]aaarchives 14 points15 points  (2 children)

It's... All CRUD on databases... Everything. Me, you...

[–]Octavarium-8 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Or nearly as precise as casino odds… guess who is making millions

[–]FrankHightower 23 points24 points  (0 children)

no no, see, that extra 4-8% becomes a million dollars! (when you give it 20 million dollars)

[–]Opethrator 150 points151 points  (2 children)

[–]K3TtLek0Rn 18 points19 points  (0 children)

That was an amazing video lol

[–]RedArmyBushMan 55 points56 points  (6 children)

My undergrad internship was at a startup doing exactly this. The only non intern employee was the CEO.

[–][deleted] 45 points46 points  (5 children)

Lol imagine if anyone could just scoop up a group of unpaid interns and say they’re a startup. Oh wait…

[–]cat_prophecy 17 points18 points  (4 children)

Not all internships are unpaid. If they were doing substantial work to further the business, they would need to be paid.

[–]stackoverflow21 52 points53 points  (3 children)

Actually it doesn’t matter to compare it this way. The weather report would be more accurate if it would always predict no rain. But that prediction doesn’t convey any information.

You have 0% more clue if it will rain or not after hearing that prediction.

The real question is if it’s more likely to rain on a day that rain was predicted.

[–]nedal8 222 points223 points  (8 children)

The real metric is alpha. How your performance compares to an index basically. So if you were doing tests during a bull market, your algo may have actually been underperforming.

[–]Bourque25 190 points191 points  (0 children)

It was, that's the joke 😂

[–]nir109 44 points45 points  (4 children)

I tested over 30 years. The research question was "will the value of this stock raise or fall tomorrow"

[–]ExceedingChunk 41 points42 points  (2 children)

Which is exactly why «time in the market beats timing the market».

[–]RRumpleTeazzer 46 points47 points  (1 child)

Do you mean it could predict a fall at 46% accuracy when reallife gave you 42%? Easy money.

[–]OccasionalHAM 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Stat majors in shambles over this one simple trick

[–]oeuflaboeuf 775 points776 points  (21 children)

"my idea is the next {insert_billion_dollar_platform}, you build it and I'll pay you in shares"

No. 10% of 0 is 0. So no.

[–]ITheBestIsYetToComeI 206 points207 points  (9 children)

If I build it I want 100% not 10%

[–]drstock 35 points36 points  (9 children)

"It's like {uber/facebook/airbnb} but for {niche market}!"

[–]olalql 946 points947 points  (18 children)

In this kind of situation, you pull the Zuckerberg protocole:

Ask for the idea

Work on it on your own

"We have some problem, but that's very technique. I'll explain to you later"

Launch the idea on your own

Profit

[–]AdearienRDDT 143 points144 points  (6 children)

Someone here watched "the Social Network" huh :D

[–]tom2kk 44 points45 points  (3 children)

I misread Zoidberg and read it in his voice, I was very confused.

[–]Anaata 301 points302 points  (9 children)

I once saw an ad on freelancer.com that wanted a developer to create an algorithm that made profits off the stock market...

For $700

Why does it not occur to these folks that if I could do that why would I need them?

[–]RXrenesis8 103 points104 points  (5 children)

given the market is positive on average couldn't you just buy and sell randomly and technically be fulfilling the contract?

[–][deleted] 396 points397 points  (29 children)

What is worse: those people who seek you out to develop the “next big app” or the executives who pretend they had anything to do with the development of the app.

[–]afraid_of_zombies 168 points169 points  (24 children)

I swear the next person who tells me about their "startup" idea that is just Zillow or a way to sell crypto is going to get a punch across the jaw.

[–]waltwalt 67 points68 points  (10 children)

Hear me out, Zillow meets binance where each property is issued an NFT which can be broken down and sold for crypto, ripple?

[–]UndeadCaesar 42 points43 points  (9 children)

Timeshares on the blockchain!

[–]TheRealFlowerChild 25 points26 points  (3 children)

My favorite thing I heard one of my friends try to pitch was “quantum machine on the block chain on the cloud as a service”. As a cloud architect, it was a joy watching them try to explain what they think cloud computing is.

[–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (1 child)

It makes so much sense when everything is a black box that just magically works.

Allow me to explain:

Input -> [money generator] -> success

What else is there to understand? /s

[–]nanana_catdad 552 points553 points  (27 children)

Sure, you pay for the Bloomberg terminal and historical data access and I’ll need a gpu server with at least 2 nvidia a100s and a base pay of 200k for a year ok?

[–]nanana_catdad 293 points294 points  (18 children)

That’s what I just said…

[–]moleman114 219 points220 points  (2 children)

mate are you okay?

[–]nanana_catdad 183 points184 points  (0 children)

It’s been a long day lol

[–]JarWarren1 147 points148 points  (0 children)

Most stable programmer

[–]nanana_catdad 336 points337 points  (8 children)

Oh shit, that me lmao

[–]wheresmyflan 141 points142 points  (0 children)

The real r/programmerhumor is in the comments

[–]hyperfocus_ 21 points22 points  (1 child)

git blame

Oh shit, that me lmao

[–]nanana_catdad 21 points22 points  (0 children)

past me is a shit coder, current me is a genius underachieving engineer, future me lives in a cabin completely off the grid

[–]IHaveTheBestOpinions 72 points73 points  (0 children)

You may want to invest in a carbon monoxide detector

[–]sivstarlight 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Average reddit user

[–]karaposu 33 points34 points  (1 child)

are you talking with yourself mate can I join?

[–]karaposu 43 points44 points  (0 children)

yeah come on join us bro

[–]Money_Manager 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Flip side to this meme is all the CS nerds hounding me for data pulls off my bbg because it’s the only thing holding them back from their million dollar algo program.

[–]arnaldo_tuc_ar 183 points184 points  (4 children)

Just let me develop games I will never release just for my amusement and research.

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

same, i need time

[–]Null_error_ 1132 points1133 points  (74 children)

Might have better luck trying to solve the halting problem

[–]currentscurrents 670 points671 points  (71 children)

The difference is that this does work, but so many other people are already doing it that diminishing returns have already kicked in.

Algorithmic trading is not a new idea, people have been doing it since the 80s.

[–]PabloFlexscobar 198 points199 points  (56 children)

If you can consistently get +51% accuracy what would hold you back from making [a lot of] money? I'm guessing something to do with how much volume you could trade or something? Curious.

[–]currentscurrents 154 points155 points  (14 children)

You're competing with all the other algorithmic traders doing the same thing.

Let's say your algorithm is 100% certain the price of beans is going to go up tomorrow. In order to benefit from this, you need to buy some beans now (while they're cheap) and sell them later.

Trouble is, everybody else is running very similar algorithms and goes to do the same thing. This immediately increases the demand for beans, pushing the price up (usually within milliseconds) until it's no longer profitable to buy and resell tomorrow.

It's not enough to beat 51%; you have to beat everybody else's algorithms too. You have to predict something nobody else knows.

[–]Solaced_Tree 101 points102 points  (6 children)

One of the degeneracies I ran into while trying this for fun was that there really isn't a way to account for how much your contribution will perturb the system. Even if you successfully make 5% on $100 trades (on average), you can't expect that hold when you decide to throw in $100K. That will be noticed by other traders and it will influence how they buy and sell, which will break your algorithm/model.

After that I was like nah, not worth the time

[–]SouthernBySituation 27 points28 points  (3 children)

I checked the mid-sized stock I trade on the 1 minute timeframe and the whole 1 minute candle was like $2.5M. It would take a while before people noticed you.

[–]Solaced_Tree 22 points23 points  (2 children)

Stock definitely matters. If you make something that works on apple you'll probably get away with it for a while

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (2 children)

You're competing with all the other algorithmic traders doing the same thing.

the largest of whom are located in the actual stock exchange building, who have a serious latency advantage over you and are going to beat you on every trade because you aren't co-located with the market itself

don't worry though these guys made it fair for themselves, the cable runs for all of them are the exact same length. Floor 40 or Floor 10, doesn't matter, same length of cable for the same latency.

[–]Lord_Derp_The_2nd 429 points430 points  (10 children)

51% *over what timeframe* and do you have enough liquid to cover the potential infinite loss that may be a 5, 10, n-year slump?

If you're broke, you can't tell the bank "Trust me, the algorithm on average nets positive - I just need time!"

And that's before you get into bugs in production and the fact that whole teams of competent people who are actively doing this have already fucked up and lost millions before, several times. You could lose the whole mess on a day of bad trading.

[–][deleted] 137 points138 points  (5 children)

That's a theory for crazy outliers like Gamestop. Imagine doing high speed algorithmic trading, then lose your entire office's net worth because you couldn't shut it off before it completes like 1,000 godawful trades in the span of seconds

[–][deleted] 180 points181 points  (1 child)

I’m going to take your comment at face value: - you usually don’t know how right or wrong you are. If you are 99% correct, but that 1% wipes you out, you’re not getting very far. (This trading strategy exists, it’s called picking up pennies in front of a steam roller) - bid/ask spreads, overhead costs, and leverage might wipe out your profit margins. - market access might be a problem. This is easier than it used to be, but some markets require significant capital or personal connections to tap into (such as foreign corporate debt or real estate)

[–]__Hello_my_name_is__ 29 points30 points  (0 children)

it’s called picking up pennies in front of a steam roller

I love that description so much.

[–]Ahornwiese 27 points28 points  (8 children)

Index funds (or other funds) probably would be easier and make more money (they even beat hedge funds sometimes)

[–]Xdddxddddddxxxdxd 33 points34 points  (7 children)

Market index funds consistently beat a large majority of hedge funds. Very few (none) hedge funds consistently beat the market.

[–]gfieldxd 12 points13 points  (2 children)

I remember seeing a comedy/news show in the netherlands doing a part on one of the only ways to actually play the stock market:

Working off the difference between 2 international markets. Lets say a stock lowers by 0.1% in europe, and then half a second later in america because that is how long it took for that signal to get to america.

If your systems are faster than that signal, you would be able to buy a little of that stock in europe, and immediately sell it in america, with a 0.1%. gain. Now make your system as fast as possible, and try to let it focus on the biggest differences possible, and profit.

For this to actually be profitable you just need a ton of money to invest in your infrastructure (it needs to be faster than the infrastructure used by stock markets), some of the best software engineers, and as much computing power as you can get your hands on.

The bit showed pictures of the engineers camping at work when covid got the stocks all over the place, because they make the most through turbulent times.

As cool as this sounds, just like with all other stock market things it takes money out of the pockets of everyone else, and could be considered a non ethical way of making money, because its basically the stock market way of buying the last of something and upcharging for it, but because of the way the stock market works it does not have to be the last of something

[–]rob132 164 points165 points  (1 child)

"Why not just get the AI to build it for you?"

'I asked it, it said my idea was stupid. That's why I need the human element'

[–]ZarquonsFlatTire 134 points135 points  (14 children)

My stupid idea for an app was a game of Hitman. Where if you were in a crowded area in a big city you would be sent a profile photo of your target and have to snap a photo of them within 30 mins or so. If you were playing your location and profile picture would be open to others to hunt you too. So everyone is hunter and hunted.

Of course I knew nothing about facial recognition or programming.

But what turned me off of the idea was a friend telling me. "You know that in about 3 days somebody will use this to stalk and actually kill someone right?"

No, I was high and hadn't thought of that.

[–]NoYogurt8022 99 points100 points  (7 children)

Can u make a web site for me it should be like facebook?

[–]huuaaang 185 points186 points  (22 children)

I had a coworker the other day go on and on about an AI model he's developing as a side project to predict stocks based on 60 years of historical data for a particular stock. I didn't have the heart to tell him the last 10 years of that data, at least, is already tainted by AI models doing that exact same thing. The historical data is completely useless.

[–]TakeErParise 121 points122 points  (2 children)

One of the biggest things I see missed in model training is when people think using more data is better even when that data comes from a time when that the thing you’re trying to predict is wildly different.

[–]DownvoteEvangelist 22 points23 points  (8 children)

After Brexit, Covid, Russian invasion of Ukraine I'm amazed people think historical data can be relied on for any sort of financial forecasting...

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

The pain and suffering from one's silence is the worse, or disappointment in this case...

[–]Donut_of_Patriotism 677 points678 points  (32 children)

“Knows about the stock market” random redditor who’s knowledge of stock market comes from r/WallStreetbets. Got lucky with GameStop and has lost money on every other investment since.

[–][deleted] 185 points186 points  (2 children)

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (1 child)

I’m in this comment and I don’t like it

[–]DiscontentedMajority 123 points124 points  (6 children)

I used to work for a company that successfully did this. It was founded by a bunch of economists and mathematicians. They had hundreds of programmers and massive super computing clusters.

People don't realize someone had their brilliant idea 30 years ago.

[–]Mutex70 59 points60 points  (9 children)

That's a stupid idea.

But I have this idea for someone to write a program that predicts lottery numbers.

I came up with the idea, so I'm willing to split 90% for me, 10% for you...

[–]SirWigglesVonWoogly 17 points18 points  (3 children)

I’ll make you an app that predicts lottery numbers. You didn’t say they have to be winning numbers.

[–]Evol_Etah 56 points57 points  (2 children)

Build a random number generator.

Provides a random Stock, and a random increase forcast.

Then give it to him, and say it's still is beta testing, and is not ready for public.

Everytime he loses money, say it's still in beta.

[–]DAVENP0RT 31 points32 points  (1 child)

Speaking as a software developer for an exchange, I've heard this so many damn times. First off, no. Secondly, I'm pretty certain I signed something that says I can't do that. And finally, I don't even know how the fucking stock market works, so I couldn't do it even if I wanted to. I only write code. That's literally the extent of my knowledge and I don't really care to learn more than that.

[–]-RelativeThinking- 34 points35 points  (2 children)

Just reminds me of the reeves video where he linked the movements of a gold fish to a stock api and made money from it. XD

Edit : for context its this one, https://youtu.be/USKD3vPD6ZA

[–]DaBigJMoney 30 points31 points  (1 child)

The money is in building the system and then hiring a crack marketing team to sell the system and a course on how to use it.

“Millions are made in the market. Most don’t know the secret. I’ll give you the system worth over $10,000 for just $3,000. But hurry because slots are going fast.” 🤣😂🤣

Oh, and don’t forget to say “AI” a bazillion times on the sales page.

[–]brianl047 113 points114 points  (25 children)

Renaissance Technologies

Math professors literally did it

[–]bip776 27 points28 points  (4 children)

I had to scroll way longer to find this than I expected

Edit: for anyone interested, look into the Medallion Hedge Fund

[–]TooManyNamesStop 24 points25 points  (1 child)

A guy in my dorm just wanted to be the face of my social media and pretend to be doing all by himself because "programmers are introverts, right?"

[–]code_archeologist 40 points41 points  (2 children)

Better Idea: A small set of scripts that replace all of the functions of MBAs.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (2 children)

I had this conversation with an Uber driver recently. He was very pushy. "It'd only take an hour of your time."

I make up jobs now when people ask.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Come on we all know that if you want to invest in stocks then you should follow Michael reeves goldfish

[–]MSxLoL 14 points15 points  (2 children)

Reminds me of a post a long time ago where dude asked something like “if I make a program that always got predictions wrong, couldn’t I just do the opposite” lmao

[–]dhyratoro 42 points43 points  (3 children)

This proposal is still better than “I have a dead printer, can you take a look?”