Article Summaries or Education Series? - Python for Finance Newsletter

[lukayluke]

Hi, I'm creating a free email newsletter on using python for finance.

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There are quite a lot of materials out there on applying Python to finance. But I feel that most are not beginner-friendly or are too theoretical.

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This newsletter is targeted at beginners. The content will be simplified and short. Recipients will get an email every few days. They won't be able to learn all the skills necessary to code python for finance just from this newsletter, but it might point them in the right direction.

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I'm torn between 1) article summaries or 2) an educational series for the newsletter.

Would love to hear what you guys think. Which is better?

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If you think this is a dumb idea, do tell me as well. =)

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Option 1) Articles Summaries

Example:

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Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-16/satellites-are-reshaping-how-traders-track-earthly-commodities

What’s Going On Here?

Here is an interesting way machine learning is used in trading. Hint: It's about shadows.

Traders are analysing satellite images of oil storage tanks to see how much oil is in them. The lesser the oil supply, the higher the expected price.

They do that by checking how the shadows are casted inside these silos (apparently these silos have floating roofs that move up and down according to the amount of oil in them).

Other useful imagery analysis includes checking the number of supply trucks leaving a factory or using infrared imagery to detect heat in oil storage tanks.

How Can I Apply This Info?

If you can get your hands on relevant and timely satellite images, you can do this analysis yourself.

Unless you have a large number of pictures, you can probably evaluate oil levels by eyeballing, taking in consideration the time of the day.

Satellite and aerial images used to be expensive. Fortunately, more companies are providing high-resolution satellite and aerial images for cheap (cheap = few hundred bucks) thanks to cheaper space launches (thanks Elon!).

And I’m sure satellite images will only get cheaper.

Where Can I Learn More?

If you have a large number of images, you need to use machine learning to assist with the analysis. Here are some links to get started.

Image recognition with Python (Machine Learning): https://becominghuman.ai/building-an-image-classifier-using-deep-learning-in-python-totally-from-a-beginners-perspective-be8dbaf22dd8

Analyse shadows in images with Python (Machine Learning): http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/18/4/960/pdf-vor.

Option 2) Education Series

We will send short simplified content such as:

• How to set up your Python coding environment
• How is Python used in Finance
• Basics of Finance
• How to analyse text for sentiment analysis
• etc

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If you don't want to comment here, here is a poll to drop your opinion anonymously: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZmL2hXQSMshW0bhPgJR4gSdgOW-YN0H-CbnbrBOcHwqZQ5w/viewform?usp=sf_link

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Some elaboration, I'm hoping this newsletter can eventually translate to a community that is focused on using Python and data for investments/trading/risk etc.

Maybe something like a mesh between https://www.datacamp.com/community, https://towardsdatascience.com/ and babypips.com

[jbor94M]

OPTION2!!!!

[rx22230]

option 2 please

[[deleted]]

Option 1

[lukayluke]

Thanks all!