No matter what your interest or industry is, you can be sure there’s a website for it. In the massive jigsaw puzzle that is the world wide web, websites can be thought of as the puzzle pieces and, no matter their shape or size, they all fit into the overall structure. So if you’re a huge Game of Thrones fan, you can easily find a forum to discuss your appreciation for it with others. If you love books, ditto. Hiking, traveling, banking, healthcare, you name it- there’s a site out there catering to just about everything in existence. Quantitative trading is a bit of a different story because it is a niche field with fewer people involved, but it is no exception.
All it takes is one engaged person to start a website devoted to their interest or industry where they can demonstrate their expertise and interact with like-minded individuals. For quantitative trading, websites come in the form of communities where quantitative traders can interact with one another to trade investing theories and trading ideas, and develop trading programs. Here are some of the best:
Quantopian is the ultimate community for quantitative traders. It is currently home to over 100,000 traders and it continues to grow. The free website gives registered users the tools they need to create their own trading algorithms and backtest them through historical data and free paper trading. It allows users to retain full ownership of the algorithms they create and they can even submit their algorithms into a monthly contest for the chance to win $5,000.
Stock Rover’s slogan is “Made for individual investors by individual investors” and it is free to join, giving users access to many helpful trading content. Those who wish to use the site’s screening technology will have to pay an annual fee of $200, but most would agree that it is well worth the price. With this tool, investors can filter through stocks using hundreds of financial metrics, weight criteria for ranked results, and design screening equations.
Quantpedia markets itself as “the encyclopedia of quantitative trading strategies.” It tracks the latest academic papers on investing theory, so it’s a great resource for quantitative traders to stay up on industry news and develop trading ideas. Many of the papers are free, but a yearly subscription of $499 provides access to any data updates and approximately 200 “uncommon high-quality strategies.”
The Street is more than just a finance industry news source. In addition to be an excellent way to keep up with industry news, it also has a screening system that identifies the most profitable stocks each day according to 32 factors. Anyone can go to the site for daily news articles, but subscribers get access to five-page stock profiles and tools to aid them in their trading decisions for $50 a year.
This site may not appear to be as user-friendly at first glance, but it is free to use, and upon a more thorough investigation, users will find that by clicking on the site’s charting filters, they are given a short list of qualifiers and can then launch backtests that yield thorough and accurate details. The site tools may appear complicated at first, but they allow traders to test algorithms with just a few clicks.