Message #266123

[Avalon]

Also it wasn't all that much of a robot:

    Additionally, Defendants use the expression "set it and forget it" on the TradeMasters website to describe the simplicity of the TradeMasters software product. The website explains that the TradeMasters product is a "100% automated" trading robot that executes trades for a customer's trading account and it does not require any customer intervention to monitor and adjust the trading activity after initially entering "stops, targets and triggers." However, the TradeMasters software is not fully automated as claimed and requires customer intervention and "coaching" by Schacke. Customers paid TradeMasters a monthly access fee to receive "coaching," which fee was not disclosed on the website, and Schacke, in return, would tell customers how to determine which markets to trade, quantity and timing parameters for their trades and how "to get out of a trade early because of a loss or a gain."

There is sort of a segmented market for individual algorithmic trading, with NASA data scientists building algorithms on Numerai in their spare time, on the one hand, while on the other hand people buy trading software based on YouTube videos with fake testimonials. In some ways they scratch opposite itches: The do-it-yourself algo-trading platforms are for people who think they can apply their technical skills to a new domain, and that the financial world is comprehensible and that they may be the ones to comprehend it. The set-it-and-forget-it algo-trading products are for people who believe that the financial world is essentially a magic trick, and that some guy on YouTube will sell them the secrets to the trick for the low price of $1,500 plus monthly coaching fees.

Elsewhere: "The hot topic in hedge fund land right now is the rise of the computer-driven investing."

Hedge funds.

I mean, the other hot topic in hedge fund land is fees, and how they're too high, and how they'll come down. Former hedge fund manager (and "Big Short" character) Steve Eisman is on-trend:

    Eisman works at Neuberger Berman, a money management firm he joined after closing his hedge fund two years ago. He invests in classic hedge fund style, buying stocks he expects will rise in price while betting on others to fall. His services for an investment of $1 million cost 1.25 percent of assets per year. That’s not exactly cheap—many long-only mutual funds charge far less—but it’s a far cry from prices in hedge fund land, where the standard is a 2 percent annual charge plus a performance fee of 20 percent of profit.

Elsewhere: "Investors pulled an additional $5.7 billion from hedge funds in July, the third consecutive monthly outflow and bringing total redemptions to $20.7 billion over the period." And: "Hedge Funds Avoided Big Losses Despite ‘Brexit’ Shock."

Uber.

Here is some interesting musing from Chris Dillow about why Uber exists "as a form of cyber serfdom," in which the owners of the Uber software take a cut of the earnings of the people doing the driving, rather than as a driver-owned cooperative in which the drivers pay an app developer for some software and then use it to work for themselves. He mentions entrepreneurship, collective action problems, credit constraints. But it has all been a bit overtaken by events, because:

    Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved.