Meet The New Algorithmic Trading Platform That Wants To Automate Your Trading
Source: Chris Dier-Scalise
A predominant trend in recent market history is the influx of money migrating away from actively managed portfolios to passive investment strategies. 2016 was no different, as billions of dollars dropped out of mutual funds, while even more money was placed into index funds and ETFs.
One aspect of this trend is a switch in emphasis from discretionary trading to automated, or algorithmic, trading. The appeal of these platforms is their ability to back-test trading strategies against historical market data and allow the technical analysis to manage trades automatically from that data. Automation can also prevent investor anxiety or any second guessing that can lead traders to misplay a trade.
IQBroker is a new player in this scene and gives any trader the versatility to trade automatically or manually in a broker-neutral environment. According to founder Daniel Tochner, the platform's strategy is for traders to simultaneously back test and execute multiple trading strategies in a single integrated portfolio.
“We’ve seen in the past decade, as more investors become automated traders, a lot of people are drawn into the field because trading becomes more of a problem that you can try to actually solve, rather than just play with your money as we investors sometimes do.”
When Computer Science Meets Trading
Tochner’s background is as a computer scientist, but he is also a dedicated trader. His introduction to algorithmic trading began over a decade ago, as his education in computational theory intersected with his preoccupation with the markets.
“I’ve been an investor for a long time, but there came a point where I thought there must be a better way,” he said. “I started looking into platforms that do automated trading. For me it naturally connected, the computer science aspect and the investment aspect, once you get into algorithmic trading, it’s a common denominator.”
The impetus behind IQBroker came from the limitations Tochner found in the existing platforms at the time. “They were focused on just creating a trading strategy that would trade maybe one symbol at a time and just see how well that works in back testing. I said, ‘Well, how about a trading strategy that can trade multiple symbols at a time. Not just copies of the same strategy but one that actually takes into account multiple symbols.’”
Taking The Trader Out Of The Trading
Overcoming the limitations of traditional algo trading eventually became the defining mission of IQBroker. Tochner’s goal is to allow investors to remove themselves from the trading equation entirely.
“We were looking to automate to the point where the entire portfolio would have multiple trading strategies,” said Tochner. “Where every single strategy could trade multiple symbols from different asset classes, time zones, and currencies so you could build entire portfolio trading strategies tested on historical market data. We wanted the portfolio itself to provide a bird’s eye view of it all, dynamically allocating cash or applying risk management between the trading strategies.”
After nearly a decade of testing, IQBroker finally launched last month. Combined with its discretionary trading platform, Tochner is confident that the automated aspect of the site will appeal to a wide array of traders looking for a higher level of insight over their investments.
“We’ve done our best to try and lower the entry barrier as much as possible,” he said. We’re getting good feedback from people who are familiar with the competition who are basically telling us we’re there, we’re at the level of the top few trading platforms, even on the discretionary side.”
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