HN Gopher Feed (2017-07-24) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Quantra.io, a quantitative finance API made with Quantlib
55 points by melenaboija
https://quantra.io/___________________________________________________________________
jerry40 - 1 hours ago
I can imagine people or companies can use this API to check their
own functions in test cases. Example - you have tons of deals and
at the end of the day it would be interesting to doublecheck daily
P&L. But I believe this business doesn't trust anybody but well-
known players or experts. Also the time is essential so they will
prefer a local library. And again, the security can prohibit
external APIs. I don't discourage your work though, perhaps it is a
step to your personal success, who knows.
melenaboija - 1 hours ago
Thanks for your comment. I agree with most of what you said:"I
can imagine people or companies can use this API to check their
own functions in test cases"Testing is one good application."But
I believe this business doesn't trust anybody but well-known
players or experts"Take a look to the community mantaining
quantlib."Also the time is essential so they will prefer a local
library"How long does it take to financial institutions to test
all valuations for each modification to "local libraries"? Using
external services could avoid that. This is not going to be the
one, but it would be just a matter of resources to improve
performance(ie big data platform for risk simulations)"And again,
the security can prohibit external APIs"Why do banks rely on RSA
for payment transactions but don't do it for other purposes?"I
don't discourage your work though, perhaps it is a step to your
personal success, who knows"Already did, I learned and enjoyed
doing it :)
rmetzler - 2 hours ago
I'm sorry, I don't want to shame you, but I see two typos in the
first page of your documentation. Can I send you a pull request
somehow?
melenaboija - 37 minutes ago
Thanks! I dont have a repository for the API docs sorry :( Send
me an email if is possible and I'll try to solve it.
kilburn - 5 hours ago
I guess I'm just not the target, but anyway... I think the website
could communicate whatever it is you are doing better.What pain
point does your API solve? Who is your target audience? Can you
show us a simple example (or a few)?Is it closed-source? How are
you planning to monetize it? This is a very important issue for any
api-as-a-service project which yours seems to be. If you don't have
any strategy, then I will not bet my business on you sticking
around...
melenaboija - 5 hours ago
Thanks for your comment!It basically wraps some functionalities
of quantlib library into an API. Main reason of it is that I
think part of the target of the library is people that not need
to know about programming, and an API opens it to future user
friendly interfaces (such as the google sheets addon).Examples,
the add-on uses it and you can find the source code in the
repository. Close source, yes now, it's been just a side project.
Not thinking about monetize it now.
mrleinad - 5 hours ago
Wholeheartedly agree with all these points
norcalli - 2 hours ago
It's weird that more time was spent on the logo design and the
background than writing a simple summary, which is vastly more
important.
claytonjy - 5 hours ago
What is this? I think it needs a more clear and accessible demo; I
don't know what it is, and I don't want to install a google sheets
add-on to find out.How does this compare to tools like
Quantopian's? Is it targeting a less sophisticated user, hence the
Google Sheets?
melenaboija - 4 hours ago
Thanks for the comment! About what is it, I already answered in
another comment but I guess landing page needs more info.It
mostly gives finance products pricing capabilities, not trading
algorithms like quantopian.I thought a google sheets addon would
be a good way to show what it does, and actually a real good
application for it. There already exists an excel wrap for it
(http://quantlib.org/quantlibxl/ much much better than this
though) but you need Microsoft Excel :)
swhalen - 3 hours ago
The documentation suggests that this currently only supports
single-currency IRS, and it's also BYO market data.To my knowledge
there isn't anything like a RESTful pricing/valuation service in
the market, let alone one with integrated market data, so there
might be an opportunity there. Existing services also tend to only
have "enterprise" sales/pricing structures, which is a pain if you
just want to try something out.
melenaboija - 3 hours ago
Thanks for your comment.That's right, it just prices IRS and
Bonds (with no optionalities). Next steps could be adding equity
options, swaptions, caps and floors or bond options, but it's
just a side project I used to learn something about quantlib.
Anyone willing to contribute will be welcome though :). It is
entirely done with C++ (C++ quantlib, crow and rapidjson).About
market data, I think that is a big gap to fill in this industry.
Hopefully some day it will exist an open source of data, but IMHO
that's not something is likely going to happen in the near
future.
swhalen - 2 hours ago
You might want to think about cross-currency IRS and FX
products as next steps, because they're more common hedge
instruments for corporates (your likely market, if you ever
want to go in that direction) compared with options.To monetize
the API I guess your only option would be to partner with an
exchange (or something like that) to get access to the
necessary market data. A decent API for valuations and pricing
would really be a breath of fresh air.