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Linux Business

Day-Trading Software For Linux/BSD? 9

Posted by Cliff from the knocking-on-the-doors-of-wall-street dept.
DayTrader Dreaming of Penguins asks: "For the past few weeks, I've been on an avid search for something I would have thought would be easy to find. I visited chat rooms, Web sites, and news groups. But I'm still left empty handed. I'm looking for the tools and indicators for DayTrading that could be used under Linux. Things like real-time charts, and NASDAQ Level 2 windows are virtually unavailable in one software package for the Linux Community. Due to lack of option I had to give up my Linux machine for one with a window. With software like DTNIQ, WindowOnWallStreet, and countless other services available for Windows, why is it Linux has yet to capitalize? Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places?" How difficult would it be for a new project to break into this market? It would seem that such tools are based on incredibly proprietary (read: expensive) protocols and hence Free Software un-Friendly.
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DayTrading Software for Linux/BSD? More

DayTrading Software for Linux/BSD?

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  • it exists (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    there is numerous stuff around for several Unix platforms, I guess that porting wouldn't be difficult - problem being that it is aimed at the institutional market and is therefore pricey. check http://www.bobsguide.com/

    Problem is that most daytraders don't survive long enough to bother to install linux. There have been some attempts to get a GPL platform running - none ever got past the initial software map.
  • Wasn't the point of the original poster that the port would *not* be trivial? Lets say the port is done and you only get one customer? Was that a waste? Probably.

    And the majority of Linux users might be competent, but are these the same people who would be day-traders? And if Linux users don't need support, why is Redhat basing their business on support?

  • check http://www.bobsguide.com/ [bobsguide.com]

    On bobsguide.com I searched for [linux]. I came up with:

    Anvil Repo Trading System (ARTS) [bobsguide.com]
    Platform: HP-UX 10.20, Solaris 2.6 & Linux

    Category: Deal capture and Trading

    --

    FANPAC
    Platform: Win NT/95/98, UNIX, Linux

    Category: Portfolio Management

    --

    FANPAC
    Platform: Win NT/95/98, UNIX, Linux

    Category: Risk Management

    --

    GAUSS Engine
    Platform: Win NT/95/98, UNIX, Linux

    Category: Treasury systems covering front, middle and back office

    --

    Mathematica
    Platform: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Unix, NEXTSTEP

    Category: Software components for the dealing room

    --

    S-PLUS
    Platform: Microsoft Windows NT, 95 or 98, UNIX and Linux

    Category: Capital Markets Analytics
  • Working for a company that has dealt with this sort of thing, there's no way you'd get an open source package that would be able to read NASDAQ level II quotes. It would definitely have to be a closed source (read: expensive, non-customizable, and proprietary) solution.
  • hmmm...all day traders are using windows? Well that's two decisions of equal caliber.
  • bah! Windows.
    There's a patch for that. C'mon Guys, This article is one man's attempt to excuse his own actions.

    I should encase you in carbonite for saying that.
  • Well this just brings about the classical paradox of "Mainstream society won't use Linux until there are more popular applications for Linux. More popular applications won't be made for Linux until mainstream society starts using it." Now with the attitude you're taking, nothing will ever get done. If you are going to be providing the application free and only sell the service, then why not spend a little extra to port it to Linux? This way you might get a few more subscriptions and you more than likely won't have to worry about support for those customers (since the majority of Linux users are quite competent).

  • Seeing as I'm working for a company which is in the middle of writing just such a package (but for windows only), I thought I should chuck my $0.02 in...

    Basically, the situation is this: we run a reasonably successful live investor-information website, with level 2 and a fair swag of technical charts, etc etc. We are, however, hitting the limits of what a website can provide for our customers, even with Java and (gasp!) ActiveX. So, it was decided to write an application, which would give us more control over the interface, better interactivity, and better performace, blah blah blah.

    But our company isn't even vaguely interested in writing the application for Linux/BSD. Why? Simple. Where's the money in it? The cost of developing such a package is large, and it won't be trivial to port to another OS. We are going to get our money from a) selling the software, and, more importantly b) selling subscriptions. Although, perhaps we'll give away the software, seeing as it would be useless without a subscription to our data service.

    Virtually none of our existing website customers use anything but Windows. I can't even remember the last time we had a support issue from someone with a Mac. Our potential customers are all using Windows, at least as far as we can tell.

    Perhaps there are a small handful of Linux users out there who'd be kinda interested in our stuff if it was ported to Linux. That's not enough to recoup the costs of development, and probably not enough to recoup the costs of support either.

    If anyone knows anything about someone providing a Linux app for this sort of stuff, I'd love to know who and see what their app can do, but basically, I don't see it'll happen until the general populous start using Linux. Which is a while off - from talking to some of our customers, I know that most of them aren't computer geeks - many don't know you can open a second browser window in IE. This mean Linux has to become a) at least as easy to use as Windows (not as hard as just "easy-to-use" ;), and b) widespread among non-technical people, before a program such you want seems likely. There just don't seem to be alot of people both interested in using Linux and interested in daytrading.

    It does bugs me that we only support Windows, but for the moment there really is no other option I can see, unless a large volume of daytraders suddenly put up their hands saying "I want to use Linux".

    Sorry about the long, rambling post.

    -Spiv.

  • Re:Why my company doesn't write Linux software... (Score:3)

    by drix ( 4602 ) on Saturday May 20, 2000 @08:28AM (#1059661) Homepage
    I find this intriguing, considering that of all people daytraders need stability above all else. They are the ones who always call and complain when the cable modem service dies out, at least according to my friend to who works in tech support and a cable ISP. I can't think of a more inopportune time for a BSoD than when you've got your finger over the enter key for a purchase order :) Especially now that we are starting to see major manufacturers come out with special systems solely for the purpose of daytrading (Dell just announced a dual-head system with lots of daytrading customizations), it seems logical that many would want to choose an OS that meets their needs (BSD would be my choice for stability). It seems like of all the OSs Linux or BeOS would be the most logical choice. I wouldn't write them off just yet..

    --

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