I’m moving to Canada!  By the time this post is published, I should be 40,000 ft. in the air, relaxing, reflecting upon a dream come true.  Blogging and tweeting will be light as I get settled in my new home in Canada.

AgilePakistan.org needs a new lead, if anyone in Karachi wants to take over AgilePakistan.org please email me or ping me on twitter (@sheysrebellion).

On the technical front, I’ve been continuing my climb up the Erlang learning curve. I’ve prototyped some simple applications in Erlang  and now I’ve started writing a FIX engine in Erlang.

I’ve always maintained that stocks follow repeatable patterns in the short term and a computer should be able to exploit that fairly easily, which is why I’ve always preferred the idea of using pattern recognition over technical analysis in my next automated trading platform.

I needed to have a grasp of the basics of machine learning and data mining which is why I started reading Programming Collective Intelligence.

There are a couple of ideas that I’ve been throwing around in my head—applying pattern recognition and machine learning to financial data—I’m going to use Orange to play with these ideas a little further and I hope, eventually develop a trading strategy.

Having finished PCI, I’m also ready for something more theoretical, so I’ve bought a copy of  Introduction to Data Mining– I’ll read the book over the next few weeks while following along Stanford’s Stats 202 course syllabus, watching their videos and hopefully, form a deeper understanding of which machine learning algorithms to apply to this domain.

Last Two Weeks
This last mini vacation provided me with an opportunity to spend quality time learning data mining/machine learning; just as importantly it reaffirmed my belief in the application of science and technology over “common sense” to solving complicated problems

Programming Collective Intelligence has beautiful examples of how science can be applied to real world problems, but it only offers an introduction to a very complicated very diverse field of machine learning. 

Another Piece of the Puzzle
Data mining, software engineering, Python, Erlang and financial risk management are just pieces of a very complicated puzzle: algorithmic trading. On Monday, at my new job, another piece of puzzle will fall into place: the FIX Protocol. The next few weeks I’ll be busy learning FIX  but I know that working with FIX and getting re-exposed to the industry will help me make better decisions regarding which technology to use and which to avoid.

Going Forward
I still plan on studying and experimenting in my free time.  My roadmap includes: Introduction to Data Mining which I want to supplement with Orange; Mnesia, a distributed database which is used in conjunction with Erlang or possibly MonetDb which should be more suitable for data mining and tick databases and finally some tinkering with Markcetera and market simulators.

Parting Thoughts
This is a roadmap without a timeline, one thing I should have learned by now is that learning takes time and I have to mentally prepare myself for the long haul.  I don’t know if this combination of technology will yield the results I expect, but no knowing is exciting—the experimenting is half the fun.