This is a fools errand

I built an algorithm with the intent of stat arb. I used everything from price data to alternative data to collect many high-likelihood signals across several assets. My work was peer reviewed and checked for overfitness and basic flaws. The backrest was great. It did well for a month and then every single trade was hit was with massive reversals.

Call me paranoid. There is a nefarious entity on the other side of my trades. There is an unspoken rule that individual investor accounts may not front run buying and selling. I’m telling you I would be positioned in such a way and all things would point to profit: headlines, technical movement, economic data, and my own signals. Yet the asset would detach from reality within 15 minutes of my order clearing. If a hedge was placed, the asset would move in such a way as to decrease the value of both assets in such a way as to maximize my losses. What I witnessed this month has proven to me that Wall Street is nothing more than a criminal syndicate:

I’m pulling the plug on this project and all future projects. For anyone on the fence about learning this, don’t waste your time. You’ll only find yourself in my shoes as the next mark for your brokerages predatory account algorithms.