Appendix

Books, Consultants, Software

Selecting the Best Books

Getting educated first is as important when betting on markets as when betting on horses. Likewise, there are very good books as well as awful ones to choose from in both disciplines. To save you time and expenses, I compiled comments about financial books from experienced traders and organized only the most recommended books into categories. Browse through the reviews at my Web site and take notes on which ones you like the most. Afterwards, you can jump to one of several financial bookstores also on the Internet. / My list of recommended books with their up-to-date reviews is available at this / Web location:

www.jurikres.com/faq/booklist.htm

Three online bookstores:

Amazon sells books on anything. Elder sells books on financial trading and investing. Traders Press sells books on financial trading and investing.

Data Feeds through the Internet

You can actually receive financial market data through the Internet as vendors offer / real-time, delayed, EOD, or some combination. Some require special software while / others are pretty much open to universal servers. For an updated list of WWW sites / providing these services, see my Web page

www.jurikres.com/cool/maincool.htm

VFor squawk-box service, digital audio and video services, data transmission and fax service, see the Web site

www.intersat.com

www.amazon.com

.elder.com www.traderspress.com

SOFTWARE CONSULTANTS FOR EASY LANGUAGE AND PROGRAMMING

Owners of Omega Research products typically prefer developing their own mechanical trading systems. However, for many, there typically comes a point in time when the desired system is just too complicated to code by oneself. Professional help is needed. For an up-to-date list of available trustworthy, competent programmers and consultants willing to help you with data preprocessing and modeling, see my Web page

http: www.jurikres.com/faq/consult.htm

SOFTWARE WITH A DATA SERVER

If you want to route the incoming data feed into your own software applications, there are several approaches available. These approaches and the relevant software are mentioned in Appendix B. Below is a list of Web sites related to these software products:

The Universal Market Data Server (UMDS),

by MarketStream Inc. Pal File Real Time, by Investment

Engineering Corp. Townsend Analytics Server Omega Research TradeStation DBC Signal for Windows and BMI for Windows ILX Systems Workstation Telekurs FINVEST Workstation Dow Jones Workstation Microsoft Excel The MathWorks MATLAB Market Data Interface Library (MDIL) from ILX North American Quotations TV/Teletext/video capture board Omega Researchs SuperCharts charting software

www. uniserv. com/umds. htm

www. InvestLabs.com

www.taltrade.com

www.omegaresearch.com

www.dbc.com

www.ilx.com

www.tkusa.com

www. dj markets. m

www.microsoft.com

www.mathworks.com

www.ilx.com

www.naq.com/partners.htm www.hauppauge.com www. megaresearch. m

RECOMMENDED SOFTWARE FOR FINANCIAL MODELING

By the time you feel you have exhausted the potential of classical technical indicators, you are ready to begin the next step in your journey: forecasting. After all, indicators

Books, Consultants, Software

that lead the market are certainly more useful than those that lag the market. Be cautioned, however. Creating leading indicators is not a trivial exercise. Probably the most difficult aspect of creating leading indicators is in selecting the correct inputs to feed your indicator. There is a world of data to choose from.

Here is my list of recommended software products, grouped by the manner in which they select the proper inputs to your desired leading indicator:

Genetic Algorithms

Genetic algorithms reduce the number of inputs by trying semirandom combinations, keeping those combinations of inputs that work the best, making new modifications from them, again keeping the best combinations, and so on. As the process repeats, the algorithm finds increasingly better combinations of inputs for your leading indicator.

• Neuralwares Neural Works Predict (www.neuralware.com), an add-in module for MS Excel.

• Biocomps Neural Genetic Optimizer (www.bio-comp.com), a stand-alone program.

Systematic Elimination

Systematic elimination starts with all the inputs a user has collected, and eliminates the least useful, one by one. Eventually, only the most useful inputs remain. This procedure is more efficient than genetic algorithms when the task is strictly limited to making "Yes/No" decisions (e.g., the specific input is useful/not useful).

• Promised Lands Braincel (www.promland.com), an add-in module for MS Excel.

Ontogenic Statistical Selection

This heavy-duty method uses General Method Data Handling (GMDH), a mathematical procedure that models data by generating one or more layers of polynomial equations. The following software product combines this method with expert system and data mining technology into one powerful workhorse. Expensive.

• Abtechs ModelQuest Enterprise (www.abtech.com), a stand-alone application.

Decorrelated Dimension Reduction

Even after you have eliminated all useless input variables, those that remain may still be highly correlated with each other, and therefore, highly redundant. One