It’s been a while since things were normal, however, in some parts of the world things are slowly opening up. Travel has begun to open up around the world. I thought it would be worth taking advantage of this to travel myself. Some things haven’t changed, like flight delays, queues etc.! Other things clearly have…
Category: Data
Data, General
Text and trading
by Saeed Amen •
People usually ask me several types of questions. The most common one is where I think you can find the best burger is. I do have an answer to this (which may or may not be a secret), but in order to validate this response, I’ll need to do a lot more burger based research…
Data, General
Selecting datasets for financial models
by Saeed Amen •
Any building is made of many materials. Some will be pretty much common to every building, such as glass. Other materials will be more specific. Take for example bricks, they are fairly common in residential buildings. However, these days it is fairly unusual to see the outer walls of a skyscraper made of bricks. Instead,…
Data, General
Combining different data sources
by Saeed Amen •
I used to like Lego when I was a kid. Perhaps a part of me still does. Forget about nostalgia too, the Lego sets available these days are much better than I was a kid. Some Lego sets are exceptionally detailed copies of major buildings, cars etc. They are also considerably more expensive than I…
Data, General
Legal aspects of alt data
by Saeed Amen •
Whenever we eat something, understanding the ingredients which have gone into a dish is important. Is it organic? Is it fresh or frozen? Have the food and vegetables been grown in a sustainable way? What is the quality of the produce? There are many questions we might seek to ask. When it come to…
Data, General, Python
Backtesting in Python
by Saeed Amen •
If I want to know how a burger tastes like in a restaurant, I’ll go there and eat it. However, let’s say I want to know how a burger tasted from a particular restaurant tasted like in 2015? I can’t go back in time. Or let’s say I want to know how every burger joint…
Data, General
More than data is needed for insights
by Saeed Amen •
If you’re building a house, what’s important? You need an architect to design the house alongside civil engineers. You need builders to, well, build the house. Of course, you could try your hand at some of these tasks, but it’s going to be a very steep learning curve. It’s also one thing trying your hand…
Data, General, Python
Benefits of learning Python for traders
by Saeed Amen •
In the world of burgers, there aren’t really many buzzwords. Maybe for the very fancy burgers, they might have wagyu beef or something exotic like that (and no, those burgers aren’t any better). However, by and large there’s only so much you can do to a burger to make it different. Ultimately it needs a…
Data, Foreign Exchange, General, Macro
Crypto markets from an FX perspective
by Saeed Amen •
It’s fifty years since the Bretton Woods system collapsed. Given that I’ve been working in FX my whole career, I suspect I should be thankful to Nixon for that! There’s a great article by Chris Marsh which discusses this, and I strongly recommend having a read of it. Also recently I read an article by…
Data, General
The unknowns in markets and alt data
by Saeed Amen •
Every year that passes, it seems to become clearer that there is even more I don’t know, in particular those areas where I’ve worked the most, financial markets. If it’s a new area, then it’s a lot easier to assume you know than you know, because you are shielded from a lot of the complexities.…