We all know fizzy drinks are awful. They’re acidic, thanks to all the CO2. They are usually packed with copious amounts of sugar. Your teeth are unlikely to be fans of either carbonic acid or sugar. Fizzy drinks make it very easy to ingest large amounts of sugar very quickly in a few gulps, which…
Category: General
Data, General
Why banks should monetise their datasets
by Saeed Amen •
The big news in the data world this month has been the merger between LSE and Refinitiv. It is unlikely to be last such tie up, as @jbaksht puts it in a recent tweet below. One obvious reason is that for exchanges, monetising their dataset is becoming an ever more important revenue source. In many…
General
Six years of startup working: the lessons
by Saeed Amen •
It’s been exactly 6 years since I resigned from Nomura, to embark on the path to working in fintech startup life, initially with my main focus being The Thalesians and over the past three years with my full time focus at Cuemacro. On each anniversary that has passed, I’ve found it a good exercise to…
Data, General
Combining alternative datasets to generate alpha
by Saeed Amen •
I’ve got a car, despite the fact that I rarely drive it. There’s that nagging feeling, that I should keep my car, just in case I need it. On those rare occasions I do drive it into London, I end up moaning about all the traffic, and wish I’d taken the Tube. Not only that,…
Foreign Exchange, General, TCA
Cutting the huge costs of eTrading desks with tcapy
by Saeed Amen •
If you read my column, you’ll probably know I like burgers and make any excuse to mention them. Today is no exception! Let’s say that today, I wanted to open a burger joint. Ok, I’m no chef, but I think I can probably make a burger. Rather than simply buying a ready made building to…
Data, General, TCA
Keep your trade data private for TCA
by Saeed Amen •
It’s been a while since I had my first job at Lehman Brothers. It’s all slightly a blur now. For the first few weeks, we rotated around various desks, in a sort of matchmaking exercise to see where we’d get a job. I remember being thoroughly disappointed at not making the cut for the CDO…
Data, General
Is your firm sitting on valuable exhaust data?
by Saeed Amen •
I’ve never tried to use a metal detector. The dream, I assume, of folks that use metal detectors is to find treasure! In an unassuming grass field, maybe they’ll stumble across Roman gold or perhaps a Tudor necklace? The chances are pretty low. Perhaps, a lot of metal objects you’d dig up would pretty worthless.…
Data, Foreign Exchange, General, Macro
Read the Fed through NLP
by Saeed Amen •
It’s easy to miss things. However, we simply don’t have enough time to do everything. I like burgers, and I usually use this blog as an excuse to talk about them. Bear with me for a moment, there is a point to this! Let’s say I wanted to find out the best burger in my…
Data, General
Sorolla and data science
by Saeed Amen •
I had never heard of the painter, Sorolla, until I recently saw an advert on the Tube for an exhibition of his work at the National Gallery. This week, I visited the exhibition. What is immediately apparent from his work is the way he uses of light, and in particular sunlight (and perhaps it’s not…
Data, General
How to learn about alternative data
by Saeed Amen •
Tap, tap, tap. It’s impossible not to tap your feet to a good track. Music can come in all forms, from Beethoven and Mozart, to Jay Z and Taylor Swift. There’s the good, the bad, the ugly: music which uplifts, depresses, infuriates. Music is about triggering a reaction in the listener. It’s about hearing that…