#and I am not very motivated to do ml analysis stuff

[asukiess]

hmmm.... I love marinette’s anxiety--more specifically how it’s portrayed--so much. there’s been so many write ups about her panic attacks, her spiraling, all of which can put it better than I can, but I was just rewatching Multiplication and she has a big thing about being “deserving” of love, too. she puts people she loves on a big tall pedestal, be it adrien, kagami (or luka in crocoduel, but I think that episode shows a similar albeit “uglier” side of her anxiety), and if she can’t meet her supposed expectations, then she’s not good enough for them. she avoids kagami and luka in their respective eps because she’s letting them down or hurting them and she hates it so much  - both times inadvertently hurting them more. I just think it’s so realistic to show the avoiding phone calls & situations, lying, etc. all due to your anxiety. I’m not saying that’s correct behavior, but I personally like to see this realistically portrayed. I don’t think it’s ever condoned in the show, and I think she rightfully is told by other people that what she’s doing is wrong. idk, I just really like it.

[algernoninwonderland]

Hello, I was wondering how you feel about the "Cat Blanc" ML episode? It thought it strange for reasons I can't really articulate so I was hoping to read your thoughts. I am not that good at analysis but I love your episode reviews. They are very insightful and usual help me understand why I liked/didn't like a certain episode.

A belated review/analysis of Chat Blanc! Here we go!

So, Chat Blanc… It wasn't all that great, now, was it?

The good:

Gabriel's motives are made crystal clear once more, which makes his pushing them to their very limits all the more shocking. The Agreste family vault looks impressive, almost church-like, it's some pretty strong imagery. Not outstandingly original but pretty good stuff nevertheless.

Angry Rose is funny.

Marinette's “Know what I won't take for an answer?” and a smash cut to Nathalie's “No.” That's good comedy.

Ladybug goofing around in the Burrow. It's harmless, she's a kid, these different points in time look interesting.

Chat Blanc's future looks eery and white and blue and it really works, we rarely see post-apocalyptic landscapes like this one, usually it's all muddy and dark and this isn't the case here. I appreciate that. The first wide shot in which the camera spins around Montparnasse tower is great.

Chat Blanc's animation is really creepy and for the most part, it's intentional.

if you’re a sucker for mid 2000s evil sadboys aesthetics, you’ll love this.

Have a montage of Adrienette being sickeningly cute.

I’m watching this in French and let me tell you, Benjamin Bollen might have to work with terrible lines but he’s doing a damn fine job with them

That shot in which the debris and Ladybug break the water’s surface, the bubbles and all… It looks great. I don’t know who is in charge of this but it looked genuinely great.

Chat Noir’s akumatisation and his trying to control his power and not hurt anybody is pretty great, as a concept.

The final scene is a nice parallel to the one earlier in the episode. Repetition with variation is an easy way to make me like things and it works nicely.

The bad:

The Girl Squad bullying Marinette is… Eh.

Stalkerish obsessed Marinette is a joke that overstayed its welcome by that point. Had this been an early season 2 joke, it would have worked. It's a late season 3 joke, it's honestly a bit creepy at this point.

That reveal is fanfic-worthy. It feels really light, and not as big a deal as would have been the case if that episode had any consequences. You can already tell this'll be retconned by the end of the episode.

Bunnyx's burrow. It's unimpressive. It's neither bizarre enough nor flashy enough to really work for me. And that TARDIS joke made me roll my eyes.

If you hate mid 2000s evil sadboys aesthetics, you’ll hate this.

They re-use the same two cars for Ladybug to jump on and it’s pretty obvious. There are smart ways of recycling assets. This isn’t one of them.

Wow, that’s a terrible first kiss, the shot is… Pretty bad.

Gabriel being an asshole and breaking Adrienette up for the stupidest, most selfish reasons feels unfair and that’s the point… But also that scene at the bakery is pretty lame, it doesn’t flow very well, the characters are oddly static and not expressive enough for it to be striking, the lighting doesn’t work with the mood of the scene at all. It feels abrupt, yes, but also cheap.

“It was our love that did this to the world milady.” What a stupid, edgy line.

Bad low-res textures being stretched are clearly visible in quite an awful lot of shots.

Wow. Destroyed Paris is the exact same city as usual, just as empty, only this time they replaced the sky with a “water surface” animation loop. It’s… Underwhelming. You had a great concept and this is what you do with it?

Can you believe they made destruction on a cosmic scale look so bland? How do you mess up that bad?

That confrontation between Hawk Moth and our heroes. This should be season finale material. It’s considerably cheapened.

The ugly:

With the few exceptions listed above, the rendering is not good at all, the lighting is flat and inexpressive which could give everything a kind of otherworldly feel if only used in some sequences (and that would be clever!)… Only it's off, all of the time. Chat Blanc is the only character that looks okay in his timeline.

The animation is off when it shouldn't be, outside of the exception listed earlier. Everything is much too stiff, characters' expressions are off, the timing is off. It's a shame, really. The action sequences are decently boarded but look pretty bad.

“Just because I know her secret identity doesn't mean she has to know about mine.” That's a terrible line. And we're supposed to be rooting for that kid. That's not how healthy relationships work, the episode never addresses that because Adrien is perfect, he's just sad and understandably troubled by these revelations.

Do you remember when Gabriel was shown to care for his son, the complex character drama that could have arisen from that? Well it sure as hell ain’t there.

That Guy boarded that episode. He has a weird, err, fixation on a 14yo girl’s butt and makes sure to include a shot in which it is shoved at the viewers’ faces. Seriously? What is wrong with you? If you so badly want to sexualise characters, it’s not like there aren’t any adults in Miraculous.

Perfectly good ideas are skimmed over in a matter of seconds because this episode is only 22 minutes long. The audience is bombarded with pretty major turning points in a matter of seconds and can barely process any of them.

If the point of your episode is, “it’s better if it doesn’t exist” then you obviously shouldn’t be making this episode… Right? Seems pretty obvious to me, but apparently it isn’t since Chat Blanc exists.

That end card has Hawk Moth look like he’s rolling his eyes and so was I by the end of this episode. The overwhelming feeling of all of this for nothing but the reassertion that these two are “made for each other” which, yawn.

Perfectly good ideas wasted on an episode with mediocre writing and bad animation and rendering.

It's a pretty forgettable episode, funnily enough, I had to rewatch it to be able to write this review.

Hope this helped, Anon! Thanks for the compliment!

[bentonpena]

From Engineering to Algorithmic Trading - Sanjot’s ambitious pursuit

From Engineering to Algorithmic Trading - Sanjot’s ambitious pursuit http://bit.ly/2TIaWG7

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Knowledge is a powerful tool, and it is only when you apply it will you truly understand the true power it holds. Similarly, it is necessary to keep growing and moving forward, both personally and professionally. Upskilling yourself to learn is one such medium.

An engineer might wonder and might be often filled with doubts and countless questions when it comes to making a career in Algorithmic Trading. But those who have been driven by their ambition have made a name for themselves. One of these exceptional few is Sanjot.

We connected with EPAT Alumni, Sanjot, for a casual conversation, to learn about his story, and what unravelled was a cascade of interesting facts and stories that help us understand what it takes to become an Algo Trader.

Here’s our conversation with Sanjot:

Hi Sanjot, could you tell us about yourself?

Hi everyone, I’m Sanjot Raibagkar. Trading is my passion, I really love it and have been doing it for 10 years. Presently I’m the Executive Director at a reputed international Financial Services firm coming from two decades of working experience across software, investment and trading. I’m also the co-founder of Moksh Tech and Investment.

About my education, I have completed my Mechanical Engineering from Amravati University and I also hold a Masters Diploma from CDAC, Mumbai. I am an avid learner mainly on the technical side. I also like playing Cricket and have played on behalf of my college and previously for my company.

Your job profile is quite impressive. How would you narrate your professional journey?

My professional career began by joining the tech industry in Mumbai. I started working from the Tech perspective at Netdecisions mainly from the development perspective. Moving on to Syntel and then to Cognizant, I worked for 11 years. During that period, I worked for multiple clients - banks, investment banks, wealth management clients. I would develop multiple projects for them from Client brokerage to algorithmic trading to BackOffice and mid-office operations, etc.

It was during this stint that I was introduced to algorithmic Trading.

What has your experience of Trading been like?

My “trading career” launched in 2007. Besides my working career, I was parallelly trading using the charting technique. I was also very interested in trading stocks. Slowly, I started trading using the charts and steadily I gained good success from the technique. I was looking at Algorithmic Trading from the Low-Frequency Trading perspective only.

As far as High-Frequency Trading is concerned, I haven’t and I don’t intend to practise HFT as of now. Presently, I trade only in Options (Bank Nifty and Nifty), which is my forte. I work only on Bank Nifty and Nifty and no other. Generally, I don’t trade on the stocks, I work only in the indexes from where I get my major understanding in this context.

For the analysis, I use my Data Science and Software background for analysing options and stocks. Then, I reconfirm that analysis using charts and then manually check the trades.

As of now, I don’t surrender the trades to the system completely. Right now my Algo Trading style is only for analysis, not for ordering.

You've gained a lot of skills over the years, and still, continue to do so. How are you applying these skills in Algo Trading?

On Sept. 2017, I started my own Algorithmic Trading company - Moksh Tech and Investment. Moksh is not a registered company yet. A company just between friends. We were managing the money of some close ones. We started off by using Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence to build our own software for Stocks and mainly for the Options.

I have also developed a software inculcating my knowledge of Algo trading, Data science and software development which was noticed by some of the largest investment banks, globally. Currently, I am working with one of the best investment firms which help investors to make the right investment decisions.

During Moksh, I was teaching Data Science to corporates including media companies, and multiple batches for Data Science in finance as well.

According to you, how important is the role of technology in Algorithmic Trading?

Without technology, most of the world might not move without it. Being a person of technology myself, I feel that just knowledge of the domain is not going to work, knowledge of the technology would be critical as well. But independently, neither will help you to survive. You’ll need a combination of both.

Algo Trading is now taking over the globe and is hailed as the next phase of Trading. What piqued your interest in Algorithmic Trading?

After Cognizant, I joined Deutsche bank. That is when I started searching for a good institute for learning Algo Trading, since I already had a programming background and a finance background, and I was also interested in Finance.

Since I was trading using charting and I was spending a lot of time in analysis, and having a technology background, I realized that, since we already had a lot of data, it is possible that there could be countless patterns that could be interpreted from that data. I thought if only I could utilize the computer somehow to build a pattern to understand behind the scenes, using the data.

Manually trading was also prone to some errors that could spell a disaster and rather than spending a lot of time or being susceptible to committing a human mistake, it would be better to avoid them altogether.

When I started learning more about Data Science, I realised that rather than spending too much time on analysis, manually, it is better to look into Algorithmic Trading especially from the automation perspective. That was the first time I started to think of Algorithmic Trading.

Upon research, I realised that I would need to learn about Algorithmic Trading, starting from the background and thus began my search for an institute that could help me out. Enter EPAT. And this is when I came across QuantInsti and joined EPAT. The project took up more time because of my work and active job.

What would you say were the landmarks in your Algo Trading journey?

I would list them down as:

Language and technology: I always use Python since a lot of Financial Libraries are easily available; a lot of articles and guidance is also available in abundance on the internet.

Learning Data Science - I learnt the importance of data. Humongous data is available in the financial market, you just need to interpret and analyse it.

Learning - I am proud and delighted to have learnt from a reputed Quant institute like QuantInsti.

What would you tell people who want to go for Algorithmic Trading?

This is a completely new world. Not much of your previous experience matters in this present world. One would need to upskill to grow.

The key to Algorithmic Trading, or even for trading, in general, is - Patience.

It always takes a huge amount of time. It is not a silver bullet that would immediately make an impact - you write a code and it would come up.

It is not necessary that your code would always work. A lot of experimentation is needed and it is not necessary that this experimentation is always going to work. This is where AI and ML could be helpful because it could also learn from the market.

Understanding data, cleaning it, learning from it, getting knowledge requires a huge amount of time, and most of the time it might be a failure. Patience here is the ONLY key to be successful.

Who inspires or motivates you to keep going?

The following is what always keeps me going:

From the technology perspective, one of my bosses from Cognizant was the one who has always been a huge inspiration for me to keep learning continuously and that has made a lot of difference to my life.

Secondly, all the big traders who are utilising their knowledge for trading, their stories and journeys - names like Nicholas Taleb.

Quotes by Jesse Livermore about the trading perspective - more from the emotional trading background kind of stuff.

Sanjot, we understand you’re a busy man, and we are really thankful to you for taking out time to interact with us and share your story - that helped us understand the REAL you! We hope your story would be a source of inspiration to others as well. We wish you the best of luck for all your endeavours.

A successful journey is never easy. It takes time and like Sanjot said, Patience. You can learn about how he has grown as an individual, as a trader and overall as a person. Keep learning about Algorithmic trading and keep growing. If you require any guidance, reach out to us and we would be glad to equip you with the necessary skill-set and knowledge required to excel in this field. Let us be your guide. Connect with us here.

Disclaimer: In order to assist individuals who are considering pursuing a career in algorithmic and quantitative trading, this case study has been collated based on the personal experiences of a student or alumni from QuantInsti’s EPAT® programme. Case studies are for illustrative purposes only and are not meant to be used for investment purposes. The results achieved post completion of the EPAT® programme may not be uniform for all individuals.

Trading via QuantInsti http://bit.ly/2Zi7kP2 January 21, 2020 at 05:16AM