Chris Ivey Wants Users To Discover The Quant In Themselves (Without Writing A Single Line Of Code)

Through an exclusive interview, Chris Ivey, co-founder of EquaMetrics, told the tale of EquaMetrics' transformation from a college startup to a business that changed the world of trading as we know it. EquaMetrics gave rise to a revolutionary algorithmic trading platform called Rizm. If you think that this is just another quant playground, think again. Rizm, unlike other platforms, such as Quantopian, requires for traders to have absolutely zero programming experience. After all, Ivey's goal was “to make algorithmic trading available, universally accessible to any traders." With Rizm, the personal concoction of algorithms for trading stocks and Forex is just a few clicks away. From $99 per month for the smallest number of algorithms to $250 for the largest, this platform has the potential to provide you with the biggest and most convenient bang for the buck. Every supporting feature the web app has to offer is brought to you via the cloud; just drag and drop widgets using the AlgoBuilder, backtest your strategy and trade. Users decide with widgets to use, how many shares to trade and how long you want the algorithms to keep running. It's the quants' version of Tetris, and a highly lucrative one at that. To give you a small taste of what Rizm is capable of, here is a simple moving average crossover strategy that Ivey backtested for two years using a basket of tech stocks. It would yield a buy signal when the 20-day moving average crossed above the 50-day moving average and a sell signal on the reversal. While this is just a level one technical charts strategy, it still proved profitable 80 percent of the time. The concerns that Rizm brought the latest Wall Street WMDs into any trader's home are nothing but, “connotational misnomers," as Ivey put it. Rizm isn't offering high-frequency trading; it offers all the perks of algorithm trading without the destructive power. It's taking the trading strategies that traders already use and translating them into a manageable program. Still unconvinced? When asked why you should choose Rizm, Ivey's answer is quite simple: “We're just getting it right. We're offering everything you need…giving it to you in a way that is fun to use, intuitive, an enjoyable experience." Whether you're a trader with limited experience or a small hedge fund, that's the Rizm guarantee. Not to mention that Rizm is getting it right for the second time around. Rizm 1.0, which allows for trades based on technical analysis only, made its grand entrance during the summer of 2013. Rizm 2.0, which allows trades based on fundamental analysis as well, may require an even acquire an even bigger spotlight for its debut in January 2014. The cascade of innovation doesn't stop there. Within four to six weeks, a new forum feature called Rizm Community will take the algorithm trading experience to an unprecedented interactive level by allowing users to “share strategies, talk to other people, have chat boards where you can learn about things." says Ivey. Within the next year, versions of Rizm that will allow users to trade futures and options will also be in the works. Looking beyond that, Rizm will evolve until not only can traders trade successfully while keeping their day jobs but until they can also trade on, “everything from twitter feeds to lunar cycles to anything that might ever affect the stock universe”, says Ivey. Rizm has created an algorithmic trading league all its own and now you can be the next quant to join.