All you need is IMP

1. All you need is IMP

2. Meet John* • John is a hard-working guy with a handle on his finances. • John has some extra capital, and wants to invest • What are John’s options? *He knows what you did last IMP

3. Mutual/Index Fund Advantages Disadvantages • Safe: mutual or index funds are among the safest investments that John could make • Hands-off: John doesn’t touch the money once the fund has it. • SLOOOOW: fairly low rate of return that often hardly beats the general market trend • Fund managers take a cut, and this comes out of John’s profit (or pocket if the fund doesn’t make enough money) • Penalties for liquidating • Nearly IMPossible to control where his money is invested Crispety Crunchety Peanut-Buttery IMP

4. Professional Broker Yo quiero IMP Advantages Disadvantages • Relatively safe, and John’s portfolio might be able to beat the returns of slow-but-safe funds. • Easy: John pays his broker to worry about his investments, although John has IMProved control over his portfolio, more than with a fund. • John doesn’t have much direct control of his portfolio. • Professional brokers make their money from somewhere: John’s profit and pocket.

5. Online Brokerage (E*TRADE) Advantages Disadvantages • Relatively cheap: small commissions are paid on each trade, and a minimum portfolio value may be required • Control: Nobody is telling John where he should invest his money • No one is telling John where he should invest his money! • John is almost as likely to lose money as he is to make money, and it’s not probably that he’ll consistently beat the market average • Relatively small errors in prediction can have a large negative IMPact on his finances In IMP we trust

6. Online Brokerage (E*TRADE) Advantages Disadvantages • Relatively cheap: small commissions are paid on each trade, and a minimum portfolio value may be required • Control: Nobody is telling John where he should invest his money • No one is telling John where he should invest his money! • If John is only as good at picking stocks as the average investor, he will only make money if the market improves, he won’t be beating other investors. • Relatively small errors in prediction can have a large negative IMPact on his finances In IMP we trust

7. John has problems • John’s options • Pay a fund manager or broker to take control of his money away • Make mostly arbitrary stock picks, and sink any money he might make into trade fees with an online brokerage • These options aren’t that good • What can John do? Did somebody say IMP?

8. IMP: IMP for Market Prediction GOT IMP?

9. IMP? Yes, please! • IMP enables John to use his knowledge of economics and investments to his advantage, while not relying on fallible hunches • IMP allows the average investor access to deeper analyses of stock data than the stock page in the newspaper. P/E ratios don’t cut it when John can use Markov Chaining and Bayesian Inference

10. Customization: There’s no wrong way to IMP • John can write his own methods for combining commonly known algorithms for market prediction, giving John unique predictions for the market • John can even write his own algorithms if he feels ambitious or inspired enough, and IMP will integrate and test the performance of his algorithm.

11. As easy as IMP • John is probably not going to want to start off with something as advanced as writing new prediction algorithms, so IMP will make it easy to jump right into investing • IMP comes preloaded with a number of algorithms that John can graphically compare using real-time data for whichever stock he’d like.

12. Bigger - Better - IMP • IMP enables the average investor to get an edge over the next guy, and encourages good research and creativity, rather than lucky guesses. • IMP takes the power away from the investment elite and puts it in YOUR hands. • IMP is right for anyone thinking about their financial future.

13. IMPortant Features • Easy to read GUI • Smart default options • Advanced options • For experienced users • Stock scraper • Stores stock info from the web • Watched stock list • Specified by the user

14. More IMP Please • Ability to graph market trend data • Variety of built-in algorithms • Moving average • Deviation • Regression • DAEMON toolkit • Provides ability for user-created algorithms • Potential to share with online community

15. IMP 2.0 and Jabberwocky CHANGING AT THE SPEED OF INFORMATION COMING IN 2012

16. IMProvements • Algorithm Support Service • Subscription based service • Provide new algorithms • Provide support • Alert interfacing • Interface with email, instant messaging, etc.

17. Jabberwocky: Feed the IMP • IMP’s partnered online brokerage • Interface with Jabberwocky will be integrated into IMP • Allows users to make different kinds of smart trades • i.e. bulk trades

18. Group dynamics: Who’s IMP is it Anyway? • No group leader • More a self-organizing team • Members with skills appropriate to current iteration would step up and take lead • Programming, UML, documentation, etc

19. What Worked: IMPossible? I Think Not • GUI turned out intuitive and user-friendly • DAEMON algorithm creation tool kit was successful • Basic built-in algorithms were created • Moving average • Regression • Team cooperation and organization

20. What Didn’t Work: Who Let the IMP Out? • Advanced algorithms packaged with IMP • A few of the packaged algorithms were not created • Exponential smoothing • Markov chain