Even Secretive Hedge Funds Can Open Source Their Software

Obviously data-driven investment managers are not going to divulge the secret signals that form the basis of their alpha strategies. But when something is not part of your main business it can help to open source the code, which can then be improved. These days open sourcing software is a trend that even large hedge funds such as AHL and AQR in the US taking part in. Saeed Amen, CEO and founder of Cuemacro, is enthusiastic about open source within the big data arena. He has spent over a decade developing algorithmic trading strategies places like Lehman Brothers and Nomura, and a number of large hedge funds. Amen said: "From my perspective, working for a small business as opposed to a big bank, I have found it quite enlightening because you don't need to own infrastructure any more, you can just log onto Amazon Web Services; you can easily just get a server and it's something that's available very quickly to do.