How do traders and investors who “sell in May and go away” spend their summers?
If you are a quantitative trader looking forward to spending the sunny months indoors backtesting trading strategies, then QuantConnect has some very good news for you: the company just announced that it now provides backtesters with five years worth of foreign exchange tick data and U.S. equity tick data going back to 1998. For free.
“This has never been done before,” said QuantConnect CEO Jared Broad in a telephone conversation. The data comes courtesy of two new partnerships: U.S. data provider QuantQuote.com is providing the equity data, while FXCM, the largest retail FX broker in the United States, is making available the forex data.
Clean, extensive U.S. equity tick data is a precious enough commodity for most quants. But access to forex tick data can be almost impossible for the average, non-professional trader to come by.
What’s next on the data front for QuantConnect? The company is currently looking for quality futures data sources, ideally with trade execution. In addition to helping QuantConnect serve an even broader trading and investing public, futures data would also help attract those working in commodity-sensitive industries such as transportation and agriculture to the platform, said Broad.
QuantConnect’s data announcements come on the heels of the company’s recently closed funding round. The actual amount of the financing remains undisclosed. Broad said that the funding came from angel investors with backgrounds in quantitative trading and investing, and that the funds will contribute toward operations.
QuantConnect demoed their technology as part of the FinovateEurope show in London earlier this year. Watch the company’s presentation here.
Correction: The U.S. equity data provider was misidentified in a previous version.