Hello World!

1 October 2023
In Blog
2 Min Read
24 Comments
H

QuantsCafe is now available exclusively to Friends of StocksCafe!
You can login using your StocksCafe credentials.

More than 8 years ago, I realized that I needed a portfolio management tool hence I created StocksCafe.

Fast forward to today, I realized that despite being a Data Science Manager (until I was recently laid off), the way I invest has not been as systematic and data-driven as I would like it to be. Therefore, I have decided to start QuantsCafe to help me become a more data-driven investor.

QuantsCafe aims to tackle two of the arguably most crucial questions in investing:

  • What to buy/sell?
  • When to buy/sell?

While I understand these are extremely tough questions and there is likely no perfect answer, I believe that with quantitative tools and data-driven features, we can improve our decision-making processes and minimize our dependence on subjective judgment and emotional impulses.

First Feature – Screen & Test

Today, after months of ideation and preparation, I am happy to announce the birth of QuantsCafe and its very first key feature, Screen & Test.

I believe all of us would have heard about some “investment strategy” in one form or another. e.g. Buy undervalued stocks (PB < 1), or Buy stocks when it is uptrend (SMA-50 > SMA-100).

You would then perhaps use a screener to sift out stocks that meet those criteria.

However, have you ever wondered how effective they truly are? (beyond the gurus telling you it works)

This feature aims to give you that answer.

This is how it works:

It will basically take a screener that you have built and run them against historical data to see how it would have performed over the years. With this, you can test all the different rules that you know of and find out how successful they were in the past.

While past performance is no guarantee of future results, it is often the best indicator of the future that we have.

What’s Next?

Of course, this is not going to be the only feature in QuantsCafe as we have a whole list of ideas on what to build next. e.g. Intrinsic value estimator, smart beta strategies, and many more.

However, we would also like to hear from you on what tools and features you would need to help you become a more data-driven and informed investor!

24 Comments

  • Nice! Looking forward to this feature upgrade, as well as the intrinsic value calculator.

    Allowing users to set Stock price alerts may be another cool feature to have.

    Reply

  • Hello Even,

    you never know what things or events are good for, however getting laid off is never a great feeling (getting rejected), however, you never know what it is good for and I wish it will be your personal catapult event to turn your two interests (making money with money and squeezing insights from data (I’m (was) from the same village) into your personal success story.

    If I want to turn it to the extreme, the two answers (from an AI-like robot investment advisor) we need are the following:

    1.) sell this now.
    2.) buy this now.

    most of us non-professional lounge investors follow a strategy of screen, buy and hold, and once in a while do some shuffles in the portfolio, most time when it is too late. However, we are hobbling through and some are quite active and above-average successful.

    I understand there are a lot of data points to wrangle to get through such (personalised) recommendations based on risk profile (accepting which swing amplitudes) and existing portfolio, trading cost structures, political events, Kopi prices and moon phases (well, maybe not so much). But this would be something to strive for, and if it is only for a certain limited segment of shares (all S-REITS) (all FSIs) (all Singapore index stocks) (all …). Let us know how this could chime with your plans,

    my 10 cents

    I think you are onto something really good.

    Carsten

    Reply

    • Hi Carsten,

      Thank you for your kind words 🙂
      Do not worry. I have already moved on from the sad phase.
      I am now more excited about my new semi-retired phase of being able to work on what I really want.

      And yes, what you are suggesting is what I would ultimately hope for.
      Digest all the available data points out there and make the best personalized recommendation for user.

      Of course, that is a very tall order and we are going to just take it one step at a time 🙂

      Cheers,
      Evan

      Reply

  • Personally, I think that there are already many such data driven analysis in the market. What is lack of is really about portfolio and risk management. There are always corporate actions that will affect data. How one acts on such corporate actions will also change the data. There will be black swan events. The macro will change which back-testing does not work. The success of long term investor still depends on how well one positions and manage their risks. It is good to have, but a wide range and in-depth portfolio management tools are more important.

    Reply

    • Yup. StocksCafe will continue to provide and improve upon it portfolio management tools to cater for that 🙂

      Totally agree that “black” swan events will always be there. Actually, when I say “What to Buy/Sell” for QuantsCafe includes “What to Buy/Sell” relative to your portfolio (i.e. proper risk and sector exposure).

      Reply

      • It might be nice to explore some generative AI integration relative to our portfolios. For example, when I say I am looking at this particular stock, the AI will start comparing my past history together with all the financial data points and make a recommendation to see if it’s aligned to the current portfolio. If not what to get instead? Is that what you have in mind?

        Reply

        • To some extent, yes, it is similar to what I have in mind.

          Given a stock, examine different aspects of it (e.g. Is it a good stock based on screener results, Is is a good stock for my portfolio based on risk, diversification and sector exposure.). -> Yes, it is what I intend to follow up on soon.

          Reply

  • Good morning Evan.
    Sorry to learn you have been laid off from your job.
    A loss for the Company. But it’s a gain to Stockscafe members.
    Now we have Quantscafe.
    Wishing you all the best.

    Reply

    • Hi Mark,

      Thank you for your kind words.
      No need to worry about me.
      It is more exciting to be able to focus on projects (i.e. StocksCafe and QuantsCafe) that I care about 🙂

      Evan

      Reply

  • hi Evan,

    Excellent initiative. Its a small step that can lead to a leap. Definitely need some help/videos/how-to. At present I dont see any option/button to create a screener, just a message saying pull or click here to refresh.

    regards
    RD

    Reply

    • Hi RD,

      Sorry, this is an oversight on my part. If you do not have screeners already available, you cannot create new ones 🙁
      I have just fixed it. Please keep refreshing until you see v0.1.2

      Thanks,
      Evan

      Reply

  • Wow! It has been years ago since I last logged onto StocksCafe (as I have switched from stocks to forex). Excited to see how this new QuantSCafe will turn out. Looking forward to great moments of innovation and growth 👍💪🙏

    Reply

  • Hi Evan,

    I’m sorry to hear about your job but I’m sure you will enjoy taking a different path and enjoy the fruit of your hardwork in no time! I’m took time off from work since last year and have never looked back 🙂

    Love your idea of starting off with build an intrinsic value tool – it will be great if it can cater for several DCF methods and allows the manual over-ride of data so that you can do you own slight moderation of what the methodology looks like.

    I really like one of the subscribed services from stock unlock (https://stockunlock.com/), it gave user options on DCF methodology and also provide good customization of graphical charts of various metrics (P/E, FCF, EPS, share dilutions etc) – I also like their score card for each company – which allows you to look at different aspects of the company (i.e Dividend, Growth, Management, Financial Health, Profitability etc) in birds eye view.

    Having that ability to customize the analysis as different investors looks at different key metrics would be super helpful. Not to mention if you can add that favor into REIT’s context for the Singapore market and theat value can be further maximized 🙂

    Love you work as always, keep doing what you doing and good luck!

    Reply

    • Hi Kenny,

      No worries. While I am sad that I do not get easy money (i.e. salary) anymore, I am happy that I now have time to do whatever I want!

      Thanks for sharing about the resource. Took a quick look at their DCF tool and it looks great. Although there are too many variables to tune, I might need to think about how we can make it better.

      Also, saw their score card, somewhat similar to simplywallstreet. Very neat.

      And yes, I am trying to work with collaborators on releasing a new REIT dashboard 🙂

      Thanks again for sharing this great resource.

      Cheers,
      Evan

      Reply

  • Hi Evan,

    This is amazing. Especially since I last noticed that the screeners disappeared from StocksCafe and now they are back as part of something bigger. Do let us/me know how we can be more involved. I’ve always been interested in this area but it seems like such a big thing to tackle that perhaps only institutional investors can only afford to have access to such tools because they have armies of quants working for them. Happy to be involved in all forms – bouncing off ideas, writing some codes, marketing your tools, etc. Let me know! 🙂

    Reply

    • Hi Haikal,

      Thanks for being supportive. Definitely, it is now still in the early phase but I am working everyday to make it “ready” by end of this year. Stay tuned 🙂

      Reply

  • Evan – congratulations on the new tool.
    Is there a quick/easy way to import portfolio from StocksCafe here? Thanks

    Reply

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