A curious blend of finance, machine learning and entrepreneurship.

I realized today, with a start, that I haven’t updated the Ivontu Blog in a while.  Why’s that? Well, it’s primarily because I’ve been working behind the scenes to fine-tune some of the analytics models. Those of you who regularly visit the site might be pleased to observe a certain rise in predictive accuracy.

It would be really mean of me to continue working invisibly without pointing out the future directions of the updates, so here you go:

• RSS integration.
• Direct training and predictions from URLs.
• A version for the Indian stock market, once I’m done with the above.

Here’s looking forward to June!

10 days since the last update. I guess Ivontu’s just about ready to be thrown to the wolves.

For those of you in the loop, brand new stuff has been added. Ooh shiny. Here’s a list:

• A brief introduction to the concept behind Ivontu. On the landing page, click on “Learn More”.
• A tour of Ivontu’s interface. This also works as a brief walk-through guide for the system.
• Interface Botox! Now you can better track which models are selected; there’s CSS and JS goodies galore interspersed in the interface.
• Auto Suggest! A lot of people had problems selecting stocks to track. Unfamiliarity with US stock symbols was the most common complaint. Fear no more! Now when you’re adding a new model, a box pops up with suggested symbols for the company you’re searching for. Try it out.
• Feedback. An easy way of reaching me. Tell me whatever’s on your mind - suggestions for improvement, bug reports, rants, fan mail, fulsome words of flowery praise (can’t have enough of those). Find the link on the main page; surprisingly enough, the link’s marked “Feedback”.
• Finally, Sign Up. Yep. Ivontu’s ready for Prom Night. I’m chaperoning, armed with a baseball bat.

So there you go. Sign up and take Ivontu on a test drive. The same conditions apply as the Private Alpha, i.e. there are absolutely no guarantees concerning the stability of the system. Your trained models, your Ivontu account, the website itself all might disappear and reappear within a matter of minutes. Or they might not. Caveat emptor.

I’ll be updating Ivontu frequently within the next few days. What’s left: User Account Settings (wherein you can change your password :D), a genuinely helpful Help System, and oh yes Frequently Asked Questions.

About the FAQ, I *do* have a list of questions I think most people have on their minds, but I guess it’s logical that I should let people ask their questions first. Once they become frequent enough, I’ll upload the FAQ. Heh.

So what are you waiting for? Click here.

PS: Some problems have been reported with logging in. So far I’ve not been able to trace the bug - it manages to appear and disappear on a whim. Until then, the solution seems to be to try logging in repeatedly until the system accepts that the password you entered is the right one. Sigh. <Huddles in a corner>

PPS: Get REM’s latest album Accelerate. It’s worth it!

We were persuaded to tarry our launch by a few days by a good friend, who mentioned en passant that the interface I had toiled over, did not quite measure up to people’s expectations.

We believe in people’s expectations.

So it took another 10 days to rewrite the front-end. I decided to start from scratch and throw out the old gnarly UI that I had been patching up the past few months.

Yes, Tonto. The new UI’s up and running. Nay, it’s nearly galloped off into the sunset.

The time has come, therefore, to launch a private alpha. Do message me if you want an account. Or comment on this post. Either way, I’ll get back to you.

Meanwhile, here’s a brief usage guide:

• You create new models to track stocks. Each model tracks one stock. Multiple models can track the same stock.
• You train your model by providing text via the age-old method of copy-paste.
• You sit back and gasp in amazement as your models start predicting market movements based upon the training that they have received.
• All your base are belong to us. Cookie?

Before you place your bets though, I must spell out things.

To wit, Ivontu is at an alpha stage. At any point in time, or while you are using the service, any/all of the following might happen to you:

• Your models will disappear. (They’ll probably not reappear.)
• Your account will disappear. (It might reappear.)
• Ivontu will disappear. (It ought to reappear, unless I’ve been shot.)

So, without further delay, gentlemen (and the one lady who’s reading this), I present Ivontu!

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Ivontu tracks US stocks. Only. You’ll have to pick stuff from the S&P 500. Try it out.

It took a while. 3 months and 25 days to be precise. Let’s be charitable and call that an even 4 months.

4 months of being a hermit, 2 months of Mumbai, 1 month of rewriting code, again and again and again. Reaching out towards that ever-dwindling light at the end of the tunnel.

And finally: it’s done.

Well, nearly.

Umm. Just about, actually.

In fact, Dorothy, we’re not quite there yet.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learnt through this period of difficult mid-wifery and birthing is that after all the armour and shoulder-pads are worn, in the end one simply has to go out into the cold and face the hungry wolves.

To cut a long story short - Ivontu is nearly here. For those of you who don’t know about it yet, here’s what it is: Automated financial news analysis for the masses.

Let’s rephrase that in a simple way: It reads news, and tells you how stocks will react to the news.

Simple?

I’ll leave the final words to Sam Morse. What hath God wrought?