John Lloyd Question Time:
John Lloyd has been writing about economics and business since 1990. With a successful career in policy development roles as well as corporate trading he is well placed to discuss the intricacies of the financial world. John has published several papers on market strategy and has become a popular contributor to many key financial publications.
Featured Question: Is Eurosoft trading software genuine?
I’ve received a number of emails lately enquiring about the trading software company Eurosoft. The majority of emails have been regarding their end of day stock market software program. The big question people have been asking – Is Eurosoft genuine or is it a scam? I had some brief dealings with the company about 6 years ago, but nothing since then, so I decided to find out a little bit more about what they are currently doing and get a better look at the end of day software which has been the common theme among a string of email enquiries. Hopefully my research will shed some light on who they are and what they are offering. I have recorded my findings below.
Since Eurosoft is a relatively small firm, many investors hadn’t heard of the company and were dubious about the returns they claim to offer. I think this natural scepticism is a by-product of the world we now live in – it’s healthy and I encourage all my readers to ask questions and do research before embarking on any investment. With Eurosoft I conducted quite a bit of research into the company and was satisfied with their past and projected results. Since Eurosoft is a boutique firm it’s not surprising many average investors haven’t heard of them, however they have a fairly rich pedigree. I am happy with the company and confident their claims are accurate.
Eurosoft have been around for a while, they first came on the seen around ten years ago in Europe. Currently they have offices in Europe, Australia and the States. When they started out their core business was assisting in the development of trading systems for commercial finance companies and hedge funds but they have branched out slightly and now accommodate the public also. For stock market insiders, Eurosoft first made a splash in 2004. They developed an automated program for a prominent Wall Street hedge fund which used proprietary algorithms and was capable of making decisions without human input. It considered timing, price and quantity of a trade order and then initiated the stock buy or sale, all without human intervention. It was highly effective and kicked off a string of similar programs and in a way changed the face of trading software.
In 2006 they advised on a project I was working on with JP Morgan and seemed to have some progressive ideas on technical trading strategies. I was impressed with their technical ability, but I moved overseas and didn’t get to see the final outcome of the project.
Over the last seven years the major developments for Eurosoft have been their intraday software and the evolution of their end of day program. Since moving into the public arena they have only taken on a small amount of clients but all the research I conducted suggests that those clients have been well looked after. I spoke with nine former trading colleagues, only 3 had any knowledge on Eurosoft but all three were active users and strong supporters. That peaked my interest and I dug a little deeper.
The public release I referred to above is for a unique EOD trading system they developed. It’s a boutique product and available only on a limited release. When speaking with Eurosoft they said “it is designed for everyday private investors and offers them an opportunity to utilise commercial spec trading software that has been formatted to be a very user friendly trading device, allowing them to trade like a professional.” Or in lay terms, it does a bunch of number crunching and tells complete rookies what to buy and when to sell. They’ve recorded their results, I checked them out and they look fairly impressive. Given the amount of analysis the program is doing and the restrictions on trade size it’s not surprising the program works, but keep in mind it won’t be able to handle portfolios much larger than 100k.
They also offer an intraday ‘Eurosoft Day Trading System’ which is an open-source software application that provides tools for analysis of financial markets using technical analysis and this program has a far higher cap.
Eurosoft DTS Pro provides facilities for stock charting and futures charting, including price, volume, and a wide range of technical analysis indicators. Eurosoft also allows automated processing of market data — applying technical analysis indicators with user-selected criteria to market data to automatically generate trading signals —and can be used as the main component of a sophisticated trading system.
Some of the features of Eurosoft DTS Pro are:
· Includes basic technical analysis indicators, such as Simple Moving Average, Exponential Moving Average, Stochastic, MACD, RSI, On Balance Volume, and Momentum.
· Includes more advanced indicators, such as Standard Deviation, Slope of EMA of Volume, Slope of MACD Signal Line, Bollinger Bands, and Parabolic SAR.
· User can create new technical analysis indicators, including complex indicators based on existing indicators.
· User can configure criteria for automated trading-signal generation.
· Creation of weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly data from daily data.
· Handles intraday data.
· Handles stock and futures data.
· Accepts input data from files, from a database, or from the web.
· Can be configured and run as a server that provides services for several clients at a time running on remote machines.
Because of the higher trade value, this is the program I’m looking to start with. It’s got all the features I look for but in one simple interface and has some bonus features that will help me trade more efficiently. Eurosoft are definitely not a scam company and although their methods might seem a little strange for the standard investor, remember, up to 70% of trading volume is now consummated by computerised high frequency trading systems. They are just taking the most popular trading methods and giving them to the public in a simple format.
John Lloyd
Financial Times
N.B There is more than one company using the name Eurosoft. For those people who emailed me the question – Is eurosoft a scam? I can confirm that Eurosoft, the software and investment company, is not a scam. They are a reputable company offering genuine products, however they are not the only Eurosoft.
A few years back there was a company in the Ukraine also calling themselves Eurosoft. This did appear to be a scam. They wanted people to accept western union payments into their personal UK account and then forward the money to them in the Ukraine. It looked like some sort of money laundering scam or worse, the initial payments were fraudulent and the person risks prosecution or the money being withdrawn from their account after they have sent it. They sent out bulk emails from hotmail accounts asking for people to start helping them complete money transfers. Don’t become a money mule for anyone…they will tell you they are having trouble receiving payments in their own country but it is just a trick.So to recap, the Ukraine company calling themselves Eurosoft and asking you to receive money and then forward to them is a bogus scam and one to avoid!
The stock market company known as Eurosoft is genuine.
There is also another Eurosoft company that sells logistics software, this is also genuine.
