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ryansmccoy

437 karma · joined December 9, 2018

“We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire.

You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.”

— Charlie Munger

"Be skeptical, very skeptical, and even more skeptical. Great Analysts rarely accept anything at face value... Good Analysts always challenge what they've been told or given.Over time, if a source of information proves accurate, let it into your circle or trust...If we include the financial press, and everything distributed by companies, I'd say at least 75% of the information out there for consumption is misleading or omits an important piece of information relative to the topic."

- James Valentine, Former Morgan Stanley Analyst

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes"

Mark Twain

https://linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/ryansmccoy; my proof: https://keybase.io/ryansmccoy/sigs/n3X093DdTAzB1J_9DGvlamPzYi0hBRwO7DolIBr4Mu0 ]

submissionscomments
ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: I am interested in reading about techniques HFT firms use
Check out books Dark Pools and Flash Boys for some stories about HFT...

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Scott-Patterson-audiobook/...

https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Michael-Lewis-audiobook/dp...

ryansmccoy··on What has Intel been doing all these years?
Generating cash flow return on investments.
ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Good C++ code bases to read?
If interested in Financial Markets, Quantlib is interesting.

https://github.com/lballabio/QuantLib

Also, there is a book which describes the different patterns used:

https://leanpub.com/implementingquantlib

ryansmccoy··on Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?
As a former equity analyst, I would say that it's probably better just to ignore this analysis then read too much into it.

The performance of company's stock isn't based solely on whether the company reported a net income it's previous year; it's based on (imo) an ever fluctuating list of metrics, both controlled by the company (i.e. Return on Capital Invested, which net income is a component of) and not controlled by the company (i.e. cost for banks to borrow capital, future growth expectations, current market valuation).

ryansmccoy··on CSV Reader Benchmarks: Julia Reads CSVs 10-20x Faster than Python and R
I'm pretty sure you can add multiprocessing parsing of csv with Python and Pandas. I think I've done it before.
ryansmccoy··on Hiring for tech jobs has increased more than 100% in these Midwestern cities
Washington University in St. Louis?
ryansmccoy··on I built a lay-down desk
I'm always reminded of the movie Grandma's Boy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLR3faI7lU

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2020)
Location: United States Remote: Sure

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python, Go, int Java/Scala/C#, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases , Message Queues (RabbitMQ, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping, others

Résumé/CV: 13 years designing and building solutions in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

Developed cloud based web apps, data pipelines, market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, automation, network security/encryption, automated trading algorithms,and ETL systems;

Email: hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

Personal: www.ryansmccoy.com/

Portfolio: https://github.com/ryansmccoy

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (September 2020)
SEEKING WORK | United States | Remote or Onsite

- 13 years designing and building mission-critical software, data, and cloud solutions for customers in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

- Developed cloud based web apps, custom dashboards, distributed data pipelines, market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, automated trading, and ETL systems;

Technologies: Python, Go, Java/Scala, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases (SQL, NoSQL, BigQuery, Redis, Cassandra, others), Message Queues (RabbitMQ/Celery, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping

(Email) hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

(LinkedIn) www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

(Personal) www.ryansmccoy.com/

(Portfolio) https://github.com/ryansmccoy

ryansmccoy··on Leaked S-1 screenshots show Palantir losing $579M in 2019
Again, I don't know, but I'm comfortable speculating that it is (partially). The other obvious reason that I could think of is that Colorado is a very appealing location to live (for some people) and when you are trying to attract talent, it could be used as an incentive to get them to join the company. Another reason, could be customers located in the area.
ryansmccoy··on Leaked S-1 screenshots show Palantir losing $579M in 2019
I haven't seen the S-1, so I don't know.
ryansmccoy··on Leaked S-1 screenshots show Palantir losing $579M in 2019
Unless I'm mistaken, according to Amazon's 10-K in 2002, they showed a Net loss of:

2002 - Net Loss: -$ 149 million

2001 - Net Loss: -$ 567 million

2000 - Net Loss: -$ 1.41 billion

1999 - Net Loss: -$ 719 million

1998 - Net Loss: -$ 124 million

Source: https://www.evernote.com/l/AUlIcX9k_elHUY7Fjsg749afPPxh3verZ...

ryansmccoy··on Leaked S-1 screenshots show Palantir losing $579M in 2019
Yea, I don't know what's going on besides what I read.

I would much rather see the screenshot for myself then have someone else explain to me what they think the most important aspects of it are.

ryansmccoy··on Leaked S-1 screenshots show Palantir losing $579M in 2019
Obviously, I don't know what's going on at Palantir besides what I've read, but I know a few things about Finance.

A tax loss isn't necessarily all bad news. If you have a tax loss in one year, you might be able to use that loss to offset profits in future years, to minimize taxes for your business in those years. This technique is called a tax loss carry forward because it takes a tax loss in one year and carries it into a future year.

So, what they might be doing is using this as an opportunity to "throw the baby out with the bathwater," as the saying goes. Show a bunch of losses prior to IPO (setting expectations low), then show gradually improving operating results. Investors love this kind of "story" because the potential for stock to go down is less then if they were to show a booming business right off the bat.

Finally, just to make a point about investors not necessarily being worried about a company showing losses, all you have to do is look at Amazon, who for years showed loses.

ryansmccoy··on The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago
Joe Rogan had some interesting guys, Graham Hancock & Randall Carlson, that talked about lost civilizations due to asteroid in 10,000 BC. Sounded like there is some controversy around it though, so take it however you'd like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8&t=781s

ryansmccoy··on How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?
Basically, you can think of the stock market (price) driven by two components: 1) an aggregate of all company profits in the stock market and 2) the cost of borrowing capital (discount rate).

1) Corporate Profits - From what I recall, corporate profits have been flat to down over recent quarters.

2) Discount Rate - The cost of borrowing capital has been falling as governments make access to capital easier for businesses. This has a huge effect on the valuation of the stock market compared to the impact of the profits. This is why the stock market continues to go up. The issue is that if you were to make access to capital harder, thus increasing the discount rate, companies in theory wouldn't be able to borrow as much, and therefore grow as much. Thus, the market would in theory go down, probably alot.

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (August 2020)
SEEKING WORK | United States | Remote or Onsite

I've spent the last 13 years designing and building mission-critical software, data, and cloud solutions for customers in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

I've successfully developed cloud based web apps, custom dashboards, distributed financial data pipelines, low-latency and high-throughput market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, front, middle, back office automation, network security/encryption, automated trading algorithms, quantamental process automation, and ETL systems;

Technologies: Python, Go, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases (SQL, NoSQL, BigQuery, Redis, Cassandra, others), Message Queues (RabbitMQ/Celery, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping

(Email) hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

(LinkedIn) www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

(Personal) www.ryansmccoy.com/

(Portfolio) https://github.com/ryansmccoy

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2020)
Location: United States

Remote: Sure

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python, Go, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases , Message Queues (RabbitMQ, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping, others

Résumé/CV: I've spent the last 13 years designing and building mission-critical software, data, and cloud solutions for customers in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

I've successfully developed cloud based web apps, custom dashboards, distributed financial data pipelines, low-latency and high-throughput market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, front, middle, back office automation, network security/encryption, automated trading algorithms, quantamental process automation, and ETL systems;

Email: hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

Personal: www.ryansmccoy.com/

Portfolio: https://github.com/ryansmccoy

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn business administration/finance?
Take a semester of Basic Accounting then a semester of Financial Accounting at a local Community College.
ryansmccoy··on The stock market and economy have parted ways
It's a little complicated because all these metrics are like trying to compare apples, oranges, and bananas. So, it depends, and it's not necessarily the best metric to gauge the valuation of the markets.

It's price divided by earnings.

For price, I believe it's the sum of the market capitalization of all the companies in the S&P 500. If you divide by shares outstanding for all the companies, then you get price of the S&P 500 (price).

For earnings, is the sum of all the companies earnings (Net Income) in the S&P 500. If you divide earnings by shares outstanding, then you get earnings per share (earnings).

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2020)
SEEKING WORK | United States | Remote or Onsite

I've spent the last 13 years designing and building mission-critical software, data, and cloud solutions for customers in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

Basically, prefer solving challenging back-end problems, but can do some front-end (dashboards in react). Also, consider myself data engineer, but technically have data scientist skillset, so can do both.

I've successfully developed cloud based web apps, custom dashboards, distributed financial data pipelines, low-latency and high-throughput market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, front, middle, back office automation, network security/encryption, automated trading algorithms, quantamental process automation, and ETL systems;

Technologies: Python (celery, flask/django, numpy/ pandas/scipy, sqlalchemy, asyncio/multiprocessing/threading, others), Go, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases (SQL, NoSQL, BigQuery, Redis, Cassandra, others), Message Queues (RabbitMQ/Celery, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping

(Email) hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

(LinkedIn) www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

(Personal) www.ryansmccoy.com/

(Portfolio) https://github.com/ryansmccoy

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2020)
SEEKING WORK | United States | Remote or Onsite

I've spent the last 13 years designing and building mission-critical software, data, and cloud solutions for customers in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

I've successfully developed cloud based web apps, custom dashboards, distributed financial data pipelines, low-latency and high-throughput market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, front, middle, back office automation, network security/encryption, automated trading algorithms, quantamental process automation, and ETL systems;

Technologies: Python (celery, flask/django, numpy/ pandas/scipy, sqlalchemy, asyncio/multiprocessing/threading, others), Go, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases (SQL, NoSQL, BigQuery, Redis, Cassandra, others), Message Queues (RabbitMQ/Celery, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping

(Email) hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

(LinkedIn) www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

(Personal) www.ryansmccoy.com/

(Portfolio) https://github.com/ryansmccoy

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2020)
Location: United States

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python (celery, flask/django, numpy/ pandas/scipy, sqlalchemy, asyncio/multiprocessing/threading, others), Go, Javascript (Node.js, Jquery, React), R, AWS, Azure, GCP, Hashicorp Terraform & Vault, Databases (SQL, NoSQL, BigQuery, Redis, Cassandra, others), Message Queues (RabbitMQ/Celery, ØMQ, Apache Kafka), Big Data (Apache Spark, Airflow/Kubeflow, Beam, Snowflake, Dask), Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing (Sklearn, Tensorflow, Pytorch, Gensim, NLTK, Spacy, ElasticSearch), Web Scraping

Résumé/CV: www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmccoy

Email: hn (at) ryansmccoy (dot) com

I've spent the last 13 years designing and building mission-critical software, data, and cloud solutions for customers in the Financial Markets, including Fortune 500 companies, Investment Managers, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Data Vendors.

I've successfully developed cloud based web apps, custom dashboards, distributed financial data pipelines, low-latency and high-throughput market data systems, natural language text analytics, software/data architecture including micro-services, front, middle, back office automation, network security/encryption, automated trading algorithms, quantamental process automation, and ETL systems;

ryansmccoy··on Walmart says it will discontinue Jet
Distributors?
ryansmccoy··on Walmart says it will discontinue Jet
I don't know, here are screen shots (I think) of both Amazon and Wal-Mart Distribution Centers: https://www.evernote.com/l/AUmo-KavWKxI35PFfZRw5wIlQOEf7aFO_...
ryansmccoy··on Walmart says it will discontinue Jet
I was thinking about this as well, I think it has to do with Wal-Marts supply chain, distribution centers, and relationships with it's suppliers. I don't know the answer, but does Wal-Mart have more pull then Amazon?

Also, regarding the article, Jet from my memory gave Wal-Mart the infrastructure for online sales, so it's not like they didn't get anything for it. If anything, they are likely playing accounting games and writing off the acquisition, thereby improving their return on investment metrics into the future. When you acquire a company, there is sometimes a penalty to ROI if you pay too much, shows up in the form of intangible assets. When you write off an asset, you are basically removing it from your balance sheet.

ryansmccoy··on Not the End of Office Real Estate
Just find it interesting the ripple effect of coronavirus.
ryansmccoy··on Chicago will now require food delivery apps to disclose itemized cost breakdown
Are hospitals next?
ryansmccoy··on Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?
While there are some good explanations already mentioned, the bottom line is that stock prices are forward-looking in the sense that investors buy and sell stocks not based on what happened yesterday or what is happening today, but rather based on their expectations for the future (6-12 months ahead).

So, basically, the market is signaling that on a whole (i.e. weighted average growth of all the companies in the S&P 500) things (i.e. revenue/eps) aren't going to get dramatically worse and potentially going to get increasingly better.

ryansmccoy··on Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
Learning Columbo Technique was great advice I got.
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