Dear Mike,

I spotted something on algorithmic trading on your blog, and finance and investment are a bit of a hobby of mine. I am sending you a press release about a Canadian trader who has worked out a successful trading technique based on an algorithm, and a new trio of former Harvard fellows have made an app allowing you to do it yourself.

Here's an excerpt from the link he sent me:

AlgoTrades, the leading provider of automatic investing systems for individual investors, and EquaMetrics Inc., the leading provider of algorithmic trading systems and their Intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that lets you quickly build and edit complex algorithms – in a matter of minutes, today announced a strategic partnership that will arm both active traders and investors with the ability to have the AlgoTrades investing system traded for them, and build trading systems of their own[…]
Algotrades is seeing increased demand for its existing automated trading systems. The Algotrades futures system is hitting at 100% accuracy for the first 6 months of this year with a ROI of 12.3% to date. Max peak-to-valley drawdown is 2.4% and many of our clients are asking for more diverse and active automated trading solutions to expand their portfolios.

This intrigues me: My question is: What is your gut feeling about this? Apparently some of the big news journals like Barron's and the Wall Street Journal gave this coverage, so it might be something, or not? Any ideas about it?

–Willem from the Netherlands

Dear Willem,

You probably saw on my site that I've written reviews of three books on this topic: Rishi Narang's Inside the Black Box
 and Michael Lewis' Flash Boys
, as well as a review of a book by a friend from a high frequency trading firm who says Lewis got it all wrong, Flash Boys: Not So Fast.

As for the opportunity described in that announcement:
I would run, not walk, away from anything like that.