WHAT HAPPENS WHEN EXPERT TRADERS / INSTITUTIONAL PROS BUILD PRODUCTS FOR THE RETAIL GUYS?

It all started with the #freaktrade.

On Sep 3, 2021, retail traders who had sold the front week Sep 37100 put tried to buy it back as BANKNIFTY started falling. While the fair value of this option was around ₹ 450, some retail traders ended up paying approx ₹ 1,900 for it.

On that trade alone, retail traders lost ₹1.2 Cr over a one-second period.

WHY?

Because they were playing with fire and didn’t know it.

Here's the very first tweet that shared some data on this from a brand new twitter account Raghav made that very day

Raghav

@rogue_hft

#freaktrade #37100PE a story in charts. y-axis represents the ltp, x-axis the time. These are all the trades in that one second. Someone shouted "FIRE" in a crowded theater with a narrow exit. Instead of an orderly evacuation, we had a stampede.

7:31 PM · Sep 3, 2021

RETAIL TRADERS WERE MAKING A LOT OF MISTAKES IN THEIR TRADING.

Existing backtesting and execution tools were charging retail traders a lot of money while providing them incomplete information on the potential pitfalls of trading a backtested system. A rosy picture was painted in front of retail traders, “backtest a strategy first, if profitable in the backtest, it will be profitable in the live market as well”.

Unfortunately, trading, like life, isn’t that simple.

What could we do to address this issue?

We didn’t have a social media presence or any reach whatsoever, but we did have lots of experience in trading!
We had successfully navigated these same pitfalls in the past through tough lessons imparted by the markets. So instead of trying to create a social media presence, we went into action. 3 months later, we were ready with India’s first free options backtester.

Raghav Malik

CEO

I’m Raghav, co-founder of AlgoTest.

Raghav used to be an options market-maker on some of the most liquid exchanges in the world (CBOE, AMEX, PHLX, ARCA, ISE). After seeing retail traders being given the short end of the stick time and again, he felt things needed to change. Hence, AlgoTest was born.

For the first time ever, research and execution tools which were only accessible to the top hedge funds and prop trading firms of the world will now be available for retail traders at a price that is fair, with the technology that stands at par with the world.

Rajat Jaiswal

CTO

I’m Rajat, co-founder of AlgoTest.

Rajat strives to empower the Indian retail traders and investors with pioneering tools and technologies for research and execution of their ideas. At AlgoTest, he spearheads all of the engineering efforts to build a scalable and low-latency platform.

Prior to AlgoTest, he worked as a quantitaive developer at a proprietary trading firm in Gurgaon, India. Rajat graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, receiving his bachelor’s and master’s of technology degrees in Computer Science & Engineering.