Very basic introduction to the topic. Covers specific apis as opposed to general problems (design patterns etc). A book should take you from basics to advanced, this one does not. Read more

Meawhile I've read lots of books from O'Reilly and - frankly - all of them were great so far. This book, being the one with the most thrilling topic that I ever bought, does not convince me completely: PROS: + The author gives very nice and concise python examples to quickly get a foot into this field. + The structure of the book and the accompanying code snips are quite logical and understandable. CONS: - Might be a personal taste, but the author keeps citing himself again and again, which is a bit annoying and feels somewhat biased. If you search for "Hilpisch" throughout the book, you will surely find >100 matches, because the author VERY OBVIOUSLY likes to cite his previous books (which I haven't read)! - The book could have have twice as many pages, given the hot topic it covers. Obviously, there are other Hilpisch books that might cover these topics (thanks for the references), but for the genuine reader it would be much more valuable to explain certain concepts roughly in a few paragraphs, instead of referencing the author's other books or suggesting to lookup stuff on Wikipedia (Logistic Regression). Overall I would say the book is good but not great. Maybe its short nature should be a motivation for experimenting on our own? Let's see... Read more

L'autore mette troppa carne al fuoco, alcune bistecche le brucia e poi le porta in tavola mettendole dalla parte non carbonizzata, altre se le dimentica per strada magari qualche lettore amante del genere crudista le considera alta cucina. Libro scritto sapientemente per vendere della programmazione in codice python apparentemente elegante ma in realta' inutile, nessuno dei sistemi di trading qui riportati e' realmente in grado di generare profitto. Autore molto abile nel riportare dei risultati stabilianti, probabilmente ha ottimizzato alcuni parametri per performare bene sulle serie storiche che utlizza, ma se usate il codice su dati futuri otterrete solo una perdita di tempo, e anche di soldi se siete cosi sprovveduti da investirli in questo modo. Se pero' siete completamente digiuni di python questo libro potrebbe essere per voi uno stimolo a studiare questo linguaggio di programmazione, o meglio a comprare libri migliori per imparare la programmazione, e suggerisco di andare in una libreria reale dove i libri si possono sfogliare e leggere. Magari si potrebbe informare i lettori prima di effettuare l'acquisto anziche' lasciarlo intendere quando si passa meta' del libro. E qui viene il bello: Amazon rimuove i commenti negativi, fateci caso quando acquistare qualcosa, leggete bene i commenti negativi, noterete che troppi sono stati rimossi per influenzare all'acquisto. Vediamo se la censura di Amazon rimuove anche questa recensione negativa che dice la verita'. Read more

I've read a few books from O'Reilly in that past and have generally enjoyed them. What I expected in this case was a thorough introduction to some of the core Python packages for algorithmic trading and a rundown of how the author thinks they should be integrated into a larger trading system. I was a disappointed to find only a short discussion of the capabilities of the oanda and FXCM packages and thought the authors suggested trading system to be, at times, contradictory. Also, given the wealth of prediction algorithms available in Python, I expected a more systematic review of such algorithms and some associated insights. However, only a handfull of algorithms were up for discussion and let's just say that they left a lot to the imagination. The discussion of backtesting was also largely simplified and ignored many of the real-world practicalities that have the potential to adversely affect the outcome. The lack of quality editing is glaringly obvious. The structure of the chapters changes around quite frequently. Some have an introduction, some don't. Some have discussions after testing concepts, some dont. And some are mainly just code and output. Also, many figures are illegible and typos are quite common. The overall feel is that the author either lost interest or the book became increasingly rushed as time went on. If you want a superficial overview of some up to date technologies with code that you can blindly copy then get this book. After reading from cover to cover I don't think it was worth the money. Read more

4* if you don't have Python for Finance second edition by same author. Otherwise a lot of the content is recycled. But still valuebale and useful, and code nicely shared in Jupyter Notebooks on GitHub. Read more