Choosing The Right Sample

My activities during the past week of ISM mainly comprised of studying and reading material about quantitative strategies. I have been reading a short book by Rishi K. Narang, known as 'Inside the Black Box: A Simple Guide to Quantitative and High Frequency Trading.' I have also been reading 'The Evolution of Quantitative Investment Strategies' by Vinod Chandrashekaran. The latter has strengthened my viewpoint on what quantitative investment strategies really are and how they came to be. The former is quite highly detailed and takes an in-depth look into quantitative trading.

Apart from this, I have also spent a portion of last week working to identify a volatile stock or index to test strategies and algorithms for my original research. I have looked a lot into popular volatile stocks that are volatile enough to provide intraday or weekly growth but not too volatile to increase the risk. I'll have to tune around to find the perfect match. Currently, I am testing volatility on potential samples such as Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Twitter, Inc. I believe if I have the need to look into the short term, I should try out options for put and sell calls. These should mitigate most of the short term risk with their limited risk unlimited profit properties. Once I have a few strategies and algorithms along with the data and testing tools in hand, I can begin testing for the best strategies and algorithms.