I have tried to do the same thing and my experience is that hedge funds get these requests daily and do not pay too much attention to them. There is no way you can protect your system from backengineering . I work as an analyst/trader and I am asked daily by different clients to convert trading signals ( like those from your systems ) to trading systems . Anyone with considerable experience in system developing can do it in less than couple of days Your best bet is to find a partner ( trader ) who will trade it for you or to establish a pool , partnership or such. Institutions will not seriously talk to you unless you are somehow connected .
It is only easy to convert signals to systems if it is something simple and standard. If it is something out of the ordinary or is complicated then it is an almost impossible task. Unless you have a large sample of the trades a system has made over a wide range of different conditions it is impossible to have any confidence the derived rule set is the same as that being used to generate the signals. Agree that hedge funds are not likely to be that interested.
Are you aware there are several trading companies who will run your code, execute the trades, and give you a percentage of the profits ? This may be an easier route to go.... Again, upir code can be reverse-engineered, but not without great effort, especially if the formulas and logic are complex and involved.
Yes it is a crime. But don't think that will stop an individual trader or programmer from reverse engineering your EXE to get a peek at your formulas. There will be no evidence to prove the crime took place. Even if you have evidence the institution happens to start using similar methods, you still will still have to prove they got those formulas from reverse engineering. Either way, you're looking at high a high risk and high cost lawsuit. You don't need a dedicated T1. Dedicated servers are dirt cheap, with or without guaranteed bandwidth. Check www.serverbeach.com and www.nyi.net for examples. I operate servers with guaranteed minimum bandwidth allocations for $150/month.
I once partnered with a company that offered to trade my systems for me. I broke off that relationship because they could not and would not guarantee the privacy for my system code, or pay me as promised. I have a friend who took his systems to a different company to trade for him. He encountered a large number of problems dealing with the company even though the systems were profitable. Once you give up your code, they have you by the balls. How do you re-negotiate when they have your IP and you have zero evidence they are violating their contract? If you break off the partnership there is the risk they will keep trading your systems in secret. And does the contract govern derived works? You can't stop them from looking at your formulas, developing something similar and keeping all the profits to themselves even though the idea came from you. Don't risk it. Run your systems on your own servers and send out the real time signals. Code can be reverse engineered. You can find very capable debugging and disassembly software if you know where to look (hint: eMule). There are also countless programmers for hire that can disassemble code.
I saw a program that allows customers to remotly log in to your server, and while having no access to your code, they can automatically execute the signals. I didn't get a lot of details, but it sounded interesting.
I actually like this idea.....but on second thought, can you TRUST these kids ? Everywhere you turn, you're faced with this IP issue....which as everyone says, is a high, high cost proposition when it results in litigation.
There seems to be a bit of confusion about reverse (back) engineering. To do that all you really need is the signals generated by the system you want to decode . One does not need to know anything about particular code .
..........exactly. I don't know of anyone who launches a hedge fund without a strategy. By far any hf's looking for a strategy are probably failing miserable with their own.