The real story behind Stock Assault 2.0 AI and similar stock market Robots

I am John Smith (This is not my real name and you will know why I am not disclosing my true name in a short while) working in a reputed company as a software engineer. I have nothing to do with the stock market. However I think that what I found few days ago may interest most of the people who want to make quick money from the stock market. The story I am going to tell you is not a fiction but it look like a fiction. Reality is stranger than fiction.

How the journey started

I don't want to bore you with the details but it is important that you should get the whole picture very clearly.

Very prestigious stock brokering company have short listed three software engineers out of which I am one of the three, and call us all to have a meeting with their MD not in their office but in Hotel's room. We all know nothing about the project at that time. We are told that there may be a great job opportunity if we are selected. So, we all thought that it may be an interview for direct employment.

Before meeting the MD we have to sign a Non Disclosure agreement. As the entire project is now abandoned I think I can now disclose some of the facts which will help public at large. The project is to develop Artificial Intelligence or to be more specific a "robot" that thinks like a human being. Initially we are very excited since this type of opportunity is only available to the famous and highly placed software engineers.

What is the catch

However, there is a catch. Our boss is not interested in any academic part of it, he want this robot for a specific purpose. The robot should find out the particular stock from hundreds of stocks that have great tendency to move up or down. I and my fellow software engineer did not understand what this mean, but our third team mate who afterward we come to know is very experienced stock trader has grasped the essence and tell MD that we have to first think together and find out whether this is possible or not. Our Boss also wants to know the budget and assured us that money won't be any problem, but the amount should be very reasonable.

Our Meeting

Our next meeting is very informal. We three agreed to meet at the beer bar after the business hour. I was astonished when our third team member came up with lots of homework. He informed us that we are not doing anything new. There are more than 4 stock market 'robots' available in the market ranging from $47 to $800. He proposes that we should not try to invent the wheel again. "But it is stealing" said the second SE. "No. it is not” informed the Trader "Nothing is patented yet." However the question is, can you two software engineers able to copy the existing software?"

Once in a lifetime opportunity

Now I understand why they have selected us from thousands of other more intelligent software engineers. We two have a past history of duplicating software. My fellow SE has already received a notice to stop his activity. (This is the reason why I don't want to disclose our true names). When the Trader speak about how much budget we should ask, we are thinking in terms of hundreds but when he told us what he think, my heart missed a beat and my fellow SE literary spit out his beer. We both thoughts he is pulling our legs but he is very serious and explain us why any one will pay that much amount if, and only if we come up with something real. Suddenly we become very serious. Trader has delivered a lecture explaining the basics of stock trading and why he (Trader) is so important for this project. Finally he has given us the access of existing 'robots'. We promised him to look at it as early as possible.

On the way I was so excited that I have decided to look at the 'robots' immediately after reaching my home but when I reach my home I am not sober. Beer has started acting on me. I could not even reach my desk and I slept that night on my sofa.

Investigation started

Next day I call my office and tell them that I am not coming today and I begin working on our new project. Let me tell you I have expertise to duplicate, hack or clone most of the software. It does not matter whether the software has hardware lock or protected serial numbers. So, within two hours I know algorithms of two 'robots'.

However I am greatly puzzled not due to complexity of the algorithms but the simplicity of it. I think any undergraduate student of software engineering can understand and replicate it. There is no AI (Artificial intelligence) involved. Suddenly my mobile screamed. I was startled; the phone is from my fellow software engineer. He was also puzzled like me. I contacted the Trader, he and my second SE rushed to my home in 15 minutes.

I explained about our finding to Trader. Now it is his turn to get puzzled. He could not believe it. I show the proof on my pc and my fellow SE's laptop. Trader was overwhelmed and could not speak for sometime but when he speaks, he only warned that they should not disclose this finding to any one, not even to our Boss.

Next week we have very hectic activities. Writing down the algorithms, explaining each stage to Trader and afterward to Boss and many such activities filled our days. In the end it was decided that we should abandon the project and our team will get the good amount of remuneration from the Boss.

So that will be the end of my Journey.

What we found

You may be interested to know our finding and I will tell you within my limit what we have found. I should mention that this is a team work and we all three have contributed in our 'research'.

Stock Assault 2.0 AI

We first downloaded the demo version to understand their basic algorithms, then we upgraded to the paid basic version. What we found in both the versions is that the software processes NOTHING. Yes, we tried for any hidden processes but nothing. When the basic version is in the ‘processing’ mode what it does is reading the company’s name and the symbols which are already present in the Docs folder within the Data folder. To make it double sure we have changed this file and see the result. Our theory is confirmed.

How picks are generated?

When you press the ‘pick’ button it will trigger the link which takes you to the Stock Assault’s site. On their server there are some ready made picks already present which are fetched and displayed. No rocket science.

How they generate the picks is mystery to us. But our third partner Trader thinks that the picks are generated by analyzing lots of stocks on their computer and applying lots of indicators and oscillators.

Conclusion

If you think that you will have AI Robot for $57 then it is not true. However if you don’t want to analyze various stocks manually to find some winner stock then you may rely on Stock Assault 2.0 for some good pick. Now, how good their pick is not my subject but some one like our third partner Trader may investigate their pick by actually trading it (no paper trading) and throw some light.

I am a software engineer and not the stock trader, but at the time of writing followings are their “paper trading”. (Screenshots are from their website)

Positive paper trades

Negative paper trades