Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines, and Wired Markets

7.5. Virtual Charting

The central idea behind MarketMind was to build an assistant to take over all this mind-numbing screening. All the underlying computations and so-called virtual charting go on in real time in a robust, reliable way. An application-specific rule-based language is used to describe events of interest in the virtual charts.

These programs are composed using an intelligent editor, driven directly from the underlying grammar that describes the rules of the language. It completely eliminates syntax errors (i.e., errors resulting from violating these rules), but the user can still make logical errors. The word-processor type of editing program typically used to create programs is replaced by what's called an "intelligent assistant," which knows all the rules and elements of the language. It helps the trader along at each step, presenting all the possible alternatives and rejecting incorrect choices on the spot.

Finally, a simple, natural, graphical method is used to indicate when these events occur, to prioritize among them, and to explain results in a way that is comprehensible to users.

These are all practical applications of AI technologies.