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New Default Commissions and Capital
Abhijeet Kalyan
posted
Q Updates

Today, we shipped a change to the default commission model and capital base used in backtests, in order to bring them in line with the contest. There are two changes of note:

  • The default commission is now $0.001 per share, down from $0.0075. This means that backtests use the same default commission as we apply in the contest.
  • The default capital base is now $10 million, up from $1 million. Like with commission, backtests are now using the same default capital base as we apply in the contest.

This change to the defaults doesn't affect existing backtests or contest entries, but will apply to new backtests going forward.

Disclaimer

The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian. In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.

5 responses
Theodory

Hi,

I'm trying to manually set the commission for S&P e-minis. I do that under the initialize function, like it's supposed to be. But it doesn't seem to make a difference to the algo's performance. How can I manually set the commission parameters?

Jamie McCorriston

@Theodory: To change the commission model used for futures, you'll have to do something like this:

set_commission(us_futures=commission.PerFutureTrade(cost=0.00001))

This is missing from the documentation. We'll have to add it in. Sorry for the confusion.

Disclaimer

The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian. In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.

Theodory

Thank you!!

Kevin Patterson

Did min_trade_cost get set to 0? The docs say it is still $1, but I am seeing different results with the following commission set (which I thought was the default):

set_commission(commission.PerShare(cost=0.001, min_trade_cost=1))
Joakim Arvidsson (Cream Mongoose)

I'm pretty sure 0 is the default and used in the contest (and their PB probably don't charge a minimum commission). $1 min I believe is IBs minimum commission.

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The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian.

In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.