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Quantopian/Reuters: How Mass Shootings & Politics Boost Gun Shares

A few weeks ago we were approached by Reuters about doing some research on how mass shootings and politics affects the price of gun manufacturers stocks. Here is the backtest and code so you can see for yourself.

Check out the article by Tim McLaughlin Trading algorithm shows how mass shootings, politics boost gun shares

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13 responses

Sorry for this beginner question. I think this is more about quantopian than anything else. I was using your algo to test this hypothesis of investing in gun companies the day after a shooting.

I think there may be an issue with the performance of my tests:
Now for my question: my backtest says the cumulative performance of my test is 350.7% (the percentage that you get when you move the blue dot). However, for the total returns it says 698.3%. Why is that? Is that a glitch?

Zachary. If you think you found a bug send a screenshot to [email protected] and we'll try to clear things up.

I don't know if I was doing something wrong, it was fixed, or it was an issue with a particular browser, but it is not happening anymore. Thanks.

@James. Why do you use SWHC as the benchmark and not RGR? You probably know that RGR outperforms your algo.

The Reuters reporter wanted to use Smith & Wesson, and yeah RGR does outperform on a returns only basis.

If you wanted to run an algorithm similar to this but with live information, what csv source would you recommend?

This source seems to have a pretty good list going.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XV4mZi3gYDgwx5PrLwqqHTUlHkwkV-6uy_yeJh3X46o/edit#gid=0

Can someone make this Q2 compliant. I would like to trade this.

I may do it eventually. What's stopping you?

I don't know how to code :(

Does anyone know if the CSV will be updated in the future?

I have no plans to update the Google Sheet used in the algorithm. See my response above for a source that seems to be updated regularly, though I can't vouch for the timeliness.

typo in Reuters' article's chart legend.