Matlab

Anyone got experience of using MATLAB?

At some point in the future, i will have to design an in-house system for various tasks, and MATLAB has been recommended in the past. Spent a bit of time researching it, and it looks like exactly the thing...

Eventually, I hope to have a bespoke GUI for a bunch of quanty things - Risk management, volatility and correllation models, option pricing, fair values + bond math, position monitoring, blah blah blah... (nothing too fancy, I'm not that smart) and all of these things could be done in excel, but I'm looking to MATLAB for the numerical methods and "user friendliness" of the GUI's and graphics.

Trouble is, I have no experience of using it whatsoever. Will a stackful of books, time, and a dark room be enough? And if MATLAB is a no-go, what about Maple or Mathematica? I had heard MATLAB was the best of the bunch for this kind of thing... I will probably get all of the finance add-ons, and the Excel add-on as well if that makes any difference. I'd rather get a second opinion before forking out and arm and a leg.

Financial Modeling and Analysis

Thanks in advance

Well if you're not sure then why not download octave for free?

I hadn't even heard of it, thanks for the tip off.

I used maple & mathematica a few years ago (so probably older versions than what they are up to now) and maple was a lot faster for what I was doing. I figured them out enough to do what I needed just using google and the help files.

Dont spend an arm and a leg, I could `lend` you maple + mathematica (older versions) for a few toes and half a finger if you want

I've used MATLAB for engineering work, not any financial stuff. It is very expensive though. You can search for Scilab, I believe it's free and takes the same commands as MATLAB. So you can try it out..

Don't know much about it myself, but you might want to check this out, if you haven't already seen it:

Algorithmic Trading with MATLAB Webinar - Traders Laboratory

Hope it helps.

Top stuff 52, hadn't come across these before.

Looks pretty slick, eh?

Hi- I am reviving an old post here!

I am hoping to learn matlab (even octave to start) - I am a complete newbie to development. My trading experience is confined to the manual sort and automation went as far as spreading tools.

I need advice on whether I should learn something like matlab straight up - is this even a good idea / possible or go down the route of learning programming the traditional way first. Has anyone here done this?

Your help is appreciated - Thanks!

I would say that Matlab requires at least some proficiency with straight C. So I would learn the basics first and then proceed to Matlab.

yep

"matlab for dummies" to start off

then read use manual and the online documentation on coding in matlab

but you have to make sure you understand the maths you're coding

it's an awesome program, sorry if i sound like i'm selling it to you lol but i use it a lot for uni and just out of curiousity