How Fintech Trades Got Started

This post is about the origin story of Fintech Trades—a platform developed at the crossroads of a passion for programming and the quest for informed investing. It details how I leveraged decades of experience in data and software to develop tools for stock selection and analysis. Despite lacking formal training in finance, my technical skills enabled the creation of Fintech Trades, which emerged from both curiosity and expertise, providing users with a transparent, technology-driven approach to investment insights.

The idea behind Fintech Trades came from a simple goal: I wanted to analyze financial data to help make informed investment decisions. To get there, I planned to do two things:

1. Write software to help me pick stocks.

2. Have fun doing it by building a game.

Originally, I thought it would be cool to create a game that shared useful stock market tips—maybe even monetize it someday. That vision evolved into Market Leader Game, LLC, which now operates as Fintech Trades.

For context, I launched the company shortly after retiring in 2023. Work and fun merged into one, and honestly, I’ve always enjoyed both. My career before this took me all over the world—from Rome to Anchorage, Dubai to Seoul, and many places in between.

Over the years, I’ve built:

• Scholarship selection software in COBOL for ROTC

• A search engine in C for Special Forces

• Virtual workstations for military planning in Europe

• Data systems for NATO drones and rapid deployment teams

• Even helped launch the first text messaging system sold to Nextel

So, do I have certifications in finance or a degree in economics or math? Nope. Zero. Nada.

But what I do have is deep experience in systems design, data management, and software engineering—the technical backbone needed to build reliable, intelligent tools for analyzing markets.

That’s the foundation of Fintech Trades. No Wall Street background. Just decades of building real systems for real users—with precision, integrity, and a genuine curiosity about how data can drive smarter decisions.

Systems Design: Architecting the Foundation

With systems design expertise, I can:

• Architect scalable infrastructure for data ingestion, processing, and delivery.

• Ensure modularity, allowing AI tools and models to plug into well-structured data pipelines.

• Build robust backend services to support real-time data queries, and analytics.

🗃️ Data Management: Ensuring Clean, Actionable Inputs

My skills in data management are critical for:

• Collecting and cleaning financial data (e.g., earnings reports, price history, ratios).

• Creating normalized schemas across disparate data sources (e.g., APIs like Alpha Vantage, FMP, or proprietary feeds).

• Managing data quality, versioning, and historical data integrity—all essential for training reliable AI models.

💻 Software Engineering: Bringing It to Life

Software engineering capabilities enable:

• Integration of machine learning models (e.g., for price prediction, risk scoring, or sentiment analysis).

• Building interactive tools (dashboards, visualizations) powered by AI insights.

• Ensuring the frontend and backend interact seamlessly for a smooth user experience.

🤖 Bridging the Gap with AI

Using AI, I can:

• Automate valuation models using historical trends, PE/PEG ratios, and balance sheet fundamentals.

• Apply natural language processing (NLP) to extract insights from earnings calls, filings, and news.

• Implement machine learning models (e.g., GBM, Monte Carlo simulations) to predict price trajectories.

✅ The Result

By combining AI with my engineering foundation, I designed a platform that:

• Makes complex financial data understandable and actionable.

• Delivers intelligent stock scoring and ranking systems.

• Bridges the gap between raw financial information and real-world investment information for users.

This synergy of my experience and AI leads to an investment platform that’s smarter, faster, and more insightful than traditional tools.

Why It Matters

Fintech Trades isn’t just another investment analysis tool—it’s the result of a lifelong passion for solving complex problems with data and code. While I don’t come from a traditional financial background, I bring a different kind of expertise: one that’s built on designing robust systems, managing large-scale data, and engineering solutions that actually work.

If you’re looking for clear, data-driven insights—and want a fresh perspective on market research—I invite you to explore what we’ve built.

Ready to see how it works? 👉 Sign up for the Stock Market Research App at fintechtrades.com and join a community that values logic, transparency, and smart tools for smarter investing.

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