Frantisek Kovac, principal at Cassovia, worked at Deutsche Bank on the corporate credit desk before leaving and setting up Cassovia in the spring of 2009. Initially, he used a number of spreadsheets to manage, aggregate and analyse company fundamentals, end of day prices and credit default swap (CDS) data, but his previous experience of TimeScape at Deutsche Bank led him to implement the software in the summer of 2009.
“It is too difficult for a single person to put together everything that is needed to develop trading strategies. I needed an efficient solution for a one person shop. TimeScape was a good fit,” he says. “I have seen a lot of technology in the trading space and TimeScape is definitely above everything else in terms of speed and intuition. I can develop complex trading strategies in a few seconds and make good decisions quickly.”
Kovac is also impressed by the scope and ease of use of TimeScape. “While some trading firms use a data provider, build algos and have another provider for prices, TimeScape includes everything in one package. Back testing is an important element for me and it is easy to do as TimeScape’s database structure is user friendly, intuitive and requires a low level of programming skills. Once a strategy is developed, the software automatically delivers the data needed for the strategy.”
While Cassovia currently trades equities and equity options – trading is handled by TradeStation software – Kovac suggests he may, in future, move into foreign exchange or futures trading supported by the multi-asset facet of TimeScape and its scalability from one person organisations to large investment banks.
Essentially, the TimeScape platform allows Cassovia to store and retrieve its data and import data in different formats as well as numerous out-of-the-box financial analytics functions. Xenomorph’s Spreadsheet Inside technology, which the company has evolved since its foundation in 1995 when it worked with Bankers Trust to build a high performance time series database platform, enables Cassovia to run time series calculations, implement back testing strategies and build complex trading models in a centralised and flexible system.
These may be early days for Cassovia, but Kovac has high hopes of success supported by the two software planks he says he could not be without.
