20 Years delivering world leading stock market analysis tools - what's the secret?

Twenty years is a long time in the investment software industry. What is the key to AIQ’s success?

Much of the success of AIQ is due to the dedication and experience of our staff; they are key to providing outstanding support to our clients and to building better products. The average tenure of AIQ staff members of over 10 years is a reflection of the commitment of the AIQ staff to the company. AIQ has always been more than just a software â€oevendor.â€� We strive to provide the best service possible to our clients by listening to their needs and acting on those needs as quickly and efficiently as possible.

We don’t bake cakes or build cars; we provide powerful trading tools and trading systems and support these tools with educational newsletters, seminars, tutorials and webinars (online seminars). Our goal is to help our clients become better traders and investors.

How have AIQ products evolved over the years and was this crucial to the company's success?

AIQ’s first product, StockExpert, was introduced in 1987 and provided basic charts, Expert Ratings, and some technical indicators. MarketExpert, a market timing system, quickly followed. Each of these packages included one of AIQ’s signature features, the Barometer Control Panel that gives a quick visual assessment of each of the technical indicators. Demand for derivative software les to the creation of OptionExpert and IndexExpert being added to the product line solely for options analysis. All of these products were very successful and provided the impetus for the development of TradingExpert.

Critical to AIQ's success was the decision to combine many of our packages into one suite, similar to the approach Microft does with Office. With the advent of TradingExpert, AIQ combined the strengths of MarketExpert and StockExpert into one powerful package and added group and sector analysis, a revolutionary concept at the time. Finally, a Portfolio Tracker was included and AIQ had one of the first really comprehensive trading packages on the market. Over the years, more and more powerful features were added to TradingExpert, including the Expert Design Studio, AIQ’s trading system writing and testing tool. This tool allowed our users to create their own trading systems and their own custom indicators.

In the late 1990s, AIQ merged all the add-on products into the TradingExpert software to create a power package that became known as TradingExpert Pro. While TradingExpert continued as a basic analysis tool, most of AIQ’s clients moved to the new combined systemâ€"TradingExpert Pro. Today, some 10 years since TradingExpert Pro was first introduced, it remains our premier package.

How has your industry changed over the years?

Times change, and few investment software companies have succeeded as long as we have. Product is shipped on CDs now rather than 5 ¼ inch floppies. Data is delivered over the internet rather than using computer modems. Today’s computers are lightning fast, allowing retail investors to employ tools that were only available to elite institutional investors.

There is no doubt that charting is now a de facto commodity provided by almost every investing or trading software service. Many of the free charting tools available on the internet provide basic price bars, including even Candlesticks and moving averages. However, while these tools provide good looking charts, they lack the power tools that the informed investor and trader needs.

Most brokerage companies also provide some technical analysis tools for their clients. However, very few offer high-end analysis tools like those incorporated in AIQ TradingExpert Pro.

The industry has also experienced big changes in software and data prices. AIQ’s four stand-alone DOS products originally sold at about $1500 each. And to use the software you had to subscribe to a data vendor. In the early 1990s, data cost anywhere from $60 to $100 a month but fell in price steadily over time. The biggest change in pricing for AIQ came about in the late 1990s when AIQ first offered TradingExpert Pro bundled with myTrack as a monthly subscription service. The software no longer had to be purchased with data paid for separately. Instead, you paid one monthly fee for the data and software combined. And the other bonus was never having to pay for an upgrade again.

What do you consider are the strengths of AIQ and what have they contributed to the success?

The depth of knowledge and experience of the AIQ staff is our most invaluable strength. Our experience and knowledge has led to the development of many of the unique and powerful features in TradingExpert Pro.

Our industry group and sector rotation features were revolutionary when TradingExpert was released, and they remain unmatched today. We have powerful breadth management tools that are useful in identifying market tops and bottoms. Market Breath Builder and Breadth Analyzer allow users to create breadth and volume statistics on any set of stocks or any set of indicators. Other software packages now have back testing capabilities but none are as easy as AIQ’s. We realized most people don’t like to program code, even if the language is supposedly easy. To that extent we’ve created over 250 pre-built rules that users can cut and paste as they create and test trading systems. Portfolio Simulation was another pioneering breakthrough that has given AIQ an edge. As many traders and investors have discovered, back testing only goes part of the way when you’re developing a trading strategy. Something more realistic was needed, so our programmers developed a new tool called Portfolio Simulator. Portfolio Simulation does real life walk forward testing under real trading conditions. Only through this kind of testing can you prove that a strategy works for your trading style. What sets us apart is our desire for our users to become successful traders. We don’t just give you the tools, we provide educational support and most of the support is free of charge.

We also offer a variety of webbased seminars every month covering a wide range of technical topics. Most of these â€oewebinarsâ€� are free and are archived for viewing at your convenience. They are found at www.aiqsystems.com. Finally, we hold our annual Lake Tahoe Seminar in October every year, 2007 was the 18th annual event.

Where do you see AIQ going in the future?

Regarding analysis tools, AIQ is currently focused on two directions. First, we recently rolled out an automatic Chart Pattern Recognition system. For each pattern found, the system generates supporting information such as strength of confirming volume, direction, and trend. Patterns are also stored historically for back testing as part of a trading strategy. Chart Pattern Recognition is an add-on service for TradingExpert Pro users.

Second, we have incorporated many of our primary analysis tools into a browser environment so that it will be possible to access your AIQ analysis tools wherever a browser is available. These tools are also being used by other financial analysis portals and services like midnighttrader.com and 123jump.com.

As our technical analysis tools have matured and advanced over the years, so have the features requested by AIQ clients. Every request is recorded and analyzed for suitability and desirability as a feature in a future release. We value all feedback. It is this feedback from our clients in conjunction with our own ideas that leads to the development of new power features.

Steve Hill is President of AIQ Systems. http://www.aiq.com For the past 14 years he has been involved in all aspects of AIQ Systems, from support and sales to programming and education. Steve is a frequent speaker at events in the U.S. and Europe, talking on subjects as diverse as Portfolio Simulation Techniques, Advanced Chart Pattern Analysis and Trading System Design. Steve is an avid martial artist and cross-country skier. currently holding the rank of Shodan (first degree black belt) in Shito-Ryu Okinawan Karate. He also serves on the board of the Ralph Parks Portfolio Trust.

AIQ Systems is a world leader in intelligent trading software. Their web site can be found at http://www.aiq.com