GoldenGem

Goldengem is one of the best neural net stock market programs.

GoldenGem  Review

Review: This program is considered to be one of the best of the neural network stock prediction programs. It is probably based on, or at least is named after the original 'goldengem' consoles, which are rarely seen nowadays. The usual disadvantage of a neural network is that it's not easy to tell whether or how it is working. By pressing essentially one button to update your shares, and a second button called 'Run/Pause,' you are brought to a sort of oscilloscope display. The vertical slider to the left of the display flashes insistently. . As it is raised upwards, the horizontal green line on the graph (indicating zero) jumps to life. This is the only user adjustment (besides a horizontal slider for the number of advance days), and getting it to lock-on to a match is not unlike the experience of flying an airplane for the first time. Now here is the useful part: almost always, if you bring the slider back down, the green curve will settle down, no longer matching the target data. No real relationship has been found. But sometimes -- not often -- you see something different. The green curve stays active. There is a second pair of curves, one blue and one green, both tracing the same path, like two snakes following each other down a tunnel over and over again. It is transfixing to watch this, because the green curve reaches out an inch or so from the lagging red snake and you see it trying to guess where it is going to go. When the green curve stays active, you actually see it turning up and down correctly, in advance of the historical data. In other words (in the rare cases when it locks on), you get ample verification that there really is a relationship between the prices and volume data chosen, which has worked very consistently throughout historical time. Or not. as the case may be. And this is perhaps the great beauty of this classic; that you know when it is working, and, more importantly, when it is not working.