Identification of accounts that are too profitable or too lossy

Abstract

An electronic surveillance system or method identifies potentially suspect trading activities by determining when day trading accounts are too consistently profitable or too consistently unprofitable (lossy). The electronic surveillance system examines specific futures commodities or other securities over a specified time period (e.g., daily). Accounts that are too consistently profitable or too consistently unprofitable are flagged by the system. In addition, the system may report when a trading account experiences statistically unusually large gains or losses per contract traded and gains or losses or a high percentage of time periods. The day to day profits or losses are displayed to a user in a graphical format that expresses the profit or loss trends intuitively before additional analysis of charts or numbers. The system may also perform the analysis for pairs of accounts where trades opposite to one another of the pair are unusually consistently profitable or unusually consistently lossy.

1 - 20 . (canceled) 
     
     
         21 . A system, comprising:
 a server hosting a controller communicatively couple to a database, the controller configured to:   determine a net difference of an average price of a plurality of bought securities contracts and an average price of a plurality of sold securities contracts;   increment a loss count if the net difference is below a minimum loss threshold;   increment a profit count if the net difference is above a minimum profit threshold; and   output, to a display device, an indication of unusually consistent profitable or lossy trading due to the profit count the loss count exceeding an absolute value of a consistency threshold.   
     
     
         22 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein the controller is configured to calculate a change per contract through multiplying the net difference by a lesser of a number of the plurality of bought securities contracts and a number of the plurality of sold securities contracts. 
     
     
         23 . The system of  claim 21 , further comprising:
 an input device configured to receive a user input indicative of the minimum loss threshold and the minimum profit threshold.   
     
     
         24 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein the plurality of bought securities contracts and the plurality of sold securities contracts are bought and sold in a same day. 
     
     
         25 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein the controller is configured to compute a day trading ratio associated with the plurality of bought securities contracts and the plurality of sold securities contracts, wherein the day trading ratio relates a volume of day trading transactions to a volume of total bought transactions or total sold transactions or a value of day trading transactions to a value of total transactions. 
     
     
         26 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein the display device is configured to generate a graphical representation of the indication of the unusually consistent profitable or lossy trading including a relative magnitude of the profit count and the loss count. 
     
     
         27 . The system of  claim 26 , wherein the graphical representation comprises a matrix of time periods of the unusually consistent profitable or lossy trading. 
     
     
         28 . A method, comprising:
 receiving, at a processor, a net difference of an average price of a plurality of bought contracts and an average price of a plurality of sold contracts;   incrementing a loss count if the net difference is below a minimum loss threshold;   incrementing a profit count if the net difference is above a minimum profit threshold; and   displaying an indication of consistent profitable or lossy trading according to the profit count and the loss count.   
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 28 , further comprising:
 multiplying the net difference by a lesser of a number of the plurality of bought contracts and a number of the plurality of sold contracts to calculate an average profit or loss per contract; and   displaying the average profit or loss per contract.   
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 28 , further comprising:
 receiving a first minimum percentage and a second minimum percentage from a user input, wherein the minimum profit threshold equals the first minimum percentage and the minimum loss threshold equals the second minimum percentage.   
     
     
         31 . The method of  claim 28 , wherein the plurality of bought contracts and the plurality of sold contracts are bought and sold in a same day. 
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 28 , further comprising:
 computing a day trading ratio for each of plurality of trading accounts associated with the plurality of bought contracts and the plurality of sold contracts, wherein the day trading ratio relates a volume of day trading transactions to a higher of a volume of buying transactions or a volume of selling transactions or relates a value of day trading transaction to a value of total transactions.   
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 28 , further comprising:
 generating a graphical representation of the indication of consistent profitable or lossy trading including a relative magnitude of the profit count and the loss count.   
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 33 , wherein the graphical representation comprises a matrix of time periods of the consistent profitable or lossy trading. 
     
     
         35 . The method of  claim 34 , wherein the matrix omits at least one time period in which no contracts were bought or sold. 
     
     
         36 . A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions executable to:
 receive trading data from a securities exchange related to one or more parties;   determine an average price of a plurality of bought contracts and an average price of a plurality of sold contracts, from the trading data;   determine a net difference of an average price of a plurality of bought securities contracts and an average price of a plurality of sold securities contracts;   increment a loss count if the net difference is below a minimum loss threshold;   increment a profit count if the net difference is above a minimum profit threshold; and   output an indication of profitable or lossy trading according to the profit count and the loss count, to a display device.   
     
     
         37 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 36 , the instructions further executable to:
 multiply the net difference by a lesser of a quantity of bought securities contracts and a quantity of sold securities contracts to calculate a change per contract; and   output the change per contract as part of an anomaly report.   
     
     
         38 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 36 , the instructions further executable to:
 compute a day trading ratio associated with the plurality of bought securities contracts and the plurality of sold contracts, wherein the day trading ratio relates a volume of day trading transactions to other transactions; and   output the day trading ratio.   
     
     
         39 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 36 , the instructions further executable to:
 generate a graphical representation of the indication of profitable or lossy trading including a relative magnitude of the profit count and the loss count.   
     
     
         40 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 39 , wherein the graphical representation comprises a matrix of time periods of the profitable or lossy trading.