The Striker Report - gold standard for objective trading research

Jim Choi

President of BLASHnet Inc.

Interviewed by John F. Gallwas - Founder of Striker Securities, Inc.

Jim Choi in the founder of Korean based BLASHnet Inc (1999), which grew into one of Asia's leading futures and securities trading platform vendors. The firm provides platform customization as well as implantation services to both traders and brokerage firms. On July, 2012, Mr. Choi established Fine Tech, Inc., an Illinois based company, to provide the worldwide market with BLASHnet services.

John Gallwas: Tell us a little about your background and how you got into this business.

Jim Choi: I have been interested in financial services business for over 30 years. In college I studied economics, finance, statistics, and computer programming. After school, I worked for a sugar refinery, a subsidiary of The Samsung Group, as a market analyst in support of the hedging program for the importing raw sugar and exporting white sugar. I became very interested in technical market analysis and computerized trading and in 1992, I transferred to a Samsung future brokerage company, to fully focus on market analysis through technical analysis.

In 1996, the Korean Stock Exchange launched their stock index futures contract and Korean brokerage firms began offering electronic trading platforms for their customers, Their platforms were limited and inconvenient for traders. Seeing this as an opportunity, we established BLASHnet to develop customized trading platforms which vastly improved the trading environment for the Korean market. The Korean Exchange is now the world�s most active exchange and we would like to think that BLASHnet played a role in its success.

John Gallwas: What does your South Korean base company offer that will allow US firms to successfully complete in the Korean market?

Jim Choi: The difficulty Korean users have with many American products is that these products are not customized to fit the business nature of Korean brokerage firms and their customers. BLASHnet has developed a trading platform that is not only compliant with Korean regulations, but it surpasses the needs of the brokers and their customers. The BLASHnet platform is designed for individual traders and institutional traders provides customers with good training and excellent support. Because of our success in Korea, we believe we can provide a valuable service to US firms looking to expand in Korea and other Asian countries as well.

John Gallwas: Why did BLASHnet recently form Fine Tech, Inc. in the United States?

Jim Choi: We believe that one of the main reasons American companies fail in the Asian is because they tried to convert English user information to local languages without a good understanding of the Asian language, cultures, or regulations. With an office, located in the Chicago area, we are now in a better position to continue to help American firms wishing to expand into the Asian markets or conversely Asian firms that want to expand to America.

John Gallwas: Our readers are system traders, developers and brokers. As our format is educational and because new technology is confusing to most of us, briefly tell us which of your services would be of interest to each group?

Jim Choi:

System traders: BLASHnet has two functions that brokers and traders might find useful because it of our unique approach to trading. The first is a risk management system that shows the risk level of a trading position. The other allows the trader to split orders at several FCMs concurrently.

Developers: BLASHnet services various methods and languages to write trading strategies, so developers can make a strategy easily with his/her native language even if the trader is the non-native English speaker.

Brokers: Brokerage firms have specific needs for their customers and we provide customized platforms using Asian languages to satisfy those needs.

John Gallwas: From your viewpoint in Asia, do you see any new trading technology or trends that would interest our readers?

Jim Choi: Through their long history with markets, most Asian people have a strong belief in Oriental Philosophy such as Yin-Yang and Five Elements Theory. Asian traders are beginning to combine their trading indicators with the technical indicators used by traders in the US. As the world markets continue to �internationalize� we expect to see Asian traders and system developers expand their activates to America, as well as US traders and systems developers to expand to the Asian.

This interview is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a solicitation of any kind. Trade only with risk capital. The risk of trading can be substantial and each investor and/or trader must consider whether trading systems are a suitable investment.