How is Jim Simons so rich???

Does Jim Simon's have some secret formula for his trading computers' that is worth millions? Do all quants use similar formula's? Does Renaissance Technologies have 1 formula that makes them billions? enlighten me

James Simons of Renaissance Technologies: Finance’s Mad Scientist

The 3.3 billion dollar Medallion fund has amassed 35.6 percent annually since its inception in 1988. Cumulative returns? 2,478.6 percent

James Simons is an award-winning mathematician.

He is the winner of the American Mathematics Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry. He surrounds himself with equally intellectually gifted individuals. One-third of his employees hold PhDs. They don’t hire people from business schools. They hire scientists.

What does he contribute his success to? Luck. Is that really it? Hardly

from the Institutional Investor

Like all quantitative money managers,

On the intellect of RenTech founders from certified user @syntheticshit"

If you read More Money Than God, the two current guys that run RenTech made groundbreaking research in machine translation. In short, artificial intelligence guys would teach computers to learn French like a 7th-grader; grammar rules, exceptions, dictionary, etc....they said screw it, what we're going to do is feed it a Canadian government document that had been translated in both English and French. And then they had it scan it over and over and over again for correlations and rough translations..

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I just looked up HMM's on wikipedia... lol thats some deep crap lol "I think I read somewhere that RenTec was one of the first quant firms to make extensive use of HMMs to predict the market." thanks mass_marines that answered my question

 

There is a profile of Simons from almost ten years ago floating around the internet that goes into his career. It's definitely not about "one formula." Generally speaking, his team looks for statistical patterns that can be exploited and uses a modified Kelly Criterion to size trades. He's been managing mostly his own money for 30 years and compounding at 40% does wonders for your bank account.

 
Best Response
mb666:
M Friedman:
Look up his lecture at MIT

He is a boss

Is it on trading or math?

If it's the same one I saw, it's addressed to a CS class, but it's a general lecture on his path to success. He's not a very good speaker though, so it was kind of boring. Still worth a watch if you're interested though.

In any case, Simons is by far the most successful and consistent HF manager in my eyes. Yeah, Paulson has had better years, but that dude is all over the place. Take a look at Simons historical personal take for the past 7 years.

2011: 2.1B 2010: 2.5B 2009: 2.5B 2008: 2.5B 2007: 2.9B 2006: 1.7B 2005: 1.5B 2004: 600M

The guy has made over 16B in the last 7 years. It's just mind boggling.

-MBP
 

Although Mr. Simons is legend in hedge funds, it should be noted that the Medallion Fund is where the roughly 35% annual return is achieved; and that fund is for the owners, partners, and employees. Everyone else who wants to invest gets the crappier secondary fund with a 5% management fee and astonishing 44% performance fee.

And yes, Renaissance Technologies does has secret formulas and algorithms. And, no, they will not share it.

Bene qui latuit, bene vixit- Ovid
 
rls:
Although Mr. Simons is legend in hedge funds, it should be noted that the Medallion Fund is where the roughly 35% annual return is achieved; and that fund is for the owners, partners, and employees. Everyone else who wants to invest gets the crappier secondary fund with a 5% management fee and astonishing 44% performance fee.

Medallion is the fund with the outrageous fees; the funds that are open to the public have much lower fees.

 
alonamaloh:
rls:
Although Mr. Simons is legend in hedge funds, it should be noted that the Medallion Fund is where the roughly 35% annual return is achieved; and that fund is for the owners, partners, and employees. Everyone else who wants to invest gets the crappier secondary fund with a 5% management fee and astonishing 44% performance fee.

Medallion is the fund with the outrageous fees; the funds that are open to the public have much lower fees.

Medallion returned all outside money ages ago. RIEF and RIFF had the 5 and 44 structure, but because of their shitty performance it was reduced later on. But yes, when Medallion was open to outside investments, it also used the 5 and 44 fee structure.
-MBP
 

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