Where do the smartest people work within the finance industry?
Which industry within finance is most rewarding for people with strong brain power? I am wondering where the most analytical skills are needed and where people can really shine with good quality work instead of being the hardest working one. So, generally, where do smart people work within finance, and where can they be truly happy (i.e. feel rewarded and satisfied)?
In term of this, what do you think of these sectors: M&A, private equity, hedge funds, trading...
Thanks for your contribution.
academia
In theory, if you have infinite brain power I'd say prop trading/hedge fund trading is better since it is scalable and you could make infinite money thanks to leverage without having to work 100 hours per week. Thanks Nassim Taleb for that insight.
I'd assume they work at Quant funds, think RenTech
Within hedge funds, where do the smartest people work? (I mean which division or which kind of strategy, e.g. macro trading, long/short, value investor. Algorithmic trading and quant positions are only for those with a math/programming degree, right? What about smart people with economics or finance degrees? What kind of hedge fund strategy is rewarding for them (without high programming skills to be asked, or such that they are not qualified for in university)?
And, what makes the work at a hedge fund more rewarding, compared to M&A for example. Concrete, what do people do at hedge funds at junior level that requires high intelligence? Are there stupid work (e.g. work with repetitive nature or does not require a lot of thinking) as well at junior level?
Thanks!
I think RenTech and DE Shaw have the smartest people in finance.
I hear the people at Long Term Capital Management are fucking brilliant.
I hear that smart people work in the finance industry but they cannot use their smartness in the finance industry.
What type of intelligence?
Analytical: quant trader
Social: sales
Common sense: will find opportunities like shorting a housing market that goes up 40% a year, knowing it can't last.
Your last point is completely opposite.
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can someone with a finance degree become a quant trader or does it necessarily have to be a math/ programming degree?
i mean analytical intelligence, raw intelligence, the one that is measured by IQ tests (although this is another debate).
undergraduate finance is about as hard as high school algebra.
so, no. to be a real quant, you need a LOT of math. real math. undergrad math, plus MFE / MFM. A lot of quants have PhD's.
Financial firms with the smartest people (Originally Posted: 04/24/2010)
For sell-side, buy-side, and prop trading, which firms do you think have the smartest people, in terms of pure raw intelligence?
I think these firms stand out.
I would seriously delete this thread because it's one of the dumbest questions in the history of this site. I mean seriously!!! This is finance, nearly everyone is genius smart or above average intelligence. On top of that, there are dozens of small firms that you have never heard of...Ever hear of Mike Burry before the crash...no. I'm not even going to get into LTCM. Intelligence isn't everything. If you had said I am a very analytical and quantitative person and was wondering which firms are comprised of the most analytical minds....then that would be an acceptable question.
Interesting question, but very hard to answer. As mentioned before, it is not like we can measure the IQ of these people. We could, perhaps, infer "pure raw intelligence" from the amount of PhDs at these firms. But that would also be a stretch.
However, as silly as this thread may be, this must be one of the dumbest quotes ever. Where do you get this bullshit from? Stop jerking off to your Wall Street fantasies and wake up to the real world. Wall Street is full of idiots like you who think they're smart, but instead, just keeping adding to the house of cards.
I wish the world of finance included mostly "genius smart or above average intelligence" people; however, there are too many of your kind.
Totally agree with Gekko21. To start, there are smart people in every firm. Second, raw intelligence says nothing about how successful someone is going to be and there are many other unquantifiable/subjective factors that determine success. Lastly, how the hell are you coming up with your definition of intelligence to say that those firms are smarter? Do you know their IQs (as poor a measure of intelligence that is)?
Delete it.
Fabrice Tourre future firm.
this topic is so stupid that it makes me wanna hit my head against the wall. First of all, smart? what exactly do you mean?
but besides that: All those companies must have been very small and unknown at some point whilst other now small companies will replace the above mentioned in the future... so who is smarter? the one with people joining because the company has already achieved success or the one with the people that actually will achieve the success?
waste of time topic
btw I disagree that just becuase it is finance people are smarter or above average inelligent.
did u maybe mean which company recruits the people with the most intellectually challenging background?
if it's most challenging academic training, i agree with RenTech and DE Shaw since those firms mainly hire quant geniuses from top schools. but yeah, it's a pretty dumb thread.
Whichever firm Fabulous fab's French mistress was passing on confidential info to.
Um, clearly it's the SEC. It's not even a firm: that's how much smarter it is than all the others.
SEC is the smartest easily. While everyone else worked like suckers and dodged layoffs, SEC guys found a way to get paid to watch porn 8 hours a day while enjoying 200k salary, government benefits, huge pension and among the best job security in the nation.
Stupid question, but curiously Jim Simons ranks #1 on some kind of Forbes "Smartest Billionaires" list.
so if I work for the northern san diego country credit union does that make me not smart?
Nah, pretty sure Gekko's post is either a useless tautology.
"genius smart"...lmao
Where do the smartest people work within the finance industry? (Originally Posted: 09/11/2011)
Which industry within finance is most rewarding for people with strong brain power? I am wondering where the most analytical skills are needed and where people can really shine with good quality work instead of being the hardest working one. So, generally, where do smart people work within finance, and where can they be truly happy (i.e. feel rewarded and satisfied)?
In term of this, what do you think of these sectors: M&A, Private equity, hedge funds, trading...
Thanks for your contribution.
Hedge funds, algorithmic trading, quant positions, any job that requires extensive use of MATLAB and programming.
M&A obviously
Rentech, but nobody here will ever get in there.
Within hedge funds, where do the smartest people work? (I mean which division or which kind of strategy, e.g. macro trading, long/short, value investor. Algorithmic trading and quant positions are only for those with a math/programming degree, right? What about smart people with economics or finance degrees? What kind of hedge fund strategy is rewarding for them (without high programming skills to be asked, or such that they are not qualified for in university)?
And, what makes the work at a hedge fund more rewarding, compared to M&A for example. Concrete, what do people do at hedge funds at junior level that requires high intelligence? Are there stupid work (e.g. work with repetitive nature or does not require a lot of thinking) as well at junior level?
Thanks!
well I got to see how a top global macro fund invests, and for them they use TONs of statistics which implies programming to analyze HUGE data sets. Also, they know the smallest details about everything. Even the most stupid definitions, like the exact formula used to calculate inflation in poland.
I would say you have to be really fucking smart to work there.
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