Business Student looking at Quantitative Finance, is there a chance?
Hey guys,
I am currently in my second year of a master in management degree with a finance major and starting two consecutive IB internships soon. However, I am working on a portfolio theory topic for my thesis and growing an interest for Quant Finance topics in general.
So here I need your opinion: Is there a way into Quant Finance in a bank/fund for a business student without academic math/ statistics background and if so, whats the most likely way, e.g., any licenses/ extracurricular programs that are actually worth the money and effort?
Thank you for your opinions.
Cheers
Hey leipzig, what a lonely thread. I'm here since nobody responded ...so maybe one of these discussions will help:
More suggestions...
You're welcome.
This is pretty much the path I went down. The answer is yes, but you're going to need to study. At a minimum, you need to learn a scripting language (Python and/or R) and develop a basic understanding of statistics. It's worth noting that the quant universe is somewhat heterogeneous and some roles require more technical knowledge than others.
In a perfect world, your best bet would be to get a Masters in Financial Mathematics / Quantitative Finance, although I'd note that they normally have about half a dozen classes as prerequisites (Calc I/II/III, Probability/Statistics I & Programming I).
The CQF is generally not all that well regarded.
Thanks a lot jackwestjr for your reply.
If I may add one more question: Do you have any recommendations on specific positions for internships which would particularly increase my chances to get a more quantitative analyst position? I have at least one more possibility to do an internship late next summer and could imagine going for something trading/ research related.
Cheers
I would learn Python as fast as you can and look for roles where they list Python as a nice to have. Financial Firms are often terrible at managing data. Juniors with programming skills can often write scripts that save the business a lot of time. It's a great way to add value, and will probably give you exposure to teams with an IT, Quant and/or Data focus, from who you can learn a lot. At least, that's basically what I did.
What is your current role and in what kind of a firm? For a profile such as described in the OP (assuming at least OK programming abilities), what kind of roles and in what firms would be a good starting point for finding opportunities/positions? Asset managers? Actual quant funds? Banks? Something else?
I worked in the quant field, MMF (Master of Mathematical Finance) is definitely helpful as someone mentioned. We hired a lot of people from the MMF program, PhD in math or physics as well. At the end of the day, you need to be really good in calculus and statistics. A lot of the theories in quant, like DV sensitives is based on calculus concepts.
After the math skills, next most important is programming, aside from R/Python as someone has mentioned, Tableau is also good to know. Some people even have C/C++/Java for more sophisticated programming with quant libraries. Also, get yourself familiarize with the bloomberg terminal, like looking up data etc.
lastly, as a quant, you need to know how to value various financial instruments, such as bonds, swaps, options etc. You are unlikely to learn this as a business student but you can take some investment courses or do the CFA.
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