From Heartbroken Undergrad to Elite Wall Street Warrior – My Story

Frequent lurker, first time poster. This is my story, with a bit of personal flair. I’ll cover why not getting an internship was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why a high GPA and and an Ivy League degree are not as important as you think. Why Renaissance, Two Sigma, et.al. are not the best hedge funds. And why I turned down Goldman Sachs.

Let's start at the beginning. I had a humble beginning, mediocre GPA at a non-target (Econ major math/stat minor) and a hard time finding internships. They say you can’t get a top without an Ivy League degree or a stellar GPA. That’s just pure BS. In the HF space, your GPA is worthless. The only thing that counts is your ability to generate abnormal profits consistently. Fancy degrees are just a silly hoop they make you go through to give investors the impression that the fund is hiring the most competent people. But everybody knows that’s just for show, nobody really cares about that. They care about the money. It’s all about the money.

My journey to the creme of the crop on Wall Street stems from an event in my childhood when my girlfriend left me for someone else. When I found out she had another boyfriend, my heart was broken into a million pieces. I remember trying to hold back my tears back as they dropped onto the pages of my favorite book "The Stock Market Course." If I could get rich, I thought, I could make her regret her decision. In my darkest storm, that book was my anchor.

Getting closer to my senior year at a non-target university, I was consumed by another wrath - no internships, connections, and an inbox full of rejection emails. I was graduating without a job or experience, far behind my peers, ready to be ambushed by a student loan bill with compounding interest. This frustration accumulated to an unbearable level, to an explosive level, igniting a firestorm of motivation that led me to embark on a journey where I surpassed even the most elite candidates for the best positions on Wall Street. These candidates, which whom I looked up to, I now often interview for coveted positions. Interesting how the tables can turn so quickly!

Let’s rewind a bit more. Over the years I've read and filled a library of trading books. I've studied every corner of fundamental, technical and sentiment analysis. I started to realize that nobody in their right mind is going to publish or sell anything that can make you a fortune. If they really had something viable they would keep it quiet and exploit it themselves. They would go to great lengths to CONCEAL, not publish, their work. Nobody’s going to sell you a $19 million dollar idea for $19.95 You see, trading or understanding the market will not make you a fortune. Only a consistent informational edge will make you a fortune.

This led me to dig deeper; I was restless. If this consistent informational edge existed, I was going to find it – through hell or high water. Over the years, I’ve looked into hundreds of ideas, but the crown jewel of them all actually stemmed from a random conversation with a family friend that had absolutely nothing to do with finance or the markets. Something completely off topic. Always on-guard, I was able to make an interesting connection. And from this one off-topic thought, a billion-dollar light-bulb switched on.

I was able to identify an informational inefficiency. This was deep in the rabbit hole. Very deep. I will not go into specific detail due to strict NDA. This ultimately landed me a very high-level position at one of the best-performing but low-profile HFs in the industry, which I will not name. I shouldn’t be posting in the first place, which is why I’m posting anonymously. But my project involved pre-processing certain scientific datasets faster to gain a time advantage. I will not reveal the exact category or nature of this data for obvious reasons. But to give you a glimpse, I’ll stay as remote, vague and ambiguous as needed.

It may or may not be that this type of market-moving data item(s) are disseminated frequently on the Bloomberg terminal that thousands traders immediately adjust their position after in a highly-liquid tradable product. It was a massive C++ programming in job to implement, but the end result was that I could obtain not only one, but various market-moving data-points many minutes before it hit traders' screens. Minutes before Bloomberg’s servers even received it. Forget human traders, I had the data minutes before any millisecond algorithm could even crawl it. Perfectly and beautifully legally too. The strategy was so highly scaleable due to the massive liquidity of this product, that it blew my mind. Each day it became clearer and clearer to me that I may have found one of the most profitable arbitrage plays in existence. It was then all of the anxiety melted away into bliss. I was in denial. Is this real?

Why hasn't anyone figured this out yet? Because it’s not that easy. It’s very, very hard. Reverse-engineering various proprietary models cost me a chunk of my early 20s. I was the computer guy who never came out of his basement.

As a side note, the biggest problem with the efficient market hypothesis is its definition of information. The EMH treats “information” as a one-dimensional item, but instead it is a dynamic process … first collected in raw form, processed, analyzed and then disseminated, often by a third-party or independent non-market participant. The process of gathering and preparing information takes time; it is within this time-gap that one may find an edge. There are ways of (perfectly legally) replicating this process by a market participant independently, and accelerating the process it to obtain and act upon pre-market information consistently.

These particular methods may not always be immediately apparent to the broader market. In fact, these methods may not even exist, you have to engineer them from scratch. This is why these anomalies may persist for years or even a decade. Yes, markets may be highly efficient on the surface by reacting to “finished product” information, but never even close to strongly efficient at the core because it would require multiple discoveries to occur independently and simultaneously, which are highly improbable.

You see, getting rejected from internships was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was lucky. I could have ended up as another casualty in a standard corporate job. These rejections forced me to create and work on something that was far more profitable on my own. Shut out and rejected into the cold, the anxiety and stress boiling inside me, I found my sweet escape.

With this high-caliber evidence, you’d think I’d apply to the top funds, Renaissance, Two Sigma, etc… I always thought these guys were the best, but I was wrong. The more research I did, the more I realized that these funds are actually perform quite poorly. There are some very exotic hedge funds that can put their track 20+ year record to utter shame. You’ve never even heard of them, and they try very hard to keep it that way. These funds turn down investors after reaching their cap. Getting them to accept your money is considered lucky.

How can I describe it? It is like when I found out about Asian massage parlors. You always thought prostitution was non-existent in your area, until you find out there’s been 5 partially-legal brothels running down your block for the past ten years. How come nobody’s ever told me about this? It’s like discovering fire.

There was one that was a real gem – a precious hidden gem. I work at this fund now. Their long-term track record was so suspiciously good, they were constantly being investigated by the SEC, always coming out squeaky clean. With a flawless track record over decades, these guys know what they’re doing. Even the SEC is very impressed.

I sent them a cold email. A few hours later I heard back from the CIO directly. Not only that, but the CIO cc’d my email to various partners (one was the CEO of a $20 billion investment bank) who cleared their schedule to meet me within 24 hours. Within 48 hours, I got an offer and was on-boarded. After offering me over $1000 per day, they asked … Is that enough?

It took two weeks for Goldman Sachs's strats/quant group to call me for an interview, but by then it was too late. In fact, Goldman Sachs rejected me after I applied many times in the past. They really need to fix their HR department. While they’re too busy scouring the cream at the Ivy Leagues for the best a brightest at the top, they miss the treasure buried deep below – and it cost them billions.

So here I am, corner Manhattan-view office, limo transport to work, high-level position at low-profile hedge fund at the age 24. How? Because I generate risk-free profits. Massive zero-risk profits. Soon I’ll be making my fund billions and a chunk of change for myself, and that’s just the beginning. I’ll pull every string, I’ll microscope every idea, and I’ll work like a machine to vacuum every informational inefficiency that may exist, of which I’ve found many. I don’t have patience, I force breakthroughs.

What I hope you can draw from this is that for those who have a will, there is a way. Sometimes this “way” is not one that is taught, but one you need to create yourself.

This brings me to remind you of Charles Darwin’s quote:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

We are in a new technological environment, and you need to arm yourself with a new set of skills, quickly, if you want to survive. This industry has changed, with a greater focus on technology. Most inefficiencies will be technological ones. You can no longer make money the old Buffet way by looking at balance sheets and income statements. You need to be the most responsive to this change. How responsive are you to this change?

Don’t know how to program? Nor did I, until my junior year when I taught myself. Instead of doing an internship that summer, I woke up at 6AM and spent the whole day learning how to program in C++ every single day, 7 days a week 12 hours a day for 3.5 months (over 1000 hours). I programmed until my eyes bled. Am I the sharpest programmer on the street? No, far from it. But I got really, really good, fast.

Not good at math? Nor was I, in fact I was probably worse than you. But I got really good, really fast – by working really hard. I solved so many equations, and filled so many binders of hand-written pages, I developed a minor wrist strain injury. In fact, I worked so hard and got so good, that I was able to identify and point out a major improper application of the integral test for convergence published in the majority of calculus texts which my professors agreed was a problem. I was a C math student in high-school. Did that hold me back? No. Because I improved, excessively and radically and far exceeded those that got A’s in high school.

Don’t have the motivation? Nor did I. Find a way to get the motivation. The anxiety and stress of falling behind is a great source of motivation.

It’s very possible to acquire a skill that you can find a new application for quickly, if you work hard enough. Sure, there will always be someone smarter, stronger, and more experienced than me or you combined. Do not let this discourage you - because so was Goliath, the most feared ancient giant warrior armies unsuccessfully fought. Yet then came David, a young rookie with a homemade slingshot, and with a perfect stone shot, brought Goliath crumbling to his defeat. Remember that story? Be that kid.

It’s all about finding and hitting that critical nerve. The critical nerve in this industry is information. Finding something completely unrelated to finance or your field, and making a connection. You have to look outward. While everyone is thinking outside the box, you need to think in a different dimension. There are original, innovative and creative solutions out there yet undiscovered. Exploiting them may involve moving outside of your comfort zone and learning something completely radical and different. I hope I’ve encouraged you to find your slingshot. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s hard, very hard. But now you have the peace and comfort of knowing that is also very possible.

 

The kind of mentality that's made you successful in the HF world, is something all great entrepreneurs/people of extreme success share. The ability to burn the box, and connect obsolete dots.

Great job, and thanks for sharing.

I think- therefore I fuck
 
Martinghoul:

While sounding inspirational and all that, there's smth funny abt this...

Do you possibly mean that it's inspirational in the way similar fictional stories can be motivational?

Seriously, if you have a highly scalable strategy that will make your firm billions and they just paid you $1,000 per day, the OP would be the most underpaid person in the history of finance.

If you don't know who the sucker is at the table, it's you.
 

if you trade US Treasury futures, around certain economic data releases, you will often notice large trades taking place a couple minutes before the data is released...almost as if somebody has the eco data a couple minutes before it is released to the general public. "They" are almost always right...clearly there are leaks in the system...yet nobody has been charged with a crime.

My point is...its entirely possible that OP has something similar....we know that these things exist...and that firms trade on them, and make good money from them.

 

SAC traded on "early" information for years and got away with it before they got caught, but that doesn't take away from the fact that what they were doing was still very illegal an in the bounds of insider trading.

Just because no one has been caught doesn't mean it's not illegal. I'm guessing the people making these trades based on economic data are lets say "protected" by the DoJ.

 

Great message about being driven and working hard to do something thought to be impossible.

That said, this reminded me of those pop ups I got in high school about how you too can do three things to make any girl want you instantly. There's no single thing that works for everyone and there's no way you can legally take advantage of any information twenty minutes before any other traders or even algos even see the same thing. 20 minutes is way too long a period to beat everyone, so much can happen in that time frame.

And there's no way that you're making "risk-free profits." Market efficiency may not hold but there's no way this is an arbitrage since you said this is a highly liquid product. If this is somehow a true, or even semi true story, be advised that there is indeed risk even if you haven't seen it yet.

Sorry to pee in your cereal OP, but you went way too far and said some things that are not consistent with someone who is supposedly one of the best traders of all time. It's a great story but seems totally fake which ruins the whole thing for me personally.

 

Have to agree. Nice story but very hard to swallow. What is a "risk-free profit" ? I have NEVER come across a "risk-free profit" in my career. Never. And if anyone ever walked into my office pitching a "mass zero-risk profit" I would assume fraud, show them the door and alert the authorities. That kind of terminology is blasphemy in our industry. No experienced professional would drop that line.

Also disagree with the OP on books. There are plenty of authors and retired businessman that clearly lay out their multi-million dollar strategies for the public in books. I have applied many investment strategies that I have learned from books over the years in actual practice.

And for the record - I make a nice living off the "old" Buffet model - balance sheets, income statements and all.

Anyways - to the hopeful WSO's out there, stay optimistic, there are actual paths to success.

 
BTOWN:

And there's no way that you're making "risk-free profits." Market efficiency may not hold but there's no way this is an arbitrage since you said this is a highly liquid product. If this is somehow a true, or even semi true story, be advised that there is indeed risk even if you haven't seen it yet.

Okay, not zero, but "near" zero. Near. If we distill risk into reducible and irreducible components, what I was referring to was near zero reducible risk. There will always be (irreducible) risk of technological errors, human error, and volatility events. As you describe, this risk moves exponentially away from zero further from the event.

To all, your suspicions are very reasonable. I understand, because I am a very skeptical person myself by nature. I am suspicious of easy strategies. I don't like easy strategies. I don’t like easy, period. I like hard things. The harder the better. The more difficult, the more motivated I am to figure it out. Most people give up at the dead ends. My work begins at the dead ends. The harder it gets, the happier I get, and the harder I work. When people fail to dig deep enough and give up too easy, I take over and force breakthroughs. This is how anyone can make breakthroughs.

Everything happened so fast. It's still sinking in. I often ask myself if this is real! But it’s real, very real. If you pay the price and suffered like I did, it could be real for you too.

If there are ongoing credibility concerns, I may decide to sit down with a trusted leader of WSO in the NYC area for a thorough investigation into this under three conditions: (1) you'd have to sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to meeting (2) I would have to screen you to determine if you have any ties to the financial industry or any HFs (3) you preferably have press credentials so that I have a strong assurance the NDA will be strictly honored (4) a provision of the NDA will be that you keep my identity anonymous, do not reveal the name of the HF I work for to the public, and do not reveal any “restricted” information which may be revealed during this meeting.

If there is a volunteer, and these conditions are met, we can arrange a meeting where I can log into my email account in front of you and allow you to review a few select emails including my initial contact email with the HF and a few low-risk communications between the CIO and CEO of the IB. I will also bring my employment contract, my corporate ID badge, and any other evidence (e.g. voice mails) that are minimally necessary to verify my claims. There will, however, be no detailed discussion of any strategies. If I’m in a good mood, maybe I’ll be a bit more open, but unlikely. After investigation, this person can report the outcome here on this forum.

What I am saying is if there is such great demand for evidence, then I can make this evidence available! But it would have to be in a way that does not create any risks for me.

 
-Anonymous:
BTOWN:

And there's no way that you're making "risk-free profits." Market efficiency may not hold but there's no way this is an arbitrage since you said this is a highly liquid product. If this is somehow a true, or even semi true story, be advised that there is indeed risk even if you haven't seen it yet.

Okay, not zero, but "near" zero. Near. If we distill risk into reducible and irreducible components, what I was referring to was near zero reducible risk. There will always be (irreducible) risk of technological errors, human error, and volatility events. As you describe, this risk moves exponentially away from zero further from the event.

To all, your suspicions are very reasonable. I understand, because I am a very skeptical person myself by nature. I am suspicious of easy strategies. I don't like easy strategies. I don't like easy, period. I like hard things. The harder the better. The more difficult, the more motivated I am to figure it out. Most people give up at the dead ends. My work begins at the dead ends. The harder it gets, the happier I get, and the harder I work. When people fail to dig deep enough and give up too easy, I take over and force breakthroughs. This is how anyone can make breakthroughs.

Everything happened so fast. It's still sinking in. I often ask myself if this is real! But it's real, very real. If you pay the price and suffered like I did, it could be real for you too.

If there are ongoing credibility concerns, I may decide to sit down with a trusted leader of WSO in the NYC area for a thorough investigation into this under three conditions: (1) you'd have to sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to meeting (2) I would have to screen you and possibly conduct a background check to determine if you have any ties to the financial industry or any HFs (3) you must have press credentials so that I have a strong assurance the NDA will be strictly honored (4) a provision of the NDA will be that you keep my identity anonymous, do not reveal the name of the HF I work for to the public, and do not reveal any "restricted" information which may be revealed during this meeting.

If there is a volunteer, and these conditions are met, we can arrange a meeting at a time and location of my choosing where I can log into my email account in front of you and allow you to review a few select emails including my initial contact email with the HF and a few low-risk communications between the CIO and CEO of the IB. I will also bring my employment contract, my corporate ID badge, and any other evidence (e.g. voice mails) that are minimally necessary to verify my claims. There will, however, be no detailed discussion of any strategies. If I'm in a good mood, maybe I'll be a bit more open, but unlikely. After investigation, this person can report the outcome here on this forum.

You have to understand that this is a substantial risk for me, and so that is why I need a very strict NDA signed prior. But if there is such a demand for verification, and I'm in a good mood, then stay tuned. I am very busy for the next few weeks and months, but I may have limited availability in April or late May.

Why on God's slightly green earth would someone who could rule the financial industry want to receive the approval and acceptance of a forum primarily consisting of students/young professionals (don't be salty you old timers) when he could be spending his time talking to the billionaires of the world?

Bravo on the writing, really. Reddit would eat this up.

 

OP just how did you frame the cold email to the HF? If you didn't give them the secret sauce how did you pique their interest to interview you? And if you did give them the secret sauce what prevented them from just taking it and leaving you in the dark?

 

good stuff. only question is around this - why CC people from other potentially competitor organisations? Or can a CEO at a bank also be a partner at a Hedge fund?

"Not only that, but the CIO cc'd my email to various partners (one was the CEO of a $20 billion investment bank) who cleared their schedule to meet me within 24 hours."

Also, how did Goldman Sachs Strat team find out about you?

 

Nice story, but very fishy. Especially considering the Darwin quote you used "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." was never said or written by Darwin. Many other things don't add up, but you may have a future in the self-help industry

 

Most likely the need to feel accepted and exclusive. Some people get off on being praised by others, even if it comes from a bunch of random people on a forum. This type of behavior is no different from people who take out a loan to buy a 10k watch when they can't even pay their rent. It's sad really.

 
HedgeHog:

There is 0% chance this is real. There are so many giveaways. Let's move on to a better question - what motivates people to come up with this stuff? Struggling writer? Pure boredom?

I truly hope this guy is an aspiring writer who is writing his first essay for public consumption. Even if that is the case, I feel a little bad for him/her given the uninteresting writing style and the grammatical errors.

The alternatives include someone:

1) Testing the gullibility of this site 2) Who struggles with the difference between fantasy and reality

If #1, bravo. Mission accomplished.

If #2, tough road ahead.

Clearly, reality is a struggle here. However, I won't call the guy a liar. It's not a lie if you believe it to be true.

If you don't know who the sucker is at the table, it's you.
 

Sounds suspicious, especially this part: "Because I generate risk-free profits. Massive zero-risk profits. Soon I'll be making my fund billions and a chunk of change for myself"

Also, you described the end game but spent all of two sentences on the journey. A conversation with a family friend and a lot of time in the basement is a meager description for someone who should be eager to describe the trials and tribulations of learning and discovering something that is very difficult to discover.

Reminds me of that fake "trader" BI and others were reporting about a year and a half ago.

 
-Anonymous:
I sent them a cold email. A few hours later I heard back from the CIO directly. Not only that, but the CIO cc'd my email to various partners (one was the CEO of a $20 billion investment bank) who cleared their schedule to meet me within 24 hours. Within 48 hours, I got an offer and was on-boarded. After offering me over $1000 per day, they asked ... Is that enough?

It took two weeks for Goldman Sachs's strats/quant group to call me for an interview, but by then it was too late. In fact, Goldman Sachs rejected me after I applied many times in the past. They really need to fix their HR department. While they're too busy scouring the cream at the Ivy Leagues for the best a brightest at the top, they miss the treasure buried deep below - and it cost them billions.

So here I am, corner Manhattan-view office, limo transport to work, high-level position at low-profile hedge fund at the age 24. How? Because I generate risk-free profits. Massive zero-risk profits. Soon I'll be making my fund billions and a chunk of change for myself, and that's just the beginning. I'll pull every string, I'll microscope every idea, and I'll work like a machine to vacuum every informational inefficiency that may exist, of which I've found many.

Not only does this not make any sense but it sounds like it was written by Leveraged Sellout

Nice post though, even if it is an elaborate joke. Gotta love the beauty of the internet, anonymity allows anyone to make up anything they want

 

This is the biggest crock of shit I've ever read. How can there possibly be 5 Asian massage parlors on one block? Where do you live, the red light district? Oh, and all this talk of secret hedge funds, and massive market inefficiencies, and your sentimental back story all sound kinda phony too.

 

This reads like a Ben Mezrich novel.

Also, if anyone was able to steal your top secret, self-taught, C++, billion-dollar, GS Strats-desired, better than RenTech/Two Sigma (!!) algorithm and implement it while taking away a significant amount of your profits just from getting coffee with you, I'd rather talk to that guy than you anyways.

I'd take you up on the offer but I need to lead the Knicks to the playoffs, so I'll be busy next month.

 

It's just the way he writes I can't stand. It's filled with cheesy motivational phrases that typically appear in some fraud event where some fuckface nobody who's all talk gives a speech to a bunch of gullible losers, who are then motivated to make a difference in their life for maybe one day then forgets about it.

Nothing adds up here. Move on.

 

It is indeed interesting reading different people's opinions on the matter and it really just shows the difference in experiences and insight between different people and industries. Many opinions have no intellectual merit other than pure jealousy or ignorance and offer little value to determining whether his claims are real and you people just come off as really dumb/immature. Everything the OP describes 100% exists out there - when I was ETF market making at one of the premier prop firms, I saw it first hand. Anyone who trades for a living knows the type of trading the OP describes is real. Secondly, even if the OP is not real, his advice is still good advice so stop with your dumb emotional rants and the OP is anonymous so what positive upside does the OP have. Think with your brains people, not with your emotions or you will never survive the real world. Whether this individual is part of that type of (I'm guessing twitter/news algo signals) trading I do not know with certainty but as a betting man, I'm probably 75 delta this guy is legit or at least he's involved in trading in some way. His comments about the massage parlour is credible as well (only those of you in the hobby and space would understand). There were a few points in the story I am a little skeptical about - like how fast GS reached out to him, etc. Just my 2 cents and kudos to the OP for the success he's achieved if it is indeed credible and the arbitrage you describes persists and your firm is offering you a fair share of the profits.

 
abcasdf:

It is indeed interesting reading different people's opinions on the matter and it really just shows the difference in experiences and insight between different people and industries. Many opinions have no intellectual merit other than pure jealousy or ignorance and offer little value to determining whether his claims are real and you people just come off as really dumb/immature. Everything the OP describes 100% exists out there - when I was ETF market making at one of the premier prop firms, I saw it first hand. Anyone who trades for a living knows the type of trading the OP describes is real. Secondly, even if the OP is not real, his advice is still good advice so stop with your dumb emotional rants and the OP is anonymous so what positive upside does the OP have. Think with your brains people, not with your emotions or you will never survive the real world. Whether this individual is part of that type of (I'm guessing twitter/news algo signals) trading I do not know with certainty but as a betting man, I'm probably 75 delta this guy is legit or at least he's involved in trading in some way. His comments about the massage parlour is credible as well (only those of you in the hobby and space would understand). There were a few points in the story I am a little skeptical about - like how fast GS reached out to him, etc. Just my 2 cents and kudos to the OP for the success he's achieved if it is indeed credible and the arbitrage you describes persists and your firm is offering you a fair share of the profits.

I agree. Not only is this man a self-taught coding/analytics guru. He's also an excellent fiction writer.

 
Banquero:

Whether true or not, I don't care. I will say the majority of WSO users did believe that Dick Fuld was a real user. People will believe what they want at the end of the day. If this is real, well shoot congrats man! Way to prove capitalism and the American dream is still alive and well.

While Dick Fuld is a real person, the real Dick Fuld was not a poster on this site.

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ask-fake-dickfuld-january-2016

The gullibility of users on this site can never be overestimated. Young kids with big dreams and no real world experience make for great suckers. Sorry kid.

 

This looks like High Frequency Trading to me. It is not illegal in the sense that the information is "out there"; it is public. However no one can see it at a milisecond scale, and that's what I think OP means. In fact, a stock price chart looks incredibly different at that scale, with a lot of flat spots no matter how liquid it is in a human time scale. Some of these funds have had 500+ plus trading days without losing money, hence their strategies seem "riskless".

Most of these algorithms are coded by engineers or computer scientists that transitioned into finance. Most have no perception of the ethical implications of what they do. A non-HFT investor cannot possibly trade on such information until it hits his screen. By then, all sorts of trading strats have been executed by HFTs, most against such investor. For all practical purposes, this is Front Running. I was under the impression the SEC was building a tool to be able to see what happens at that speed ('cause they can't right now, therefore it isn't regulated), and also limit the speed at which you can move in the markets. I guess the actual implementation of these rules will take a while, most likely because there has got to be heavy lobbying by such billionaire HFs. In the meantime the SEC gives out "Whistleblower Awards" (the most recent for $750K just this month) to whomever sheds a little light into this HFT. Obviously, nobody involved in the game that actually knows what happens, speaks to the SEC.

I don't know if OP is for real, but it doesn't seem inconceivable to me.

 

1) A college senior self-teaches himself C++ and creates a HFT engine that processes billions of dollars? Please, even with a pharmacist's supply of Adderall, getting through CLRS in one summer and retaining a majority of the information would be a feat. 2) No way it's HFT. In order to backtest the strategy, you'd need the hardware infrastructure. There is no way an independent, retail, college student with loans concerning him has top-tier HFT connectivity nor hardware nor colocation. 3) Billions of dollars = massive volume. All of the trading firms, let alone the top ones like Jump, RenTech, Two Sigma, have their eyes and ears on every single asset class known to man, trying to squeeze out any remaining profitable trades. You think OP was able to move that sort of volume without another market maker taking notice and pushing him out of the market? 4) Trying to be a market maker or engaging in any sort of low-latency trading is a lot less risky if you have more capital to back up your positions. OP said student loans were a problem, so it's not like he could offset his high volume positions with any sort of reasonable hedge. 5) HFT isn't unethical. No one trades as a non-profit organization. If the retail investor could front run (even if that was even a viable strategy anymore), they would. 6) The SEC's inability to regulate HFT and automated trading isn't a result of the lobbying. It's a result of the government's epic inability to recruit and attract the talent necessary to get those skilled enough to understand low-latency trading/market microstructure to work for them, and instead drive them away with low salaries, bureaucracy, and middle managers.

The idea that a college senior with no prior technical experience single-handedly created an HFT platform, obtained the hardware requirements, raised the capital, found a high volume strategy not even the smartest people (who could probably cure cancer and put us on Mars if they worked together and wanted to) could think of is comedy.

 
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I too have a similar story. My girlfriend also broke up with me. Not because she had another, richer boyfriend but because my penis was too small. She also probably had another, richer boyfriend with a bigger penis. But anyways, I thought to myself, if only I had a bigger penis, then she would see. Then she would see I was the cock of the walk and the talk of the town. So, I crafted a plan. First, I would subscribe to every penile enlargement email distribution server, apply to all of their pre-clinical testing trials, and right the book on tumescent testimonials. I was prepared to try anything. Homeopathic, homoerotic, narcotic, intravenous, you name it, I was going gangbusters. How many of those pre-clinical trials worked? I wouldn't know. I didn't get invited to a single one. And you know what? That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I went down to my stepdad's basement and read every book on anatomy, genital biology, gynecology, zoology, animal penises, orangutan titties, you name it. Fortunately, my step dad had already filled bookshelves in his dank basement with these treasure troves of worthless information. If you could make your penis larger by reading about orangutan titties, don't you think orangutans would have the biggest penises of all time? Instead of doing a pre-clinical trial, I got up early and hung a brick from my penis the whole day, 25/8, 369 days a year. I hung a brick until my penis bled. Now, I am 23, with a brick tied to my penis.

 
phil ayshio:

I too have a similar story. My girlfriend also broke up with me. Not because she had another, richer boyfriend but because my penis was too small. She also probably had another, richer boyfriend with a bigger penis. But anyways, I thought to myself, if only I had a bigger penis, then she would see. Then she would see I was the cock of the walk and the talk of the town. So, I crafted a plan. First, I would subscribe to every penile enlargement email distribution server, apply to all of their pre-clinical testing trials, and right the book on tumescent testimonials. I was prepared to try anything. Homeopathic, homoerotic, narcotic, intravenous, you name it, I was going gangbusters. How many of those pre-clinical trials worked? I wouldn't know. I didn't get invited to a single one. And you know what? That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I went down to my stepdad's basement and read every book on anatomy, genital biology, gynecology, zoology, animal penises, orangutan titties, you name it. Fortunately, my step dad had already filled bookshelves in his dank basement with these treasure troves of worthless information. If you could make your penis larger by reading about orangutan titties, don't you think orangutans would have the biggest penises of all time? Instead of doing a pre-clinical trial, I got up early and hung a brick from my penis the whole day, 25/8, 369 days a year. I hung a brick until my penis bled. Now, I am 23, with a brick tied to my penis.

LOL I'm crying.

@OP - Cool story bro. Not sure why you'd waste your time writing up this fairy tale and then offering to "verify" your identity just to gain social proof from random finance brahs on the internet? If I was making mils I wouldn't give a flying fuck about internet kids and would instead be looking to better myself on things you're (likely) lacking on in the real world. Best of luck to you man.

 

Half of these sentences sound literally like Donald Trump was saying them: "I am suspicious of easy strategies. I don't like easy strategies. I don't like easy, period. I like hard things. The harder the better. The more difficult, the more motivated I am to figure it out."

Another quarter sounds like Michael Scott played by Steve Carrell in the Office. Particularly the cringeworthy episode in which he admits to high school students who he promised to pay for their college education and then welches because he makes about $50,000 annual.

The last quarter sounds like my paranoid schizophrenic former entrepreneurship professor.

Fuck this guy. None of this is real and I fear for a couple of you that ate the whole thing up and then started singing praises of how motivating it is. If you've read the book boomerang by Michael Lewis- you gullible idiots are just like the moron bankers from Dusseldorf who were buying shit that @dickfuld was selling after everyone on planet earth realized their worthlessness.

 

I want to believe...

Big fan of Deep Work, whether this is legit or not, the concept still stands.

Associate at Family Office "Investing is not a game of Possibilities but of Probabilities."
 

I've spent way too much of my time on the internet. It has not benefited me whatsoever in meatspace, but has given me an edge when it comes to reading posts on forums and imageboards. Well meme'd my friend.

 

I usually takes stories like these with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't rule it out completely.

I have a close friend who left his job as a trader at an algorithmic trading shop at a relatively young age to start his own firm. His educational background was in a technical field of study (at an Ivy League school, if it makes a difference) and he has very strong programming skills.

He's got a decent number of employees now (in the double-digits). These are all people with very impressive technical backgrounds who were all superstars at their former name-brand firms such as D.E. Shaw.

No idea what specific strategies his firm is using, but I suspect it mainly involves trading US equity index futures, fixed income contracts and other liquid contracts. If I had to classify his fund as either "discretionary" or "systematic," it would probably be "systematic" and he claims he is able to generate low volatility returns that are uncorrelated to the markets they invest in and uncorrelated with other hedge funds in their space. Average holding period (again, this is speculation on my part) is probably between 1 to 3 days.

He's making enough money to not only keep the lights on at the rented office space but also pay himself and his other employees mid six-figure salaries so he's definitely doing well.

You will probably see this guy on the cover of Forbes one day with the title "James Who?" with the subtitle "How [-insert friend's name here-] surpassed James Simons as the New Quant King on Wall Street"

 

“They really need to fix their HR department. While they’re too busy scouring the cream at the Ivy Leagues for the best a brightest at the top, they miss the treasure buried deep below – and it cost them billions.“

Don’t agree there. Top schools are a powerful signaling mechanism. Scouting through 400 million people in the hopes to find a hidden gem (a hidden gem that didn’t make it to a good college or has any other proof of his ability) is quite expensive. 

 

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"The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly" - Robert A. Wilson | "If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

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