Trending Content - Hedge Fund Forum
Career Resources
WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
June 30, 2026
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
High Finance Applications
Guaranteed
Get at least one offer GUARANTEED
- 1:1 support
- 92% success rate
- 2,000+ mentor network
- Unlimited Live bootcamps
- AI for resume + LinkedIn
- Networking automation tools
- HireVue simulation tool
- Full course library
- Private Slack community
- 20hrs of mocks
- + much more...
Hi ironnchef, just because I'm a bot doesn't mean I don't have feelings...I'm hoping these links are helpful. If not, feel free to throw monkey shit at me...
You're welcome.
The short answer is as soon as possible. The long answer is: it depends on the strategy. Fundamental style strategies you should start trading within a month of hiring. For systematic quant style strategies, it can take over 6 months to really ramp up to your desired risk target. The PM should have explained this in his interview so the investment committee at these MM understand his timeframe to profitability.
The main limiting factor is how fast does it take for you to set up all the infrastructure to support your trading strategy? The median PM tenure at these platforms is 9 months. Under this median scenario, the PM set up in month 1, ran another month of test trades, then suffered a 6 month drawdown, and finally took another month to liquidate his portfolio while getting fired. Rinse and repeat.
Inaccurate. Most reputable MMs give you plenty of time to get set up and comfortable before you start trading. Citadel famously requires you to hire a team, build out models, have your coverage universe approved... so many fundamental guys end up taking 6-9 months until they start trading. Most other shops, I would say 2-6 months.
Not true. I joined one of the major MM maybe 2 years ago. Took us 6 months to set up (3 if you don't include hiring new analysts). New oil PM in the office started trading 1 week after he was hired. The other quant team took 3 months to start trading. The overhead infrastructure costs for fundamental traders is much lower, so they should be trading fairly fast in my estimation.
I have detailed info from the MO of my firm that the median PM tenure here is 9 months. By your logic the median PM is fired almost before he starts trading ...
One of the big 4 MM I know has given 12mths to setup with possibility to extend to 18mths but requires approval.
What do you consider to be the big for MM? Citadel, MLP and who else?
point72 and balyasny. Exoduspoint which was launched ~!2 years a is also pretty big but they are mostly a FICC shop.
Any other names on the smaller side? I know of Schonfeld and Centiva but there have to be more.
*Caxton: believe more of a macro pod shop * Bluecrest: i beleive they are a multimager, not 100% positive) *Marshall Wace: focused on equities, pretty sure they are an MM *Verition Fund Management: founded by the guy that was in charge of Amaranth Advisors. * First New York Capital: more of a prop trading shop but they do have teams that take outside capital *Soros: family office have they multistrategy set up *Bluefin Trading: market making/prop trading pod shop - had a good fi etf biz but team has mostly been poached up by banks
bluecrest is family office now.
FNY is prop and books are two orders of magnitude smaller
soros is family office
bluefin is prop. Not a lot of visibility but again much smaller teams. A lot of prop/market makers in chicago have been building up risk-taking desks due to capacity constraints and decrease volume on the MM side. Not all with the same success.
Bluecrest is really more like a family office now.
MW is not a MM.
Verition is but is smaller.
Centiva is. But limited equity exposure other than quant and index arb. More FI and others.
Among MLP, BAM, Exoduspoint and Schonfeld, are they equally reputable? Any highlight on their respective strength as MMs that are attractive to PMs?
Velit minima deserunt similique nihil aspernatur. Et autem saepe quod non velit voluptatem.
Autem ducimus quia adipisci corrupti alias qui debitis. Blanditiis ut doloremque exercitationem et expedita exercitationem. Officiis eum quaerat numquam. Aut aut earum aliquid aut quos.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...