Can someone explain what "quant" finance means?
Are you just working with equations/math? Is the pay higher since it seems to be a lot more difficult? Also, how is this different from "regular" (excuse my ignorance) investment banking?
And what is the path that people usually take (financial analyst -> associate -> vp -> etc.) called? My understanding was that this did not require a great deal of math.
Sorry if I sound like an idiot; I'm just a freshman in college trying to plan his future career.
dont get stuck on the name "quant". in fact, the word "quantitative" is being used to the point of becoming meaningless.
to answer your questions,
1) no, you don't just work with equations and math. you better be good at programming cause you are gonna need more than excel to implement most ideas that people consider to be "quant" 2) the pay is higher than say a normal analysts, but considering that instead of spending 5-8 years getting that pHD you could have been far wealthier working right out of college. 3) quant finance vs. ibanking. well, quant finance usually applies to trading and structuring since that's where all the modeling comes to use. I guess you could consider the bankers that structured CDOs to be quants but we all know how that turned out.
as for "planning" your future career, your time would be far better spent grabbing a few books and seeing whether you actually enjoy this shit. there's nothing worse than being cornered into a job that you hate, and that can easily happen if you go the "quant" route.
Couldn't you be a quant with a comp sci degree, or even a finance/engineering/mathematics degree with a firm handle on programming(C, Java)? I've seen a lot of quant positions that don't require a PhD's.
You could be, but I think what aachimp is referring to is the fact that a lot of funds have a PhD requirement for applicants.
At.a bare minimum, funds require that you have at least done your masters in econ, stats, math, physics, engineering, etc. before they'll consider you for a position. In rare cases where you've already done SIGNIFICANT research or are a Putnam Fellow, have already built a high-frequency trading program on your own time, or something along those lines, you could get a quant job without further education. I've heard of D.E. Shaw asking professors to recommend a student, and the company approaches the student. Once you're in the field, further education is usually not required to keep working.
Anyone know of good C / Algorithmic Trading books? I saw a book a while back and purchased it, its a plum colored book: "Automated Trading Systems" but its horse shit, IMO. It was like 90 bucks, and all it does is explain the HIGH LEVEL model of a black box system.... as in a diagram with 3 boxes in it, each one labeled... Data Feed, Algorithmic Engine, Execution. and a bunch of fluff to take up the rest of the pages.
You aren't gonna find a meaningful book to walk you through building a trading system. If that was the case, it wouldn't be difficult at all. Your best bet is to scour papers and finance/programming forums for some help.
aachimp-- I meant more along the lines of a book that teaches C in a fashion most in-tune to the methodologies used in building such a program.
On an aside, I was looking at some summer courses at Columbia and the following was listed in the Class Syllabus for Analysis of Algorithms as the grading policy:
We will employ a somewhat unusual grading scheme. Each homework assignment will have n problems, and each problem will be worth 10 points. You will be required to attempt any m problems. (The parameters n and m will vary from assignment to assignment.) These m problems will be graded in the usual manner: you will receive full or partial credit out of 10 points. You may also choose to attempt the remaining n-m problems. These problems will be graded as follows. Say that you would have received a score of j points if this problem had been graded normally. If j is less than 6, then you will receive zero out of zero points, as if you had not attempted the problem. Otherwise, you will receive 2j out of 2j points. Note that attempting extra problems can only help you. Your grade on an assignment will be reported by two numbers: the points you obtain and the points you effectively attempt. Your homework grade at the end of the term will be calculated as the sum of the points you obtained divided by the sum of the points you effectively attempted.
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