I was reading on another site which mentioned how desk quants aspire to become traders in their career. I always thought they were the same (i.e. a desk quant is trader with superior quantitative and modeling skills).
Could someone shed some light on the differences?
Thanks
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desk quants/strategists/etc, whatever they are called at a given company, are generally tasked with supporting traders with their more difficult quantitative problems. Traders still own the P/L and make the trading decisions in this situation.
I don't know much about the compensation of these two groups relative to one another, but my impression is that the group that has ownership of the P/L is the one that is making most of the $$. In this case, it would make sense that most desk quants would want to be traders.
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The most important difference is that the group with the direct ownership of and responsibility for the PNL (the traders) most of the time have formulaic compensation (i.e. a cut of the PNL). Everyone else's compensation, including the desk quants, is discretionary. In light of the above, it's reasonably easy to see which way aspirations normally tend (whether rightly or wrongly).
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