Which firms are most quantitative: DRW, IMC, Virtu, Flow Traders, Optiver?
Currently graduating from school, looking to break into prop trading without much finance background (but strong quantitative skills stats, math, cs).
Got offers from a few or all of these firms, but I'm not sure which would be best for me. I'm hoping to use my background to its fullest potential. Which of these would be considered the most quantitative in nature (i.e., coding and a good amount of statistical research potential)?
If there are any employees at these firms, would I be able to PM you directly to get some sense of the skill-sets that people find important at each company? I appreciate any and all responses, thank you!
Hey sjgli78, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I am sad to say, but this thread is lonely, so thought I'd post in here to try and help out. Some potential topics that might help:
If those topics were completely useless, don't blame me, blame my programmers...
None of these are ultra-mathy, but the I would guess math caliber is something like Optiver > IMC > DRW > Virtu > Flow? FYI Optiver isn't shy about culling juniors so something to think about if you don't have even internship experience in prop.
My friend just got an intern offer from Optiver. Not a single probability question. He said Virtu asked quite a few. Optiver was more market-making exercises and mental math.
I don't think IMC is math-y. Their trading strategies are very infrastructure and latency driven.
Isn't the nature of latency driven trading very data-analysis oriented? I'm not at IMC but worked for a competitor.
You can get 100us response times with off the shelf hardware now, so I think the big differentiator between HFT firms are their research teams
It depends on your mindset. The shorter the timeframe, the more real data there is and the more stationary the data is per unit of trading time. Thus there would be more value in various forms of data analysis such as machine learning. So someone who likes more of a data-driven and engineering challenge should look at HFT and especially UHF shops. Someone with a more of an experimental scientists mindset (i.e. world is a dirty and vague place), should look into a more markets-driven voodoo done by people like myself at lower frequency places.
Velit vero dolorem eum amet qui ut. Atque et hic et eos. Molestiae aspernatur omnis dolores harum sit sapiente nisi qui. Qui ducimus qui aperiam molestias neque. Ullam eos laudantium ullam qui perspiciatis vel ea. Dolor hic et voluptatem et repudiandae placeat earum officiis.
Officia reprehenderit rem dicta ducimus debitis commodi dolorem. Quasi possimus labore aut. Facilis itaque accusamus qui enim.
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...