Any space for the "regular" guys?

Since hedge funds and a lot of trading jobs today are dominated by quants do the people with an econ/finance deree without or little programming knowledge have any potential in the HF/Trading industry?
A lot of long/short equity funds are also hiring quants from what i have been reading. Are the days where an Einhorn or an Ackman could make it big over?

I really need to make a decision whether I move in the PE or HF path. Looks like PE seems more welcoming. xD

 
knowledgeispower:
Since hedge funds and a lot of trading jobs today are dominated by quants do the people with an econ/finance deree without or little programming knowledge have any potential in the HF/Trading industry? A lot of long/short equity funds are also hiring quants from what i have been reading. Are the days where an Einhorn or an Ackman could make it big over?

I really need to make a decision whether I move in the PE or HF path. Looks like PE seems more welcoming. xD

Don't be so short-term focused. The quant field remains in growth mode while the other strategies have been stagnant/declining as they struggled with returns. There has been a shift recently (I think last year, a lot of quant funds underperformed), with value strategies getting much more attention. Funds allocation seems to follow a retrospective cycle, getting into whatever just had the best returns.

 

Also remember that during the crash, tons of hedge funds failed using quant/automated strategies precisely because those strategies only work within certain preset parameters, but when a black swan event takes place you still need a human being to be able to navigate nasty waters.

 

Depends on whether you work for a Renaissance, Fortress, Citadel, or DE Shaw, or if you work for one of the more boutique funds.

The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.

The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.

PE has another 5-10 years before this hits them too, but turnarounds really follow a pretty straightforward strategy- cut costs while preserving the effectiveness of R&D and the customer experience. This is something that, quite frankly, a quant with an engineering background should be doing- largely using machine learning algorithms- rather than an MBA trying to scrap out an L1 regression.

The bottom line is that except in a few cases, computers are now better than humans at investing. The hedge funds have replicated the finance undergrad/MBA and made a bunch of copies of him, and that is doing a lot of the short-term trading now. There is still room for normal people, but probably not in the same traditional roles. Welcome to Skynet.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
Depends on whether you work for a Renaissance, Fortress, Citadel, or DE Shaw, or if you work for one of the more boutique funds.

The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.

The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.

PE has another 5-10 years before this hits them too, but turnarounds really follow a pretty straightforward strategy- cut costs while preserving the effectiveness of R&D and the customer experience. This is something that, quite frankly, a quant with an engineering background should be doing- largely using machine learning algorithms- rather than an MBA trying to scrap out an L1 regression.

The bottom line is that except in a few cases, computers are now better than humans at investing. The hedge funds have replicated the finance undergrad/MBA and made a bunch of copies of him, and that is doing a lot of the short-term trading now. There is still room for normal people, but probably not in the same traditional roles. Welcome to Skynet.

I foresee a more quantitative focus in analyzing bigger data sets in PE. There are going to be more software vendors that offer business analytic software that utilizes machine learning. I doubt you will need to code C++; a user friendly GUI will likely make much of this type of analysis open to more people.

Isn't that the idea behind software like Palantir - to make high level analysis simple and intuitive?

Please don't quote Patrick Bateman.
 
IlliniProgrammer:
The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.
You're kidding, right? Right?
 
IlliniProgrammer:
Depends on whether you work for a Renaissance, Fortress, Citadel, or DE Shaw, or if you work for one of the more boutique funds.

The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.

The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.

PE has another 5-10 years before this hits them too, but turnarounds really follow a pretty straightforward strategy- cut costs while preserving the effectiveness of R&D and the customer experience. This is something that, quite frankly, a quant with an engineering background should be doing- largely using machine learning algorithms- rather than an MBA trying to scrap out an L1 regression.

The bottom line is that except in a few cases, computers are now better than humans at investing. The hedge funds have replicated the finance undergrad/MBA and made a bunch of copies of him, and that is doing a lot of the short-term trading now. There is still room for normal people, but probably not in the same traditional roles. Welcome to Skynet.

You have great advice on saving money, but should probably stray from advising anyone on hedge funds, because you're spreading misinformation. Most small funds aren't the types of chop shops you described, nor do they necessarily hire MBAs. In fact, MBAs are typically looked down on at most HFs. Furthermore, most large shops aren't quant-focused. Even when it comes to "sophisticated" large shops, the hedging they do is actually rather simplistic.

No, computers aren't better than humans at investing. They're better at scalping, but that's about it. Outside of a few exceptions, most quant funds do NOT succeed. Unfortunately, I can't provide data on the success rate of quants vs. human-managed shops, but suffice it to say that out of the top 25 performing funds each year, the vast majority tend to be human-controlled.

 
DontMakeMeShortYou:
suffice it to say that out of the top 25 performing funds each year, the vast majority tend to be human-controlled.
In fairness, the fraction of AUM that's being directed by pure quant shops is pretty small (I think about 20 percent, but I might be wrong) so this might be simply a form of selection bias.
 
SirTradesaLot][quote=IlliniProgrammer:
The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.
Most of these funds are not stat arb or HFT funds. http://www.thehedgefundjournal.com/sites/default/files/hfj-us50-2012.pd…] Bridgewater, JPAM, GSAM, DE Shaw, Citadel, RennTech all have large stat arb groups. And twenty years ago the rankings were completely dominated by more traditional hedge funds.

I'm not saying they've completely taken over the AUM yet, but you can see the trend.

 
Best Response
IlliniProgrammer:
Depends on whether you work for a Renaissance, Fortress, Citadel, or DE Shaw, or if you work for one of the more boutique funds.

The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.

The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.

PE has another 5-10 years before this hits them too, but turnarounds really follow a pretty straightforward strategy- cut costs while preserving the effectiveness of R&D and the customer experience. This is something that, quite frankly, a quant with an engineering background should be doing- largely using machine learning algorithms- rather than an MBA trying to scrap out an L1 regression.

The bottom line is that except in a few cases, computers are now better than humans at investing. The hedge funds have replicated the finance undergrad/MBA and made a bunch of copies of him, and that is doing a lot of the short-term trading now. There is still room for normal people, but probably not in the same traditional roles. Welcome to Skynet.

I have said almost nothing negative on these forums for over two years now but this is just ridiculous. Your holier than thou rants about drinking PBR on the PATH train, living in a Jersey City apartment, and one day living off 40k a year on a farm in Iowa are probably a good counterbalance to the college kids who think Wall Street really is just dressing fancy, cocaine, and blow jobs from hookers in limousines. At the same time, finding some kind of superiority in the fact your wallet could turn a lump of coal into a Tiffany diamond is annoying, and the fact that you are in a MSF program makes you feel like you have a better understanding of allocating capital than people who have 50+ year track records doing things a "traditional way" is blatant narcissism.

There are lots of ways to make money. I acknowledge that the people at RenTech are brilliant, and they deserve to charge exorbitant fees. Despite this, I would trust my capital to Klarman, Einhorn, or Buffet in a heartbeat over any quant fund. The guys at LTCM were the absolute best, multiple Nobel prize winners, the supposed best risk management in the business, etc. Baupost and Berkshire and may never have years where they are up 50% going forward, but barring a nuclear disaster I'm positive I'll never wake up one morning and see BRK quoted at 0, or that Seth Klarman will have to write a letter to his investors saying that he blew up. Finance at the end of the day boils down into two really simple things, buying a piece of something or loaning money, with an incredible amount of human, industry specific, and macroeconomic factors converging. There are many attributes and risks that can't be modeled. How would you model the fact that Aubrey McLendon is a scumbag who secretly had favorable financing terms to invest in the very best wells after initial output data was collected but not yet published? How would you model that Lehman's disclosures and footnotes were shadier than financial statements of a Camden pawn shop? How does a computer recognize that a business has incredible pricing power because the customer base has a largely intangible attachment?

Do you really think that an engineer with degrees in Math/CS/Physics etc could a better private equity operator than Schwarzman or Kravis? Buying a controlling stake in companies often requires having to deal with executives that are very strong-willed and resistant to change. Is the quant super hero going to soothe the ego of the CEO, negotiate with the labor union, identify which customers to target, which ones to abandon, work with bankers to sell the thing in 5 years, etc. I'll bet every nickel I have that PE will not be dismantled and replaced by a bunch of guys with quant backgrounds. It is an incredibly people intensive business. I'd fucking love to hear some quant guy tell Carl Icahn he could do a better job of turning around a business than him. The guy probably can't even spell heteroskedasticity, but he was up 35% in 2011 and over 20% last year (these are off the top of my head and I was out awhile tonight).

Regarding hedge funds, there are room for quant guys and traditional shops that care about things like quality of management and their incentives, the moat of the business model, pricing power, and a logical explanation for favorable industry economics. If you think that "traditional" hedge funds operate base on the material taught in MBA classes you are sorely mistaken. I've never built a dividend discount model, calculated an F score, utilized Treynor-Black or Black Litterman, modeled an efficient frontier etc in my time at a hedge fund.

I hope you find a job you really like after grad school and make a ton of money figuring out how to use computers to predict the prices of esoteric financial instruments. You are 100%, unequivocally wrong in your quoted assessment though.

 
Gray Fox:
IlliniProgrammer:
Depends on whether you work for a Renaissance, Fortress, Citadel, or DE Shaw, or if you work for one of the more boutique funds.

The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.

The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.

PE has another 5-10 years before this hits them too, but turnarounds really follow a pretty straightforward strategy- cut costs while preserving the effectiveness of R&D and the customer experience. This is something that, quite frankly, a quant with an engineering background should be doing- largely using machine learning algorithms- rather than an MBA trying to scrap out an L1 regression.

The bottom line is that except in a few cases, computers are now better than humans at investing. The hedge funds have replicated the finance undergrad/MBA and made a bunch of copies of him, and that is doing a lot of the short-term trading now. There is still room for normal people, but probably not in the same traditional roles. Welcome to Skynet.

I have said almost nothing negative on these forums for over two years now but this is just ridiculous. Your holier than thou rants about drinking PBR on the PATH train, living in a Jersey City apartment, and one day living off 40k a year on a farm in Iowa are probably a good counterbalance to the college kids who think Wall Street really is just dressing fancy, cocaine, and blow jobs from hookers in limousines. At the same time, finding some kind of superiority in the fact your wallet could turn a lump of coal into a Tiffany diamond is annoying, and the fact that you are in a MSF program makes you feel like you have a better understanding of allocating capital than people who have 50+ year track records doing things a "traditional way" is blatant narcissism.

There are lots of ways to make money. I acknowledge that the people at RenTech are brilliant, and they deserve to charge exorbitant fees. Despite this, I would trust my capital to Klarman, Einhorn, or Buffet in a heartbeat over any quant fund. The guys at LTCM were the absolute best, multiple Nobel prize winners, the supposed best risk management in the business, etc. Baupost and Berkshire and may never have years where they are up 50% going forward, but barring a nuclear disaster I'm positive I'll never wake up one morning and see BRK quoted at 0, or that Seth Klarman will have to write a letter to his investors saying that he blew up. Finance at the end of the day boils down into two really simple things, buying a piece of something or loaning money, with an incredible amount of human, industry specific, and macroeconomic factors converging. There are many attributes and risks that can't be modeled. How would you model the fact that Aubrey McLendon is a scumbag who secretly had favorable financing terms to invest in the very best wells after initial output data was collected but not yet published? How would you model that Lehman's disclosures and footnotes were shadier than financial statements of a Camden pawn shop? How does a computer recognize that a business has incredible pricing power because the customer base has a largely intangible attachment?

Do you really think that an engineer with degrees in Math/CS/Physics etc could a better private equity operator than Schwarzman or Kravis? Buying a controlling stake in companies often requires having to deal with executives that are very strong-willed and resistant to change. Is the quant super hero going to soothe the ego of the CEO, negotiate with the labor union, identify which customers to target, which ones to abandon, work with bankers to sell the thing in 5 years, etc. I'll bet every nickel I have that PE will not be dismantled and replaced by a bunch of guys with quant backgrounds. It is an incredibly people intensive business. I'd fucking love to hear some quant guy tell Carl Icahn he could do a better job of turning around a business than him. The guy probably can't even spell heteroskedasticity, but he was up 35% in 2011 and over 20% last year (these are off the top of my head and I was out awhile tonight).

Regarding hedge funds, there are room for quant guys and traditional shops that care about things like quality of management and their incentives, the moat of the business model, pricing power, and a logical explanation for favorable industry economics. If you think that "traditional" hedge funds operate base on the material taught in MBA classes you are sorely mistaken. I've never built a dividend discount model, calculated an F score, utilized Treynor-Black or Black Litterman, modeled an efficient frontier etc in my time at a hedge fund.

I hope you find a job you really like after grad school and make a ton of money figuring out how to use computers to predict the prices of esoteric financial instruments. You are 100%, unequivocally wrong in your quoted assessment though.

\

What a beauty.

 
Gray Fox:
IlliniProgrammer:
Depends on whether you work for a Renaissance, Fortress, Citadel, or DE Shaw, or if you work for one of the more boutique funds.

The large funds tend to be running stat arb and HFT, and yes that requires some programming skill and quant background.

The smaller shops tend to involve MBAs randomly stepping out the room for a few minutes with their cell phones, and walking back in with a bizarre announcement on how some biotech stock is the next big hot ticket, buying, and watching the firm get FDA approval for something three days later.

PE has another 5-10 years before this hits them too, but turnarounds really follow a pretty straightforward strategy- cut costs while preserving the effectiveness of R&D and the customer experience. This is something that, quite frankly, a quant with an engineering background should be doing- largely using machine learning algorithms- rather than an MBA trying to scrap out an L1 regression.

The bottom line is that except in a few cases, computers are now better than humans at investing. The hedge funds have replicated the finance undergrad/MBA and made a bunch of copies of him, and that is doing a lot of the short-term trading now. There is still room for normal people, but probably not in the same traditional roles. Welcome to Skynet.

I have said almost nothing negative on these forums for over two years now but this is just ridiculous. Your holier than thou rants about drinking PBR on the PATH train, living in a Jersey City apartment, and one day living off 40k a year on a farm in Iowa are probably a good counterbalance to the college kids who think Wall Street really is just dressing fancy, cocaine, and blow jobs from hookers in limousines. At the same time, finding some kind of superiority in the fact your wallet could turn a lump of coal into a Tiffany diamond is annoying, and the fact that you are in a MSF program makes you feel like you have a better understanding of allocating capital than people who have 50+ year track records doing things a "traditional way" is blatant narcissism.

There are lots of ways to make money. I acknowledge that the people at RenTech are brilliant, and they deserve to charge exorbitant fees. Despite this, I would trust my capital to Klarman, Einhorn, or Buffet in a heartbeat over any quant fund. The guys at LTCM were the absolute best, multiple Nobel prize winners, the supposed best risk management in the business, etc. Baupost and Berkshire and may never have years where they are up 50% going forward, but barring a nuclear disaster I'm positive I'll never wake up one morning and see BRK quoted at 0, or that Seth Klarman will have to write a letter to his investors saying that he blew up. Finance at the end of the day boils down into two really simple things, buying a piece of something or loaning money, with an incredible amount of human, industry specific, and macroeconomic factors converging. There are many attributes and risks that can't be modeled. How would you model the fact that Aubrey McLendon is a scumbag who secretly had favorable financing terms to invest in the very best wells after initial output data was collected but not yet published? How would you model that Lehman's disclosures and footnotes were shadier than financial statements of a Camden pawn shop? How does a computer recognize that a business has incredible pricing power because the customer base has a largely intangible attachment?

Do you really think that an engineer with degrees in Math/CS/Physics etc could a better private equity operator than Schwarzman or Kravis? Buying a controlling stake in companies often requires having to deal with executives that are very strong-willed and resistant to change. Is the quant super hero going to soothe the ego of the CEO, negotiate with the labor union, identify which customers to target, which ones to abandon, work with bankers to sell the thing in 5 years, etc. I'll bet every nickel I have that PE will not be dismantled and replaced by a bunch of guys with quant backgrounds. It is an incredibly people intensive business. I'd fucking love to hear some quant guy tell Carl Icahn he could do a better job of turning around a business than him. The guy probably can't even spell heteroskedasticity, but he was up 35% in 2011 and over 20% last year (these are off the top of my head and I was out awhile tonight).

Regarding hedge funds, there are room for quant guys and traditional shops that care about things like quality of management and their incentives, the moat of the business model, pricing power, and a logical explanation for favorable industry economics. If you think that "traditional" hedge funds operate base on the material taught in MBA classes you are sorely mistaken. I've never built a dividend discount model, calculated an F score, utilized Treynor-Black or Black Litterman, modeled an efficient frontier etc in my time at a hedge fund.

I hope you find a job you really like after grad school and make a ton of money figuring out how to use computers to predict the prices of esoteric financial instruments. You are 100%, unequivocally wrong in your quoted assessment though.

Brilliant post!!! +SB!!!

 
knowledgeispower:
And in the years to come will the MBA/CFA guy find work in the hedge fund industry or is it just going to be the Comp Sc/Math Phd guy?

Long term investing will always be dominated by people, period. Volume will always be dominated by PCs, but it will be impossible for them to be 100% of the market.

Honestly, if one were to take a guess in the PE industry I think down the road top firms will rely on DCF and and Excel based projections less and less. Eventually PE will be basing prices/deals on probabilities associated with up coming event and past events and will be able to factor currency rates/interest rates/political events on a global scale into their models to optimize pricing. So it will be hugeeee data set analysis on evaluations not just looking at countable documents; but, instead the countable documents will be analyzed on a more exotic statistical way other than regression etc. They will infact question the way the distribution constants were calculated.

But, you will still decide things based on a gut feeling as man as always done for centuries, but you will have more data to make the decision the utmost optimal value for oneself.

 

there are plenty of l/s equity/credit guys employing fundamental analysis to generate returns. I don't know what you are talking about in terms of those guys having no place in the hf world.

 
knowledgeispower:
Since hedge funds and a lot of trading jobs today are dominated by quants do the people with an econ/finance deree without or little programming knowledge have any potential in the HF/Trading industry? A lot of long/short equity funds are also hiring quants from what i have been reading. Are the days where an Einhorn or an Ackman could make it big over?

I really need to make a decision whether I move in the PE or HF path. Looks like PE seems more welcoming. xD

Having quantitative skills is definitely useful (if not required), but don't drink too much of the quant kool aid...

Computers are great at automating relatively simple tasks and executing them very quickly. That's basically what the high-frequency trading/statistical arbitrage firms do: they train software to do some simple arbitrage, using historical data.

But software is completely useless when it comes to interpreting new and complex information. Yes, some long/short equity funds are indeed hiring quants to help the analysts crunch numbers. But it doesn't mean that quants are making the investment decisions.

 

I really think the future is bright for a dynamic programmer/mathematician/econ&finance guy.

Look, the fact is that technology appears to follow an exponential growth function and if you want to be in the most competitive field then guess what....you need to be competitive.

Speaking as a math/econ&finance guy with only a small amount of programming guess what I'm doing now...Learning programming. It is a bit of an exaggeration to think that the world will go completely to straight HFT/Quant traders who have no knowledge of markets. I really think it is healthy arbitrage right now forcing markets to be much more accurate.

How bullshit is it to hear a finance guy saying a price will go up because the company normally trades at some multiple of its ebitda...That shit is dead. Those people were idiots. I want to hear there is a 65% probability that the price goes up by 10-15% using current macro/industry/company metrics. a computer calculates all this in polynomial time (CS people can correct me if im wrong). And given that probability and our risk tolerance this is the amount that should be put into play to keep risk levels steady.

Its a new time now, embrace the fact that the meritocracy of trading has become more efficient. Market corrections are faster and more accurate meaning the probability of huge swings should decline. All we have to worry about is the black swan events which should be more effectively modeled with jump diffusion models.

Our economic models are converging to match the models that traders price with and risk levels are being calculated more effectively .Chances are we laugh at the days that we used to endure days of 3% swings in the s&p.

 

Those two posts by IP and jktecon are the perfect, crystal-clear example of why smart analysts who look at the big picture will always be able to make money. Most nerds have so much hubris that they usually run full-speed into thick brick walls (do I really need to mention the gigantic failures of the smartest guys in the room again?)

 

No one answered my post. Why programming? I mean I certainly understand the applicability now and its use, but it is not a panacea for financial analysts. As data analysis evolves there will be more off the shelf tools to conduct high level analysis. It's like the early days of computers, why pull up a command prompt when you can click on an icon.

With the exponential curve of technology...do you think a generalist who has taken some programming courses will be able to construct something useful? Best of breed programmers will focus on their niche and join their work together.

It's like way back in the day when your barber was your surgeon/doctor...

Please don't quote Patrick Bateman.
 
DBCooper:
No one answered my post. Why programming? I mean I certainly understand the applicability now and its use, but it is not a panacea for financial analysts. As data analysis evolves there will be more off the shelf tools to conduct high level analysis. It's like the early days of computers, why pull up a command prompt when you can click on an icon.

With the exponential curve of technology...do you think a generalist who has taken some programming courses will be able to construct something useful? Best of breed programmers will focus on their niche and join their work together.

It's like way back in the day when your barber was your surgeon/doctor...

Programming is easy, I can teach it to a 3rd grader.

Programming optimally is a different story.

 

Well, there's programming and programming. Knowing some VBA, or even some Python or R can be quite useful for many data analysis tasks, and it's not that hard.

Knowing C++, advanced algorithms and the like is overkill for most people working in finance.

 
Schumpeter:
Well, there's programming and programming. Knowing some VBA, or even some Python or R can be quite useful for many data analysis tasks, and it's not that hard.

Knowing C++, advanced algorithms and the like is overkill for most people working in finance.

I disagree, somewhat. For a typical financier, even one at an investment bank, it's overkill to expect them to know algorithms perfectly.

But the truth is that good algorithms can be worth millions in finance and on the buy side that gets reflected a bit better.

 

Schumpeter seems to share my logic on the importance of programming for future business people. No one is saying you need to learn to program highly efficient algorithms in c++. And certainly no one called it a cure-all so IDK where you got those sentiments.

I am advocating that you understand the way a computer operates. Most importantly no human being in the 21st century should be unaware of a basic do,while / for loop. Even if the computer becomes completely able to do what you want it to because of better operating systems you will likely still need these basic understandings.

Knowledge of stacks, queues, lists, linked lists and the like will probably be reserved for hardened professionals as it is now, but as a society I do believe most people allow themselves to be handicapped by the computer.

The shear fact that you think you are competing against arguably the greatest tool mankind has ever devised is a problem. Understand the machine and you will see its beauty, It is an efficient communicator. Needless to say a financial analyst who has abilities with VBA/excel is an asset.

AND YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO UNTIL YOU TRY IT! We don't know what goes on in your office/what tools people use/how they look at it. Programming is not as hard as you are probably making it in your mind. The first 10 hours may be arduous but from there it becomes fun. Build slowly, it's like learning to write an essay, but keep this in mind. If you reach even a third grade literacy rate, you will be considered a genius.

 

Fair enough guys. That is my view of the role MBAs and the well connected but otherwise incompetent often play in hedge funds. At the larger funds there aren't that many MBAs, so the people claiming MBAs and ordinary people with good work ethics and some combination of eliteness and people skills are all over hedge funds must be at the smaller shops.

 

An MFE would be complete overkill and you most likely don't have the background if you are making these kinds of arguments, so it would not be worth it. Learn programming on your own.

First look at some cool initial programs that people have done that inspire you. Figure out easy problems you have that you think a computer could help you with (e.g. solutions of linear equations, checking dv01 calculations, value of a company using different ratios and keeping other things constant). Everything I listed there can be done with fairly straightforward algorithms that you could probably learn in the next 24 hours.

Look for inspiration first. You don't have to take our word for how useful programming is. Once you have the inspiration you are well on the road to becoming a programmer.

 

You have to find an edge. We are telling you to use the most useful tool in finance outside your brain (aka the computer) to help you in that endgame goal.

The good MFE grads will find their edge, the bad ones will be glorified IT professionals at best. The good finance guy who knows some econ math and programming will be an asset when he has ideas. The bad finance guy who went to school still thinking that Rambo is the quintessential trading personality will probably be a bank teller (or an investment banker if he went to harvard...same difference).

My opinion is that there is no way that an educated businessman ever evaluates the guy who can program (even if slightly inferior otherwise but quite close in terms of education and work ethic) lower than a straight finance jock. You still need personality though so don't ever think that programming is now the end all. I and most other people here, I believe, are advocating a balance. Learn to speak, how to make friends, a decent amount of math, some programming, the finance and the economics, and learn how to lose but still keep the determination to be a winner.

The 21st century businessman...He's like everything else in this new renaissance, look at the old, learn from it but do not complacently try to fit the old mold...your goal is to look like you've broken it completely while still actually adhering to its core doctrines(they haven't changed throughout human history).

 
Do you really think that an engineer with degrees in Math/CS/Physics etc could a better private equity operator than Schwarzman or Kravis?
Do you think electronic execution can really beat a brilliant floor broker?

People believe what they want to believe, and it's tough to believe that the machines are better at making decisions than humans when it comes to finance. We've had a lot of advances in machine learning over the past couple years. It's also a lot more cost effective because machines don't need bonuses or salaries for that matter.

Oh well, I caught more flack two years ago for saying that the trend was probably going to be the same or lower comps and fewer people employed in banking and that there was nothing wrong with saving $20 on a pair of jeans by walking 500 feet. Nobody wanted to believe that comps would continue to remain lower than 2007/2008, but look what happened. Of course, this is a decade-long trend, not a two year trend.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
People believe what they want to believe, and it's tough to believe that the machines are better at making decisions than humans when it comes to finance. We've had a lot of advances in machine learning over the past couple years. It's also a lot more cost effective because machines don't need bonuses or salaries for that matter.

Machine learning is OK if you have lots of historical data and don't expect too many structural breaks. So, yes, it's great for some forms of arbitrage like statistical arbitrage. But it will not replace human investors anytime soon...

History repeats itself. In the eighties you could hear the praise for expert systems, how they were going to replace doctors, etc. Same hype about neural networks.

It's funny how some engineers are pretty smart but completely disregard the tremendous power of the human brain compared to the machine.

 
Schumpeter:
It's funny how some engineers are pretty smart but completely disregard the tremendous power of the human brain compared to the machine.
You have a good point. However, the human brain doesn't scale well and is very expensive.

Many of the far-out predictions made in 1980 about machine learning- facial recognition, driverless cars, research assistance (IBM Watson)- have all come true. Heck, if you have an IPhone, you've met Siri. This stuff was science fiction just fifteen years ago, but it's true today because of better algorithms and better computing infrastructure.

It isn't implausible to have machine learning replace human beings for medium term (two weeks to six months) trading strategies.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
Do you really think that an engineer with degrees in Math/CS/Physics etc could a better private equity operator than Schwarzman or Kravis?
Do you think electronic execution can really beat a brilliant floor broker?

People believe what they want to believe, and it's tough to believe that the machines are better at making decisions than humans when it comes to finance. We've had a lot of advances in machine learning over the past couple years. It's also a lot more cost effective because machines don't need bonuses or salaries for that matter.

Oh well, I caught more flack two years ago for saying that the trend was probably going to be the same or lower comps and fewer people employed in banking and that there was nothing wrong with saving $20 on a pair of jeans by walking 500 feet. Nobody wanted to believe that comps would continue to remain lower than 2007/2008, but look what happened. Of course, this is a decade-long trend, not a two year trend.

Truth.

 

IP please give up. People want to remain idiots and the people who choose to embrace the math/CS while building on everything else will simply crush these fools.

Gray Fox's argument was reducio ad absurdum. The amount of leverage LTCM was operating with, was crazy. It doesn't matter who you are if you play by that style then crazy things can happen.

All the people you listed are old as fuck, I hope you realize. Everyone who is coming into the industry now will be competing with all around businessmen who do know the math and programming on top of understanding EBITDA and P/E. You think you're still in a world where quants hold physics PHD's. You're not, and I can guarantee you that if you hold this hard line mindset of quant vs. businessman you will be the loser.

 
jktecon:
IP please give up. People want to remain idiots and the people who choose to embrace the math/CS while building on everything else will simply crush these fools.

Gray Fox's argument was reducio ad absurdum. The amount of leverage LTCM was operating with, was crazy. It doesn't matter who you are if you play by that style then crazy things can happen.

All the people you listed are old as fuck, I hope you realize. Everyone who is coming into the industry now will be competing with all around businessmen who do know the math and programming on top of understanding EBITDA and P/E. You think you're still in a world where quants hold physics PHD's. You're not, and I can guarantee you that if you hold this hard line mindset of quant vs. businessman you will be the loser.

Run some money first then come back and talk. Respect your elders.

 

And quantum computing will be real in the next 15 years, so I suggest you befriend these computers before they start telling you how to live your life.

And I would argue that most computer engineers/physicists/psychologists in the field of machine learning/cognition/neural networks are some of the men who respect the human mind to the utmost. Think about the real goal of machine learning/AI....It's to model the human thought process. How do you do that? By understanding the human mind. How can you say these people don't appreciate it when that is what they spend their time analyzing and attempting to mimic.

We all recognize the complexity of the brain, I'm under the impression it will never be fully understood under a logical premise. An agent under the logic of a system can not truly understand or appreciate the system since his logic will always become cyclic. This doesn't take away from the fact, however, that a person who knows how to use a computer is by all means superior to a man who does not.

A neanderthal who could use fire was more likely to survive than one who could not.

TLDR;to quote Beyonce:I'm a survivor, I ain't gone give up, I ain't gon' stop up, keep on surviving

 

IlliniProgrammer, your initial comment leads me to believe you don't have a very accurate understanding of the breakdown of the hedge fund universe in terms of strategy or AUM. Your cherry-picked selection of major funds includes only one (Renaissance) that's exclusively quant-driven, and at least one that is absolutely NOT materially quant-focused (Fortress). DE Shaw and Citadel have significant non-quant, discretionary fundamental-driven businesses.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 
Kenny_Powers_CFA:
IlliniProgrammer, your initial comment leads me to believe you don't have a very accurate understanding of the breakdown of the hedge fund universe in terms of strategy or AUM. Your cherry-picked selection of major funds includes only one (Renaissance) that's exclusively quant-driven, and at least one that is absolutely NOT materially quant-focused (Fortress). DE Shaw and Citadel have significant non-quant, discretionary fundamental-driven businesses.

I agree Kenny Powers. Contrary to what some believe, most of the HF world and asset mgmt realm in general is not exclusively dominated by quant-driven strats. And despite what many think, quants aren't invincible. Sure, Renaissance is a top firm, but there are plenty of "geniuses" that apply automated strats that blew up in the crisis. Computers respond within preset parameters, but when a black swan event, which is becoming more and more likely post-crash happens, they cannot react the way a human can. They also don't "think" about trends and long-term strats the same way that humans do.

 

lol at the quant trolls. Nice Friday entertainment.

Just because a company is listed and has a price history doesn't mean an algorithm can determine its value. All the data you can input - financial statements, past prices, news reports, etc. aren't always reliable. There will always be a role for judgement in capital allocation. Arbitrageurs sometimes forget why the securities they're trading exist in the first place, to allocate capital to productive uses. As Schumpeter points out it would be impossible to have a market composed entirely of HFT. Can't happen. Won't happen. Someone has to actually invest.

 
tempaccount:
There will always be a role for judgement in capital allocation. Arbitrageurs sometimes forget why the securities they're trading exist in the first place, to allocate capital to productive uses.
Oh of course- that's where the machine learning kicks in. It's not just stat arb- it's ultimately systematizing strategies and ultimately having the computer make the judgment calls, because quite frankly computers tend to have better judgment than human beings- as pilots, as drivers, and no doubt as investment managers.
 

IP -- you realize that if everyone uses algos, they will cease to be effective because they generally interpret data and patterns in a similar manner and are prone to the same types of problems. The good algos are supposed to be taking advantage of human biases...if humans aren't there, they'll have to take advantage of the biases of other computers. Not so hot.

What's funny is that everyone is prone to supporting whatever it is they're good at, whether it's quant or fundamental (it's human nature to have a self-serving bias). The reason I think GrayFox got a bunch of SBs and you got a bunch of MS is that he at least has some respect for the other side of the coin and you have none, even for guys that have been 100X more successful than you could even dream of. There are lots of ways to make money.

Also, private equity (and especially venture capital) are the least likely areas to be 'quantified'. I don't know where you're going with that one.

 
SirTradesaLot:
IP -- you realize that if everyone uses algos, they will cease to be effective because they generally interpret data and patterns in a similar manner and are prone to the same types of problems. The good algos are supposed to be taking advantage of human biases...if humans aren't there, they'll have to take advantage of the biases of other computers. Not so hot.

What's funny is that everyone is prone to supporting whatever it is they're good at, whether it's quant or fundamental (it's human nature to have a self-serving bias). The reason I think GrayFox got a bunch of SBs and you got a bunch of MS is that he at least has some respect for the other side of the coin and you have none, even for guys that have been 100X more successful than you could even dream of. There are lots of ways to make money.

Also, private equity (and especially venture capital) are the least likely areas to be 'quantified'. I don't know where you're going with that one.

I want everyone to use the same algorithms/equations, this will stabilize markets. Volatility is always inefficiency, any decent economist knows this.

Gray Fox got a bunch of SB's because there are so many retards who still think basic fundamental analysis is all you need for a future in profiting from these markets.

 
jktecon:
SirTradesaLot:
IP -- you realize that if everyone uses algos, they will cease to be effective because they generally interpret data and patterns in a similar manner and are prone to the same types of problems. The good algos are supposed to be taking advantage of human biases...if humans aren't there, they'll have to take advantage of the biases of other computers. Not so hot.

What's funny is that everyone is prone to supporting whatever it is they're good at, whether it's quant or fundamental (it's human nature to have a self-serving bias). The reason I think GrayFox got a bunch of SBs and you got a bunch of MS is that he at least has some respect for the other side of the coin and you have none, even for guys that have been 100X more successful than you could even dream of. There are lots of ways to make money.

Also, private equity (and especially venture capital) are the least likely areas to be 'quantified'. I don't know where you're going with that one.

I want everyone to use the same algorithms/equations, this will stabilize markets. Volatility is always inefficiency, any decent economist knows this.

Gray Fox got a bunch of SB's because there are so many retards who still think basic fundamental analysis is all you need for a future in profiting from these markets.

You watch the close today? Sure that was some serious fundamental volume spike last 90 seconds. 20% of SPY volume flushed. Bet algos had nothing to do with that...

You really want to get rid of volatility? Close the markets, permanently.

 
jktecon:
SirTradesaLot:
IP -- you realize that if everyone uses algos, they will cease to be effective because they generally interpret data and patterns in a similar manner and are prone to the same types of problems. The good algos are supposed to be taking advantage of human biases...if humans aren't there, they'll have to take advantage of the biases of other computers. Not so hot.

What's funny is that everyone is prone to supporting whatever it is they're good at, whether it's quant or fundamental (it's human nature to have a self-serving bias). The reason I think GrayFox got a bunch of SBs and you got a bunch of MS is that he at least has some respect for the other side of the coin and you have none, even for guys that have been 100X more successful than you could even dream of. There are lots of ways to make money.

Also, private equity (and especially venture capital) are the least likely areas to be 'quantified'. I don't know where you're going with that one.

I want everyone to use the same algorithms/equations, this will stabilize markets. Volatility is always inefficiency, any decent economist knows this.

Gray Fox got a bunch of SB's because there are so many retards who still think basic fundamental analysis is all you need for a future in profiting from these markets.

Thanks for the laugh. You might want to look up 'Flash Crash'.
 
SirTradesaLot:
IP -- you realize that if everyone uses algos, they will cease to be effective because they generally interpret data and patterns in a similar manner and are prone to the same types of problems. The good algos are supposed to be taking advantage of human biases...if humans aren't there, they'll have to take advantage of the biases of other computers. Not so hot.
Absolutely. And then people will move further out the holding period curve- until eventually we achieve relative market efficiency. Then they'll try to apply the same algorithms to activist investing and have companies fly by wire rather than have a human CEO.

All of this is going to make the economy more efficient. By the time all of this happens, I will be retired with $500K saved, which will then be earning 25%/year (just like everyone else's money) with less risk than equities today. I'll only need to tap 8% of that $500K to be happy every year, so the rest will probably be spent on National Public Radio or the Foundation for Free Flight.

What's funny is that everyone is prone to supporting whatever it is they're good at, whether it's quant or fundamental (it's human nature to have a self-serving bias).
Oh I completely agree and I fall prey to this. The question is how much is this me actually believing that computers will replace human beings, or how much of this is me just trolling people who believe that they are God's gift to the investing world. (This is often the case at hedge funds.) And the question is just how much everyone else falls prey to their own biases.
Also, private equity (and especially venture capital) are the least likely areas to be 'quantified'. I don't know where you're going with that one.
Sure. But I think that will be the next focus after longer-term investing goes quant. Finally it will be VC. VC is tough because it's the business of figuring out what human beings truly want. PE is easier to systematize. A lot of PE is (1) Find and acquire failing company with a bloated cost structure (2) fire the management (3) cut costs without hurting the customer experience or necessary R&D (4) sell profitable company with reduced costs at a profit.
 

Difference between us is only one understands both sides.

Do you even remember long division?

It's like a rodent to a man. We both may be in the same world but only one can effectively calculate the others behaviors and actions. I can't explain when you don't speak my language.

Regards

 
jktecon:
How bullshit is it to hear a finance guy saying a price will go up because the company normally trades at some multiple of its ebitda...That shit is dead. Those people were idiots. I want to hear there is a 65% probability that the price goes up by 10-15% using current macro/industry/company metrics. a computer calculates all this in polynomial time (CS people can correct me if im wrong). And given that probability and our risk tolerance this is the amount that should be put into play to keep risk levels steady.
jktecon:
Difference between us is only one understands both sides.

Do you even remember long division?

It's like a rodent to a man. We both may be in the same world but only one can effectively calculate the others behaviors and actions. I can't explain when you don't speak my language.

Regards

Let's start with your first statement, in which you essentially call the greatest investors of our time a bunch of complete idiots. So you are some punk-ass college kid and think you are entitled to pass judgement on other investors based on what exactly? Do you even have any experience investing / trading (using whatever methods? I mean fuck have you ever even worked?

Leaving the ad hominem aside, your statement is complete bullshit. Statistics cannot forecast these complex processes with sufficient accuracy for you to be able to rely on this probability with any degree of certainty. We cant even get aggregate GDP forecasts with any degree of certainty, these are not beautiful statistical processes that just work. Econometrics is a pseudoscience at best, social and economic processes dont follow physical laws. Mathematics is beautiful and does work, but it is by definition a self-contained system that is internally valid, but cannot necessarily be translated to the real world in all circumstances, as the real world, quite frankly is a mess and our understanding of most economic and social processes is far too limited.

Moving onto your second point, I majored in econometrics and can probably completely destroy you in mathematics. Most guys at my fund have comp sci / physics / engineering backgrounds as well, its not like tradtl hf guys are a bunch of finger painting consultants that oont know maths at all lol.

At Illini, I had some respect for you as a poster prior to this thread but your statement re hedge fund hiring schmoozing MBAs has disgusted me so much as to have lost of all that. No good hedge fund in this world hires schmoozing MBAs. Some hedge funds hire MBAs, most look down on them. And nobody gives a fuck if you can schmooze, its again more of a downside thats discriminated against, we dont need people that talk shit, we need people that can find the truth, not lie. You can be a fucking walrus wearing a dildo, top-hat and monocle that dropped out of high school, if you make money, your hired. Michael Burry is autistic and has made more money than any schmoozing MBA can ever dream of.

There is a place for the schmoozing MBAs, its called Private Equity.

I just love how one back-office guy and one college student together have called the end of investing and discredited all great investors of our time lol.

End of rant.

 

You can destroy me in mathematics, right.....I know all the math I need save maybe some more in depth treatments so I could care less.

Oh and econometrics is not math rofl. It is a derivative of statistics... which also is not math, so I somehow doubt your abilities.

The logic systems of this entire universe are cyclical, some are just in lower rungs with faster cycles lol.

And I'm not calling the old guys idiots. I'm saying its time for a more sophisticated investor to dominate matkets just as they did when they came along.

 
jktecon:
You can destroy me in mathematics, right.....I know all the math I need save maybe some more in depth treatments so I could care less.

Oh and econometrics is not math rofl. It is a derivative of statistics... which also is not math, so I somehow doubt your abilities.

The logic systems of this entire universe are cyclical, some are just in lower rungs with faster cycles lol.

And I'm not calling the old guys idiots. I'm saying its time for a more sophisticated investor to dominate matkets just as they did when they came along.

Must have taken statistics/probability in the business department, do you even know what a random variable even is? Do you even know what is meant by pair wise disjoint?

 

[quote=SirTradesaLot]So, best case scenario, we're going to be cyborgs that live forever and worst case scenario, it's going to be 'Maximum Overdrive'?.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091499/plotsummary?mode=desktop[/quote] LOL, I don't know. I'm not a wild-eyed optimist like some people out there claiming this will happen in 25 years, but I think I'll live to see the day when computers become smarter than human beings at everything. Given that I'm in my late 20s and have genes for longevity, we could be talking 50-60 years. I think the days of computers making better business decisions than humans could be 20 years off, but the days of computers making more beautiful artwork or better movie plots could be more like 50 years away.

I think we'll become a leisure society. Where work is no longer necessary and where elitism, if it exists, is merely based on wealth. Given that most countries are democracies, and given that there is less penalty for redistribution when computers are running everything except the distribution mechanisms anyways, elitism might not be tolerated as much.

It will be very interesting to watch. Oh well, if the machines take over and kill me, I won't be able to worry about it.

 

Okay IP, and the other guys here...I want to take this thread in a different direction, as the horse has gotten the shit beat out of it...

OUTSIDE of finance, automation and technology is rapidly replacing the human workforce. First it was blue collar jobs, now it is moving into the white collar realm. IBM Watson is already a better diagnostician of lung cancer than the top docs at MSK Cancer Center. As we move into a post-scarcity society...how will our current economic model survive? Will we have a hybrid system with some kind of guaranteed income or is it going to be like fucking Blade Runner?

I am genuinely interested in predictions/insight...

Please don't quote Patrick Bateman.
 
DBCooper:
Okay IP, and the other guys here...I want to take this thread in a different direction, as the horse has gotten the shit beat out of it...

OUTSIDE of finance, automation and technology is rapidly replacing the human workforce. First it was blue collar jobs, now it is moving into the white collar realm. IBM Watson is already a better diagnostician of lung cancer than the top docs at MSK Cancer Center. As we move into a post-scarcity society...how will our current economic model survive? Will we have a hybrid system with some kind of guaranteed income or is it going to be like fucking Blade Runner?

I am genuinely interested in predictions/insight...

I think there's a lot of natural stuff in place to ensure redistribution when Gini coefficients get high enough. The economic cost of redistribution gets a lot lower when ginis are high, and the political desire for wealth redistribution also goes up when you see guys blazing by in Ferraris but when it comes to your means of transportation, your health insurance won't even cover crutches.

I'm a Malthusian. In the long run, I think we need to make it difficult to have 37 kids with seven different partners. But otherwise, I think people are too educated and society is too strong for us to have a dystopian solution. (However it's possible, and the reason we won't have a dystopian solution is that people believe dystopia could happen.)

Computers are going to make a lot of things cheap. One thing that will be expensive for a long time is going to be ideas and content and creativity.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
DBCooper:
Okay IP, and the other guys here...I want to take this thread in a different direction, as the horse has gotten the shit beat out of it...

OUTSIDE of finance, automation and technology is rapidly replacing the human workforce. First it was blue collar jobs, now it is moving into the white collar realm. IBM Watson is already a better diagnostician of lung cancer than the top docs at MSK Cancer Center. As we move into a post-scarcity society...how will our current economic model survive? Will we have a hybrid system with some kind of guaranteed income or is it going to be like fucking Blade Runner?

I am genuinely interested in predictions/insight...

I think there's a lot of natural stuff in place to ensure redistribution when Gini coefficients get high enough. The economic cost of redistribution gets a lot lower when ginis are high, and the political desire for wealth redistribution also goes up when you see guys blazing by in Ferraris but when it comes to your means of transportation, your health insurance won't even cover crutches.

I'm a Malthusian. In the long run, I think we need to make it difficult to have 37 kids with seven different partners. But otherwise, I think people are too educated and society is too strong for us to have a dystopian solution. (However it's possible, and the reason we won't have a dystopian solution is that people believe dystopia could happen.)

Computers are going to make a lot of things cheap. One thing that will be expensive for a long time is going to be ideas and content and creativity.

As someone whose spent more than a few nights at Kam's and pissed on the Alma Mater statue... As someone whose had great discussion about life in Everitt Lab and Siebel with my friends who got their undergrad AND masters in electrical engineering... As someone who likes old, shitty, RWD, manual transmission cars (no Civic for me)...

I gotta say...

You say some really strange things.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_KarateBoy_
 
DBCooper:
Okay IP, and the other guys here...I want to take this thread in a different direction, as the horse has gotten the shit beat out of it...

OUTSIDE of finance, automation and technology is rapidly replacing the human workforce. First it was blue collar jobs, now it is moving into the white collar realm. IBM Watson is already a better diagnostician of lung cancer than the top docs at MSK Cancer Center. As we move into a post-scarcity society...how will our current economic model survive? Will we have a hybrid system with some kind of guaranteed income or is it going to be like fucking Blade Runner?

I am genuinely interested in predictions/insight...

Just FYI every technological advance since the dawn of time has displaced some workers, and every one has created this same debate. In the 1600s in england there was whole movement of workers breaking machines because they thought the industrial revolution would make us worse off for the same reason. In reality it lifted millions out of pverty. Technology and automation may make some profesions obsolote but at the same time it frees up human beings to move on and create new opprtunities...it has been that way since man invented the wheel and didnt have to spend most of their energy dragging shit across the ground....my guess is that back then the caveman draggers worried that the would be out of jobs. Automation and increased productivity are our friends.

 
xqtrack:
The guys who keep saying how quant funds take over the world clearly have never worked at a fund manager (of any kind). If you've ever worked on a real quant strategy it should immediately be evident to you why you can't apply quant strategies to everything.

The problem is no one here even knows what quant really even means...You got someone on here telling me they studied econometrics which somehow should imply that they are skilled in mathematics; like wtf are you talking about?

I'm certainly not implying that a straight up programmer with some math is going to take over finance in the next 10 years. I am saying it is a new age in business, where people with skills in programming and mathematics on top of the other business knowledge will be at an advantage.

People who only have knowledge of business seem to think that having an awareness for higher level maths/Cs/econ theory are automatically not fit for finance or mainstream business. This is false, and dying fast. You can either embrace it or get run over as people begin to utilize the new tools available to them.

I really don't see where there is even an argument; like how retarded can you be. What would you think of someone in this day and age attempting to get a job as an analyst without skills in excel or knowledge of a DCF model (which is comprised of algebra). Do you think it is impossible that a better model comes around that perhaps takes some stochastics into account? Or maybe incorporates new theories from probability/analysis?

Math is really symbolic logic at its heart. If you look at many math texts the symbols don't even remain constant mainly just the logical implications. If you can't embrace logic then it necessarily implies that you are illogical. Business is not illogical at the end of the day so if I have these tools, utilize them, and still communicate as well if not better than you, please convey to me why you should be hired.

 
jktecon:
xqtrack:
The guys who keep saying how quant funds take over the world clearly have never worked at a fund manager (of any kind). If you've ever worked on a real quant strategy it should immediately be evident to you why you can't apply quant strategies to everything.

The problem is no one here even knows what quant really even means...You got someone on here telling me they studied econometrics which somehow should imply that they are skilled in mathematics; like wtf are you talking about?

I'm certainly not implying that a straight up programmer with some math is going to take over finance in the next 10 years. I am saying it is a new age in business, where people with skills in programming and mathematics on top of the other business knowledge will be at an advantage.

People who only have knowledge of business seem to think that having an awareness for higher level maths/Cs/econ theory are automatically not fit for finance or mainstream business. This is false, and dying fast. You can either embrace it or get run over as people begin to utilize the new tools available to them.

I really don't see where there is even an argument; like how retarded can you be. What would you think of someone in this day and age attempting to get a job as an analyst without skills in excel or knowledge of a DCF model (which is comprised of algebra). Do you think it is impossible that a better model comes around that perhaps takes some stochastics into account? Or maybe incorporates new theories from probability/analysis?

Math is really symbolic logic at its heart. If you look at many math texts the symbols don't even remain constant mainly just the logical implications. If you can't embrace logic then it necessarily implies that you are illogical. Business is not illogical at the end of the day so if I have these tools, utilize them, and still communicate as well if not better than you, please convey to me why you should be hired.

it's still not clear why you think that. In general, people on WSO respect the idea of pursuing knowledge but you just sound like a kid without any real world experience.

Why should anyone learn economic? There's a reason why its called a dismal science. I would even argue that trying to predict the economy is detrimental.

What's the value of learning programming? I don't see why having an understanding of how the language of Excel works is going to help me build a better model. You think any CEO/decision maker cares HOW the data was compiled? More importantly, why do you think it would help knowing this fact?

You keep talking about applying higher-level of math skills to incorporate probability analysis. This happens all the time when analysts model to a bear/base/bull case. In the real world, when it comes to finance and company analysis (obviously not engineering) math above simple algebra is more often a safety blanket than anything else. Coming out with probabilities based on standard deviations or stochastic processes causes more problems than it solves.

None of the above is a dismissal of anything you're advocating. But it is a proclamation of its limitations, which you don't seem to be aware of.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_KarateBoy_
 

jktecon, you are exposing your ignorance here. For a start, the field of econometrics at a high level is really, really, really hardcore. And it includes material from stochastic calculus, probability theory, real analysis, measure theory, functional analysis, information theory, and even machine learning in some cases.

Yeah, it is not high-level abstract math, but in the real world quant funds don't use that stuff; finance doesn't work that way. Pure mathematics has gone far beyond what could be useful in finance in the foreseeable future.

People tend to glorify the math and programming, believing such fields require more basic intelligence to get a degree in. That may be true; I myself majored in a quant scientific field, and I am proud of it. But the more time one spends trying to get accurate predictions from R while studying high-dimensional datasets, or trying to make sense of horrendously noisy macroeconomic time series data with only a handful of years' worth of data, the more one starts to see that one really can only get so much out of statistical analyses. Some problems an algorithm can solve beautifully. Others, not at all, even in apparently similar situations. Even with the best mathematics and coding skills, one can only do so much.

Take go and chess. A decade ago, computers became unbeatable at chess by any human opponent. But in go, computers are still not even competitive at a high level. Maybe one day they will get to the point where they can beat top players at this board game, but right now the top computer programs aren't even close. The games at first seem similar; players take turns making moves from a simple ruleset on a small board. But in fact, the nature of go favors human cognition, whereas chess can be more easily analyzed by a computer.

That said, over the next few years you are definitely going to see more quant tools being used in fundamental analysis. But as someone else pointed out, those tools are going to be made easy enough to use that an Excel monkey can just plug and play.

Also, as Bondarb pointed out, and friends at top quant funds (think DE Shaw, Citadel) have told me, most quant strategies are really just gussied up versions of levering up and shorting volatility, and they always look brilliant right up until they break down completely. Firms that rely on value/momentum approaches have some success at generating alpha, but not that much. Even Renaissance Technologies' "traditional" quant equities fund (RIEF) has had mediocre performance since inception.

And lastly, even now it is not really that hard to get an analyst gig without knowing anything about Excel or DCFs.

 
jktecon:
xqtrack:
The guys who keep saying how quant funds take over the world clearly have never worked at a fund manager (of any kind). If you've ever worked on a real quant strategy it should immediately be evident to you why you can't apply quant strategies to everything.

The problem is no one here even knows what quant really even means...You got someone on here telling me they studied econometrics which somehow should imply that they are skilled in mathematics; like wtf are you talking about?

I'm certainly not implying that a straight up programmer with some math is going to take over finance in the next 10 years. I am saying it is a new age in business, where people with skills in programming and mathematics on top of the other business knowledge will be at an advantage.

People who only have knowledge of business seem to think that having an awareness for higher level maths/Cs/econ theory are automatically not fit for finance or mainstream business. This is false, and dying fast. You can either embrace it or get run over as people begin to utilize the new tools available to them.

I really don't see where there is even an argument; like how retarded can you be. What would you think of someone in this day and age attempting to get a job as an analyst without skills in excel or knowledge of a DCF model (which is comprised of algebra). Do you think it is impossible that a better model comes around that perhaps takes some stochastics into account? Or maybe incorporates new theories from probability/analysis?

Math is really symbolic logic at its heart. If you look at many math texts the symbols don't even remain constant mainly just the logical implications. If you can't embrace logic then it necessarily implies that you are illogical. Business is not illogical at the end of the day so if I have these tools, utilize them, and still communicate as well if not better than you, please convey to me why you should be hired.

I'm pretty sure I know what quant means. I actually work in this business, and the quants I know are considered to be some of the best in the field. It's just not really clear to me what you're trying to argue. Can you please give us an example of how your quant models will make money in a situation where there is no prior data to look at? For example, how would your quant model trade an announced change in strategy by a CEO and the impact it will have on the stock's equity in 6 months to 2 years? What data would you look at to create your programmed analysis? How would you translate this situation into symbolic logic?

 

Ah the old "quant funds are superior" thread returns to WSO...a true classic right next to the "i have a 2.5 gpa from Muhlenberg College, how do I get a banking job at GS?"-thread. This one has been on repeat since 2004.

truth be told...quantitative startegies are mostly just cleverly marketed short vol and they do very well until vol spikes. in 2008 they got destroyed while qualitative macro funds raked in the dough. Some of them are better then others, just like with any strategy, but there is nothing magical going on in the quant world and the returns bear that out. As usual IlliniProgrammer feels free to sput off about stuff he knows less then nothing about, but I can tell you as someone who has worked in the business of running money for over a decade that the same stuff about quant funds being superior to discretionary funds was being said back when i started out and since then many people have gotten rich while the IPs of the world have focused on getting more degrees and saying those who arent Phd level programmers are wasting their time. Thank god i didnt listen to these people.

Learn some basic programming to help you create good spreadsheets but do not become a programmer...the person who makes "the big call" at a hedge fund gets paid alot of money and isnt because they know how to code its becaus ethey have spent years learning how to manage risk and how to trade. The pigeonhold "programmers" are commodities who automate or invetsiaget the ideas that bigger picture thinkers can create....at least at most hedge funds. (obviously ur getco, rentech, etc places are diffierent).

 
Bondarb:
Learn some basic programming to help you create good spreadsheets but do not become a programmer...the person who makes "the big call" at a hedge fund gets paid alot of money and isnt because they know how to code its becaus ethey have spent years learning how to manage risk and how to trade. The pigeonhold "programmers" are commodities who automate or invetsiaget the ideas that bigger picture thinkers can create....at least at most hedge funds. (obviously ur getco, rentech, etc places are diffierent).

could you please elaborate on "big picture thinking"? what exactly is big picture thinking (i realise it's hard to give an abstract definition)? could you give an example of good big picture thinking in global macro (maybe a article or book or just a "story" from your work experience)? any recommendations on how to improve/practice big picture thinking? thank you

 
LLcoolJ:
Bondarb:
Learn some basic programming to help you create good spreadsheets but do not become a programmer...the person who makes "the big call" at a hedge fund gets paid alot of money and isnt because they know how to code its becaus ethey have spent years learning how to manage risk and how to trade. The pigeonhold "programmers" are commodities who automate or invetsiaget the ideas that bigger picture thinkers can create....at least at most hedge funds. (obviously ur getco, rentech, etc places are diffierent).

could you please elaborate on "big picture thinking"? what exactly is big picture thinking (i realise it's hard to give an abstract definition)? could you give an example of good big picture thinking in global macro (maybe a article or book or just a "story" from your work experience)? any recommendations on how to improve/practice big picture thinking? thank you

i think a good example of big picture thinking in macro is ray dalio's 'understanding the economic machine' (whether or not you agree with all of it)

http://www.bwater.com/home/research--press/how-the-economic-machine-wor…

 

are central bankers using this dismal science? Good enough for me.

No, no CEO or manager cares about the efficiency with which business is carried out you're right so let's forget programming.

And you're right, options pricing is no longer based on a stochastic differential equation. And what if this just begins to pervade throughout finance. Don't you wonder why these physics Ph.D's ended up on wall street in the first place. Don't you wonder how a hedge fund filled with astrophysicists with absolutely zero finance training is one of the top performers? Great it may be the only one right now, but maybe they figured something out, no?

What if you learned even an ounce of that and coupled it with finance knowledge, would you not be a more impressive candidate?

 
jktecon:
are central bankers using this dismal science? Good enough for me.

No, no CEO or manager cares about the efficiency with which business is carried out you're right so let's forget programming.

And you're right, options pricing is no longer based on a stochastic differential equation. And what if this just begins to pervade throughout finance. Don't you wonder why these physics Ph.D's ended up on wall street in the first place. Don't you wonder how a hedge fund filled with astrophysicists with absolutely zero finance training is one of the top performers? Great it may be the only one right now, but maybe they figured something out, no?

What if you learned even an ounce of that and coupled it with finance knowledge, would you not be a more impressive candidate?

This is the last time I'm posting in this thread b/c arguing on the internet has its limits.

From a high level, your arguments are ridiculous and in flux.

You cannot argue that "businessmen" can get an advantage by incorporating "econ/math/etc" and then use the central bankers are your defense of the validity of such a practice. Most people don't have time to pick-up a PhD in econ/math/computer science before applying for a job.

But if you don't think econ is a dismal science than Alan Greenspan found a new friend. The rest of us, including a lot of economist, are going to enjoy the show. What's next, orthodontics will advocate the health benefits of straight teeth?

We were/are talking about futility of applying high-level probability analysis to traditional fundamental analysis and you bring up option pricing? You do realize that a fund can make money off of superior company specific analysis or they can play the structure of the market, through arbitrage strategics and such. right? You do realize that some quant who can more effective in pricing some esoteric instrument or "picks up pennies in front of steam rollers" does nothing to undermine traditional fundamental analysis, right? These guys are fishing in two different ponds and you're comparing apples to hammers.

I reiterate my earlier post. You are acting like a college kid who thinks s/he knows how the world should work. Why would a residential contractor care that you know an OSB panel is manufactured? They won't because that knowledge won't make them money. Same goes for your argument that rudimentary understanding of the foundation of excel would make one a more impressive candidate.

You want to impress me? Show me you understand how the management incentive structure is driving capital allocation decisions.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_KarateBoy_
 

Is economics math? It uses almost every field you listed there. There are probably psychologists who are using abstract math as well, and probably political science researchers as well.

I don't believe I ever argued that a straight up quant is going to dominate markets now or even going forward. My argument is that knowledge of mathematics and programming is useful now and will more than likely be a requirement going forward.

Unfortunately I can't speak on any quant strategies so you've struck me dumb there.

I am not too familiar with go but I can say that it is most likely like other games, which should theoretically still be a finite state reality. If so then it is computable, we just need the resources. Quantum computing may strike some of these things down or maybe it will be from the field of automata theory but irrespective of that I argue that a human being should at this point be aware of the technology that they are literally using to argue against me.

Suppose you even do have some great theory (completely free of mathematics/computer science because the fields are "theoretical") and begin a hedge fund or a sell side research firm. What if you are completely unawares of the field of cryptography and are sending sensitive data without up to date security protocols. Could some dumbass programmer in willakootchee Iowa not completely profit off your idea leaving you unawares?

I'm not saying you need to be the network security guy. I am saying you should realize there is a financial risk at hand. And if I'm not mistaken the number one goal of any financier is risk management?

If you logically correct my arguments I guarantee you I'll admit I'm wrong, I am not just going for number one internet troll right now, I embrace knowledge.

 
jktecon:
Is economics math? It uses almost every field you listed there. There are probably psychologists who are using abstract math as well, and probably political science researchers as well.

I don't believe I ever argued that a straight up quant is going to dominate markets now or even going forward. My argument is that knowledge of mathematics and programming is useful now and will more than likely be a requirement going forward.

Unfortunately I can't speak on any quant strategies so you've struck me dumb there.

I am not too familiar with go but I can say that it is most likely like other games, which should theoretically still be a finite state reality. If so then it is computable, we just need the resources. Quantum computing may strike some of these things down or maybe it will be from the field of automata theory but irrespective of that I argue that a human being should at this point be aware of the technology that they are literally using to argue against me.

Suppose you even do have some great theory (completely free of mathematics/computer science because the fields are "theoretical") and begin a hedge fund or a sell side research firm. What if you are completely unawares of the field of cryptography and are sending sensitive data without up to date security protocols. Could some dumbass programmer in willakootchee Iowa not completely profit off your idea leaving you unawares?

I'm not saying you need to be the network security guy. I am saying you should realize there is a financial risk at hand. And if I'm not mistaken the number one goal of any financier is risk management?

If you logically correct my arguments I guarantee you I'll admit I'm wrong, I am not just going for number one internet troll right now, I embrace knowledge.

I shouldn't be continuing this discussion. Your thoughts on the future of quants have been pretty well addressed at this point. But I'll do one more; this will be my last post in this thread.

(Responding to your paragraphs one by one)

  1. You're being disingenuous. Training in advanced econometrics requires training in advanced mathematics. Real econometrics is nothing like what you saw in your econ/finance pre-req course. Someone who has a strong background in econometrics also has a strong background in mathematics, which is the relevant point here; the econometrics guy can lecture at you about math because he knows math. In addition, if you look at quant funds' job postings, they often explicitly ask for econometricians. That's the sort of people doing most quant work.

  2. Be careful about proclaiming the dawn of a new era in quant strategies before you've spent much time reading about them/learning the basic techniques behind them, at least.

  3. Chess, computer scientists agree, could not be solved with a normal computer within the next couple million years. A quantum computer may be able to, but even that is not clear. Go has even more positions than chess, and even a quantum computer would struggle to fully solve it. Eventually, a computer may surpass human players at go, as better heuristics are designed, but it will be a while yet. Maybe decades. And that's the thing: go is simple! it's a small board, with a finite number of moves, and still a computer struggles. Finance is madness, with obscene numbers of variables, as well as human unpredictability. There are no steady trends; the trends break down. Quant trading has had its best success at extremely short time-frames where human decision making is basically irrelevant. Can a computer pick out what business will perform better over the medium term from available data sources? The most successful computer approaches right now rely on buying a large bucket of companies with some grouping of valued characteristics, such as a long-term historically high return on equity or what-have-you. But no quant fund has made any real progress in predicting the future of individual companies, and no statistician who isn't a utopian dreamer thinks such progress is likely.

  4. Actually I do know two traders who have long relied on successful strategies that would be replicable if found out by others. They lock their doors, keep a low profile, and don't do sensitive work on computers connected to the internet. Problem solved, in an elegant and cryptography-free way.

 
Schumpeter:
To end this thread on a lighter tone, and since we're talking about cryptography:

http://xkcd.com/538/

I think it actually illustrates fairly well the disconnect between nerds and the real world.

yeaaaaa...except again you don't even understand that RSA is a cryptographic protocol that relies completely on Abstract Algebra and number theory. No cryptographic protocol is ever proven secure there are just upper bounds found given certain limitations.

And it is known that in this case the limitation of cryptography is that you assume your attacker is not able to solve the discrete logarithm problem. Which may be getting solved quite soon so there's that.

That was my addition to the joke so please laugh at my expense because that's what I think when I see that cartoon.

 
jktecon:
Schumpeter:
To end this thread on a lighter tone, and since we're talking about cryptography:

http://xkcd.com/538/

I think it actually illustrates fairly well the disconnect between nerds and the real world.

yeaaaaa...except again you don't even understand that RSA is a cryptographic protocol that relies completely on Abstract Algebra and number theory. No cryptographic protocol is ever proven secure there are just upper bounds found given certain limitations.

And it is known that in this case the limitation of cryptography is that you assume your attacker is not able to solve the discrete logarithm problem. Which may be getting solved quite soon so there's that.

That was my addition to the joke so please laugh at my expense because that's what I think when I see that cartoon.

JKtecon, I don't know if your response to the above joke was a joke, but if it wasn't, then it appears you suffer from the same achilles heel that many other nerds suffer from. Specifically, to use an overused analogy, you "can see the trees, but not the forest".

Your response illustrates exactly why verbal/critical thinking skills will always be more valuable than quantitative skills, or...put another way, why humans will be more valuable than computers. Computers, like you, can't "see the whole forest". And so just like you, computers will never be more than tools, used by the people who can see "the whole forest".

In addition to suffering from this malaise, you have an incredible ego. I would advise you to seek therapy because unless you are amazingly lucky enough to work your entire life with only people who think and act the same way you do, then you're in for some rough times.

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein
 
jktecon:
Schumpeter:
To end this thread on a lighter tone, and since we're talking about cryptography:

http://xkcd.com/538/

I think it actually illustrates fairly well the disconnect between nerds and the real world.

yeaaaaa...except again you don't even understand that RSA is a cryptographic protocol that relies completely on Abstract Algebra and number theory. No cryptographic protocol is ever proven secure there are just upper bounds found given certain limitations.

And it is known that in this case the limitation of cryptography is that you assume your attacker is not able to solve the discrete logarithm problem. Which may be getting solved quite soon so there's that.

That was my addition to the joke so please laugh at my expense because that's what I think when I see that cartoon.

Disagree, IT security will be the next major issue in the USA. If you can't break it use brute force speed to break it.

 

And I am saying that the future of this business has always simply been reliant on knowing what the majority of people are doing. That is all that it is. The black-scholes equation gets brought up because it was not just theoretically right, it was pretty accurate when tested in the market even before current convergence to it, so it showed the possibility is there with other instruments. And to this effect we continue to use such equations in derivatives pricing.

I am arguing that this financial world will almost without doubt be the first space in business to be completely filled with mathematics. Just out of human beings desire to have knowledge that can be tested scientifically. Once there is higher ratio of mathematical based pricing vs. fundemental/technical analysis based I would have to suggest that you jump on board.

I'm not saying everyone should know cryptography or measure-theory based differential equations with Lebesgue measures and the like. But every financier now in my opinion should know math around an engineering level, which really is not too high a level at all. Every human being without a learning impairment (I believe at least) is capable of learning engineering level math and basic programming.

 

Just so you guys know this same debate was going on when i graduated in 2002 with the same group of people saying that finance would soon be a battle of robots. It reached its zenith in 2006-2007 when vol was extremely low and tons of quant funds popped up...back then to raise money in a discretionary strategy one literally had to make up some BS that connected it somehow to the quant World. Then in 2008 quant funds got obliterated relative to discretionary funds and many of them including big names like GS Global Alpha were exposed as being highly ordinary and mostly involved in pretty simple strategies. Today i am surprised quant funds arent more in vogue given how low volatility is especially in fixed income, and my guess is that they will continue to grow in popularity until the next time vol spikes. It's just another strategy and when vol is low and a historical data set is a good aproximation of the future then computers do well finding inefficiencies, but when vol spikes and the Worlds changes rapidly those datasets only pick out regime shifts that should not be faded or they find good trades but employ levels of leverage that are inapropriate and get stopped out before the tardes can work.

 

I am suggesting the future will be a dynamically systematic approach to trading(one where a trader understands when a quant model fits and when a more fundamental approach is required). I am also not a fan of straight quant work, it really is an attempt to put mathematics on this unjust pedestal where you say every financial reality can be calculated. We know that markets are incomplete, and there is no reason they should actually ever be considered complete. This means you could never hope to completely hedge yourself from some sort of off the wall event.

Now if markets were complete I can almost assure you that given a large enough sample, certain quantitative approaches would be winners.

I just want to inspire more people to use mathematical approaches where it fits. This way in the future we will have hard quantitative data to predict the future. This is where economic theory has gone for the most part.

If there were a financial instrument to hedge against a drastic change in MD&A language I might have told you flat out I have the perfect model. Right now it's safe to say a proper hedge against that particular event is not a reality.

But I send the same question back to you and ask how would you attack such a situation with no prior information? Would you not look at comparable analysis (perhaps similar companies who have had the same level of change in business strategy and the effect it had on price)? The only difference is that a more mathematical approach would be calculated and would be saved for all future market participants to learn from.

To answer your question that type of random event would be best assumed to follow a poisson distribution. I don't want to lose my confidentiality and my prescribed approach might be unique. But that is a stochastic that should be added to any equation attempting to model a stock price. When I argue that you should know math, programming and finance, for this example, I might say that you should dynamically adjust the weight that you give this stochastic variable as you realize the potential for paradigm shifting events to take place. In other words your knowledge of the world of finance could tell you what type of reality we are in and if there is a more significant chance for higher volatility. Run trials with your model, see what happens.

This is essentially what anyone does in the world of finance when they price something (not just quants and i don't think I am a quant either just to be clear). The element that is difficult which everyone is right about is that stochastic element. It is where an arbitrary model is not necessarily correct but with a knowledge of markets and human behavior you would have an edge. If you actually are skilled in finance it would be apparent by what you did with this variable.

The finance approach on the other hand is passed down mainly by word of mouth and "feelings" which are too arbitrary to help without being exposed to a large enough sample of events. The mathematical approach would be saved in the computer and give you more info on where you went wrong. You can remember the confidence that you had in this approach. What happened when you backtested it against old data. It is far stronger than a mental guess and check because a computer really allows us into an alternate dimension. One where we can run millions of trials without any emotion getting in the way and the data saved accurately to the last bit.

 

I feel like that is a stupid way to pick. How about whether or not you'd actually enjoy the work..

Because when you're in a room full of smart people, smart suddenly doesn't matter—interesting is what matters.
 

I tried not to post in here because this argument is so overdone, but I've failed miserably.

I have to refrain from beating this horse any harder than he's already gotten it, but both extremes of the spectrum here are obviously wrong: there's going to be room for quant funds as long as scalping strategies and low-volatility pricing inefficiencies exist. Computers are faster than the dude getting the order on the phone and then writing a paper ticket, we all should be comfortable with that. This is a purely mechanical issue, and the "slippery slope" type of argument I'm reading about "oh well you know computers got rid of the execution guys and stuff so it'll totally happen to people that, you know, think for a living too" is just wildly ignorant and thoughtless. I don't want to repeat everything since you all know the idea by now, but if you can actually somehow get comfortable with the notion that computers can be programmed to learn how to talk to CEOs and figure out when enormous, market-shaking paradigm shifts are about to happen, then there's really no arguing with you on the whole quants vs. people thing.

I guess at the end of the day the question I'd have to ask is: if you're CalPERS and you've got $250B to take care of, are you going to feel okay putting all of that into some algorithms and be content that you've done you're job? I think the only people that will say yes to that have not managed money before and aren't in a position to be doing it any time soon.

And what's this boner about MBAs? Like they're somehow a different species? Come on now.

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 
BlackHat:
And what's this boner about MBAs? Like they're somehow a different species? Come on now.
The opinions about MBAs on WSO, both pro and con, are so much more extreme than I ever encounter in real life.
 

Remember, quants still need to be right the market too. Doesn't really matter what backround you have, you can be the best programmer/mathematician/engineer and if you cant pick the right side of the market you are going to be out of business pretty soon my friend. So yea im sure you still have a chance, one of my fathers friends was a CPA and now he trades equites on a desk for a HF so I'm sure you can break in somehow.

Mps721
 

I sincerely hope nobody here has the audacity to tell some high school kid or undergrad that they shouldn't be taking at least a few courses in some sort of practical application of CS. Intro to computer science and a couple courses beyond, learning VBA, and at least the basics of something like C++/Java/Python should be required for every teenager. I'm baffled we don't have high schools requiring this at this point.

I am in S&T and have been successful, but not taking those courses as an undergrad is easily the worst decision I made before starting my career, period. I have spent my own time and money to take courses and get private tutoring to learn R, Python, SQL, C++, etc. If you are not capable of at least understanding what is going on and feeling comfortable fooling around with VBA, you are probably useless on any desk that is a source of alpha creation. Mind you, I took plenty of math and stat courses, but that simply is not enough from a practical stand point. I don't even need to do most of this on my own at this point (since my desk has quants and devs to do it), but not understanding it inside and out makes it pointless to even bother using these resources IMO. You do not need to be an expert, but you absolutely must have a working knowledge of most of these things.

You could take 4, maybe 5 courses in your undergrad in CS or some related coursework (statistics using R or MATLAB, etc.) and you will give yourself job security in and out of finance for years to come. You will instantly be more valuable than 95% of people on a desk, regardless of their experience level.I would say most people, literally regardless of experience level, I have met are less useful than a motivated kid that knows VBA, R, and some C++ or Java.

IP is a bit extreme, but he is 100% correct in where things are going. I wish I read this when I was a high schooler. You can do the work on your own, but it is a lot more effort than it would be if you start younger and without a full-time front office job. It absolutely is the way things are going.

 

Also, I hope you guys realize IP is trolling you guys unbelievably hard. He is a smart dude--Princeton MSF candidate iirc--and has worked in the industry in a front office role for years. You don't get there without having practical understanding of the industry and world. The takeaway point is that technology continues to become a more integral part of our society and in areas not previously expected--in medical diagnostics, investment management, corporate strategy, etc. Not having a firm grasp of the capabilities, limitations, and being able to use these technologies is a guaranteed way to make yourself nearly worthless in 95+% of cases, maybe more.

 
Jerome Marrow:
Not having a firm grasp of the capabilities, limitations, and being able to use these technologies is a guaranteed way to make yourself nearly worthless in 95+% of cases, maybe more.

Not saying this isn't true at all, but rather arguing that there's more than one way to skin a cat and it's always going to be that way. You won't be 95% useless in the investment management business if you don't know computer programming, that day is not going to come. You might be 95% useless in a quant fund that runs its entire model on algorithms but you probably wouldn't go to a fund like that if you didn't know programming.

The only thing that is becoming more and more of a scarcity in this business is good old common sense and business acumen. I could teach anybody to program if I had them locked in a room for 4 years, but you can't teach everyone how to be a smart investor. For what it's worth, I don't know how to use a Bloomberg machine and am an absolute stranger to 99% of trading lingo (as evidenced on WSO the other day by my foreignness to the term "handle") and have no clue what the formula for Black-Scholes is. But I will forever be more marketable than the entry-level candidate with all the technical knowledge in the world and an exceptional computer programming background because I have two things that cannot be taught: common sense and real world experience. Those make money a lot faster than picking up pennies in front of the proverbial steamroller.

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 
BlackHat:
Not saying this isn't true at all, but rather arguing that there's more than one way to skin a cat and it's always going to be that way. You won't be 95% useless in the investment management business if you don't know computer programming, that day is not going to come. You might be 95% useless in a quant fund that runs its entire model on algorithms but you probably wouldn't go to a fund like that if you didn't know programming.
Really? What does someone provide? Please tell me objectively what someone with 0-3 years of experience can provide a large hedge fund or trading firm or even research desk if they can't even use VBA in Excel? I don't know of anyone that will even get an interview without this basic skill these days.
The only thing that is becoming more and more of a scarcity in this business is good old common sense and business acumen. I could teach anybody to program if I had them locked in a room for 4 years, but you can't teach everyone how to be a smart investor. For what it's worth, I don't know how to use a Bloomberg machine and am an absolute stranger to 99% of trading lingo (as evidenced on WSO the other day by my foreignness to the term "handle") and have no clue what the formula for Black-Scholes is. But I will forever be more marketable than the entry-level candidate with all the technical knowledge in the world and an exceptional computer programming background because I have two things that cannot be taught: common sense and real world experience. Those make money a lot faster than picking up pennies in front of the proverbial steamroller.

You seem to highly value things that cannot be measured and, frankly, have not proved to have any value. I am yet to see any evidence of these so-called 'common sense' investors and funds outperforming 'quant' funds in 2008. Plenty of 'value' and 'common sense' funds got killed and have since under performed the market.

Forever more marketable? I question that to be honest. Having been on both sides of the interviewing process and witnessing many others (including interviews for a sr. analyst spot @ a L/S market neutral fund), people that don't have some hard, objective skills did not get any love from any of the interviewers. There are plenty of analysts/associates from IBs/HFs/prop shops/etc. that have all of the same common sense and are smart with math.

Funny too people seem to forget how high the quant aptitude is of guys like David Shaw, Clifford Asness, Jamie Simons, Ken Griffin, Stephen Schuler, Eddie Lampert, etc.

 

A very simple analogy to this thread - did financiers in the 70s create complex financial models we're used to these days (non quant, excel based banking / PE models)? I guess not, computers were barely available to the non scientific community I would guess.

Continuing the trend forward, I can't see why we wouldn't transition into stochastic financial models for corporate modeling. Of course you probably wouldn't be asked to model it as an analyst, but understanding / communicating to clients / making strategic decisions based on it would take more than STAT/MATH/CS 101 education.

 

This thread is proof that just because you work in a sector of finance does not mean you understand every other sector of finance.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 
bfin:
This thread is proof that just because you work in a sector of finance does not mean you understand every other sector of finance.

And what a lot of people forget is that it's all about making money. If providing financing to bootleggers was very rewarding from a risk-reward perspective and didn't bother the regulators a ton of funds would start doing that. Also, it shouldn't be a quant vs fundamental argument. Certain fields are inherently fundamental in nature - entrepreneurship, VC, distressed debt in EM (litigation etc) and can't be quantified. Fields which were easy to automate, quantify HAVE BEEN quantified already. Us folks debating here wouldn't change anything. If it's currently profitable for organizations to use quant methods, they already using it. If it would be profitable for them to do so sometime in the future using latest innovations in finance and technology, trust me they would.

However, it's not just about automation or algo trading. Some areas in finance are extremely quantitative inherently. Someone please tell me how to tranche a 100 asset floating rate CDO-squared and then price it using 'intuition, fundamental market understanding etc. It's just not possible, you need to be an expert. Even trading such instruments requires a lot of quant skills that a typical banker does not have (and does not need to).

All in all, the market is efficient - desks/firms/firm types that need quants recruit quants, the ones that don't don't. If in the future the nature of work in investment banking changes (for eg, you have stochastic fin models for corporates etc. then you'd def won't see a harvard BA in english in banking anymore. Until then it doesn't matter).

 

Whew, it's almost Easter. Is there a †Jesus† in the house to settle this ? WWJS ?

Also, private equity (and especially venture capital) are the least likely areas to be 'quantified'.
The industry's golden age has passed-it's gone. The spectacular returns of the early days /pioneers of the LBO era are over with. PE returns have been eroding, it has become a "standardized" asset class which the average Joe investor will be able to buy into [see the Blackstone funds which soon will become available for as little as $50,000- I think still open to accredited investors only].
Any space for regular guys ?
Answer: No. People need to realize that Finance is contracting-the industry as a whole is shrinking-;opportunities [except in compliance/legal] are far fewer then they were only two-three years ago. While a decade ago someone with an above-average intellect and intensity could have had a reasonable shot at a Wall Street career that doesn't cut it anymore.
How relevant is an MBA nowadays ?
Answer: Not very, in fact in most cases it is not a factor. An MBA gives you an edge only if Ivy League/Top 10 B-School. Somebody wrote on this site (from a Fox News release) that Ms. Marissa Mayer, Great Princess at Yahoo! apparently gave an executive order where all future hires in Senior Management at that company must come from Ivy League schools exclusively.
Quants/Programmer vs. People-oriented.
That's the wrong debate/question. As somebody said, we are all slaves to the free market. If there's a shortage of quants, they're in demand, if there's a shortage of business strategists, they win. There seems to be the need that people have both sets of skills to get a job, school is not enough, you are responsible for your own development. Programming skills are required for FI/ER positions. Database skills are also very commonly required. In buy-side there are an average of 500 candidates per opening [probably more in a market like NYC] so employers can very very picky.
Winners bring a bigger bag than you do. I have a degree in meritocracy.
 

Ok Jerome, posting these. Mysterious ls positions here. An analyst position at any good fundamental ls shop (e.g. Maverick, Eton park, Viking and many smaller less known funds ) does not require vba. All of fundamental equity research does not require vba. I mean just step back and use your somewhat limited intellect for a second. Who do these funds hire? Bankers amongst others. Do bankers know vba? No. That should answer the question.

Have you ever even seen an ER company operating model?

Anyway I'm out of this thread it's a bunch of college kids trying to tell people in the industry what they are looking for in candidates lol.

 
leveredarb:
Anyway I'm out of this thread it's a bunch of college kids trying to tell people in the industry what they are looking for in candidates lol.

I shouldn't have even been participating in this thread - total waste of time. Most of us only have experience in one area and assume the rest of finance has to be the same way. And when the only example used for a long/short that is serious about programming experience is Citadel, you know you're not talking to someone who has been even halfway around the block. And what about Caxton, Soros, and the myriad of macro funds that saw the downfall of MBS coming? And the coin flip thing... to each his own, we'll go back to having only one down year in the past 13, with that being a -1% year. We couldn't have dreamed of being so lucky. Lastly - It's the fashionable thing to do these days to rip on Paulson, even as much as I love doing it he probably deserves a break.

These arguments are massive circle jerks, my apologies to you, Jerome, and anyone else who might have wanted actual answers rather than hearsay and one-off personal experiences/biases.

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 
BlackHat:
I shouldn't have even been participating in this thread - total waste of time. Most of us only have experience in one area and assume the rest of finance has to be the same way. And when the only example used for a long/short that is serious about programming experience is Citadel, you know you're not talking to someone who has been even halfway around the block. And what about Caxton, Soros, and the myriad of macro funds that saw the downfall of MBS coming? And the coin flip thing... to each his own, we'll go back to having only one down year in the past 13, with that being a -1% year. We couldn't have dreamed of being so lucky. Lastly - It's the fashionable thing to do these days to rip on Paulson, even as much as I love doing it he probably deserves a break.

These arguments are massive circle jerks, my apologies to you, Jerome, and anyone else who might have wanted actual answers rather than hearsay and one-off personal experiences/biases.

Wow, so you are going to outright make shit up about what I said and take your ball and go home because you realized you were wrong?

Do you think to was quants piling into MBS against Paulson/Soros/etc.?? Where do you get these utterly crazy ideas that are irrelevant to what I said? Most of the guys piling into it, like Hubler, are the very guys you would be promoting as a results driven, 'market intuition' type that made many billions throughout his career (well, until it all crashed). You have no basis in believe that 'intuition' or 'fundamental' types beat out quants. In fact, the biggest losers were precisely the least quantitative of the bunch.

And please, what does any of this have to do with the recommendation that a high school or college student take a number of classes to enhance these skills? I don't think they need a degree in CS or applied math/stat, but I think these courses provide a silly cost:benefit, with the only downside being that they may be exposed with a bad GPA if the class is hard, in which case they audit the course instead.

Pretty much everything you have posted is nonsense and terrible advice to a high school or college kid, which is who the advice has been targeted to. If you're a PE associate, banker looking to exit the sale side, or an experienced PM, then sure, you are probably wasting your time developing these skills, at this point in your career. For a student or extremely junior person to not do so is to guarantee that they are behind many of their peers and have a much less than complete skillset that is going to be necessary in the world.

 

half of this thread is talking about research and the other half is talking about trading. slightly different need for programming skillz depending on the discipline.

i dont think it hurts to learn vba in a purely fundamental research solely just to format shit. depending on how involved the analyst is in the trade process, i can see use in r and matlab. the problem is unless you took classes in undergrad, it's very hard to see a breakeven point where the time spent learning whatever provides enough value add to offset the time you could have spent doing more research

 

What a shit show...Seems I missed this one. Glad Bondarb, Blackhat and others chimed in since some things were total bs.

I work in the commodity trading arena which very similar to global macro is a about Supply/Demand and simple economics are the end of the day everything your learned in probably up to 3rd year economics is the most you need.

But the models we use typically are based on huge amounts of subsets of data, such as weather, production, demand we usually hire top notch quants/CS gurus to be able to fully build and upkeep these models the datasets they work with are huge and without mastery of databases/sql we would not be able to cover so much data so quickly. Yet if we ever leave those models to go on auto-pilot or take say bloombergs/reuters model in our marketplace we see huge inefficiencies, the human aspect discussed by others about experience, seeing many cycles, etc is what ultimately derives our decisions and trades at the end of the day. So I can tell you in commodities atleast we will be hiring regular joes for a long time.

As to the point about SQL/VBA. I have a very strong database/vba/sql background which for sure helped me as as analyst but ultimately the skills that get you to a trader/book-runner/PM position is the ability to think not to automate and create things faster.

The main criteria we look for is the way you think and your problem solving skills. While I agree with the take some VBA/CS/SQL to help create problem solving skills. I think the notion that is the only way to build those skills today is way overdone there is a reason people with philosophy/history/science backgrounds in the past have succed'd in this business, those courses create critical thinking and problem solving skills as well. I would never ding someone who did not master VBA in a trading interview, while I would like it and prefer it, but there is more than 1 way to create critical thinking skills.

 

1) Most students benefit taking more math/programming to train their critical thinking. I was shocked when I first met the finance students at my school. I was in the advanced level investing course working alongside alumni PMs and many of my classmates had a horrible intuition of statistics. They couldn't apply it correctly and were oblivious to the fact they were making bogus analyses. They picked up finance jobs through networking but I would personally be scared to hire them, EVER.

However, marcus is correct in stating that a good philsophy or history class will help you just as much (too bad it is rare to find a professor that teaches analytical skills in history correctly)

2) SIG trading has a perfect example of how easy it is to fall to bias in the markets. http://www.sig.com/decisiontrading.aspx . This website is all about how easy it is to make logical fallacies to the untrained mind. http://youarenotsosmart.com/. I would definitely give quantitative and programming skills more merit after realizing how stupid some of our mistakes are.

3) I remember looking for my first apartment in China as an SA and checked out way too many homes. To clean up the data, I built a model that ranked the housing choices. Too bad I never took into account that some landlords prey on naive foreigners. I fell for a huge scam all over the news involving 100 tenants forced to move out of a home they never actually signed for. (i hear this happens in NYC too)

The point here is that models built will always include the biases of the programmer - even models with pattern recognition. Considering point 2 about how many biases we fall for, you will always need rational PEOPLE, with real experience, common sense, and awareness of common logical errors to properly build the models.

4) There are many starts ups hiring JAPs (Just a programmer). These coders are commodities, not leaders, and basically never raise up the ranks despite the promises when they sign. Still, being able to automate some stuff as an investment analyst is really useful so one can focus on projects involving critical thinking instead of cleaning up comparables (ugh)

 
couchy:
1) Most students benefit taking more math/programming to train their critical thinking. I was shocked when I first met the finance students at my school. I was in the advanced level investing course working alongside alumni PMs and many of my classmates had a horrible intuition of statistics. They couldn't apply it correctly and were oblivious to the fact they were making bogus analyses. They picked up finance jobs through networking but I would personally be scared to hire them, EVER.

However, marcus is correct in stating that a good philsophy or history class will help you just as much (too bad it is rare to find a professor that teaches analytical skills in history correctly)

2) SIG trading has a perfect example of how easy it is to fall to bias in the markets. http://www.sig.com/decisiontrading.aspx . This website is all about how easy it is to make logical fallacies to the untrained mind. http://youarenotsosmart.com/. I would definitely give quantitative and programming skills more merit after realizing how stupid some of our mistakes are.

3) I remember looking for my first apartment in China as an SA and checked out way too many homes. To clean up the data, I built a model that ranked the housing choices. Too bad I never took into account that some landlords prey on naive foreigners. I fell for a huge scam all over the news involving 100 tenants forced to move out of a home they never actually signed for. (i hear this happens in NYC too)

The point here is that models built will always include the biases of the programmer - even models with pattern recognition. Considering point 2 about how many biases we fall for, you will always need rational PEOPLE, with real experience, common sense, and awareness of common logical errors to properly build the models.

4) There are many starts ups hiring JAPs (Just a programmer). These coders are commodities, not leaders, and basically never raise up the ranks despite the promises when they sign. Still, being able to automate some stuff as an investment analyst is really useful so one can focus on projects involving critical thinking instead of cleaning up comparables (ugh)

The SIG example is awesome. Might be just me, but I'd trust a math major who has done rigorous critical thinking (take analysis courses for example) than an anthropology major, all else equal. It's just impossible to find that level of complexity outside of the sciences.

 

This would be what you call selection bias. Wilmott is a quant based finance website, and hence more quantitative minded folk. Most of S&T is not really that complicated, but if you want to build models (aka quant) then you'll pretty much need a PHD.

Jack: They’re all former investment bankers who were laid off from that economic crisis that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have zero real world skills, but God they work hard. -30 Rock
 

I would say no. Reason being is that there is still the human behavioral aspect. In times of riskiness, humans will err to less risky/more vanilla products. Take for example the time after Lehman bankruptcy and financial crisis. Most investors liquidated their positions and sought straight hard cash or short-term government notes. For the bond and fx traders they made a windfall and a lot of ABS/MBS/mortgage financial wizards were looking really foolish. There is always a flavor of the month in finance and quant guys will always be needed to create complicated products to give investors more return for more risk around these types of products. But there will always be the need for people that specialize in less complicated products to appease more risk adverse investors as well. The only difference is how the supply chain will change in the future. In the future all flow/highly liquid products will be entirely electronically traded in my opinion.

 

I personally think you don't need a PhD (though it is preferred, I'll accept). I think the main reason why phds are preferred is because after 5years of dedicated research, they've developed the right approach to tackling tough scientific problem - not because their phd is directly relevant to their job. This is a highly sought after trait for a quant, but can also be developed through quality research as an undergrad or masters student (publishing a paper in a reputed journal would be a step in the right direction).

Another reason why phds are prefered is outlined in NYU Courant's Mathematical Finance webpage.

NYU Math Fin:
We are frequently asked by potential students whether people who complete this program are well-prepared for quantitative jobs in the financial industry, since the common perception is that quant jobs can be obtained only by PhDs. Students considering a masters program in mathematical finance are often confused by claims such as “all serious Wall Street quantitative jobs require a PhD." Such claims are not supported by our experience and probably result from two factors: (1) Masters programs in mathematical finance are relatively new (ours is one of the oldest and our first graduating class was in 1999). Before such programs existed, the financial industry filled its quantitative needs largely with PhDs and so the most senior quantitative people working in the industry today will probably be drawn from that group. The needs of the financial industry for quantitative skills has grown beyond the supply of newly minted PhDs, opening room for students with masters degrees. (2) There continue to be some quantitative jobs in the financial industry which are almost exclusively reserved for people with PhDs, either due to the hiring preferences of particular managers or the demands of certain jobs for the type of long-term research for which completing a doctoral dissertation is good preparation. But the managers with such preferences and the jobs with such requirements are forming a decreasing percentage of the total number of jobs that demand serious quantitative preparation.

Just my opinion; interested to read what others think of topic.

 

Most MFin's won't get a you a good quant position; here is a list of the ones that will get you the best jobs in Trading:

1) Princeton 2) UChicago 3) NYU 4) MIT 5) Columbia

This is the order in which I'd rank them personally.

 

Also look at the Websites, some call their programs different things.

An example is Princeton, they are an MFin program, but if you look at their qualifications it is the same as a Quant/Mathematical Finance program like the ones at MIT and UChicago and Columbia.

 

PHD in a good univ is preferred. I see you have a minor in math and would advice you to pursue an honour/coop in math or stat because having honour is good for applying graduate schools and coop is good for job hunting. Then try your best to get into the best programs in the best univs.

Calculus as a whole is too elementary for quants; Real Analysis, Measure theory and Probability Theory(not elementary probability, but backed with measury theory, developed by the Russians a century ago) are introductory courses. Then you can learn Stochastic Process and other advanced courses like Mathematical Finance which even the professors wouldn't understand totally since they are usually too new(developed for only decades, for example). And yes, you need to learn programming, C++ is preferred I guess?

I heard that actually they hire more guys with Physics background since most of these MF stuffs were developed by physicists. But again, a strong math background would surely help.

 

There is a serious representation bias when it comes to quants. You hear about the rocket scientists with black-box money making machines, like the guys portrayed in 'The Quants' (great book). What you don't hear about is the (much larger) body of quants who blow up as their algorithms put on ridiculous trades that any 'old-school, gut trader' would avoid. A lot of guys on the street have quantitative grad degrees simply because the bank could hire them for the same price as an undergrad and figured it was free value.

There may come a day when it's expected that all traders have graduate degree-level mathematical aptitude (that's far from the case today), but there will never come a day when common sense and 'right-brain' skills are useless.

 

quant trading is here to stay but so is discretionary trading. In 2006 they said the quants were taking over and discretionary macro was dead and then the crisis came and all the discretionary macro guys had huge years while the quants blew up. Bottom line is that a computer has many advantages over me as a discretionary trader but I also have many advantages over a computer...crucially in 2008 I had the ability to use my imagination to envision scenarios that had never occured before which is something the quants failed to do and its generally something they dont even try to do. And people have been saying quants were going to "take over" since I was in high school which was the late 1990's.

 
Bondarb:
quant trading is here to stay but so is discretionary trading. In 2006 they said the quants were taking over and discretionary macro was dead and then the crisis came and all the discretionary macro guys had huge years while the quants blew up. Bottom line is that a computer has many advantages over me as a discretionary trader but I also have many advantages over a computer...crucially in 2008 I had the ability to use my imagination to envision scenarios that had never occured before which is something the quants failed to do and its generally something they dont even try to do. And people have been saying quants were going to "take over" since I was in high school which was the late 1990's.

Do you hire any intern or junoir analyst monkeys to run simulated algorithms though? Like in MATLAB/C++ or so?

 

When you guys mention PhD's, would a PhD in Economics from a top 10-15 dept suffice or does a PhD have to be restricted to the domain of Mathematics, Statistics and Finance etc. Econ PhDs are highly mathematical, heck you even need a stellar grade in Real Analysis and Topology to even be admitted to top 20 PhD. Then again, I'll be a freshman this fall...

I win here, I win there...
 

PhD in econ is quantitative but doesn't prepare for a quant role. If you have programming and your upper level math classes were a breeze then look into MFE for future quant roles. Econ PhD's seem to prepare you more for academia/govt work from what I've heard. Learn C++ and C# and design some trading strategies with Wealth Lab or Interactive.

 
bsa-bsps:
PhD in econ is quantitative but doesn't prepare for a quant role. If you have programming and your upper level math classes were a breeze then look into MFE for future quant roles. Econ PhD's seem to prepare you more for academia/govt work from what I've heard. Learn C++ and C# and design some trading strategies with Wealth Lab or Interactive.

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks for the quick response!

How much C++ is required? Strictly speaking, I wouldn't wish to pursue it beyond the first year intro level. I completed my high school in the UK, where I attended a school that only offered "traditional" subjects, thus I have never had a taste of computer programming. If I take some enriched first year computer science courses this fall, I'm afraid that I'm highly likely to jeopardize my GPA. After all, I am taking a killer Analysis course rather than the standard Calculus course, and if I had to couple this with the fact that I'll be sitting in a lecture hall full of this azn compsci whiz kids when I barely know how to output "Hello World", I'll probably be lead straight into the slaughter. Then again, if half decent coding is mandatory in today's trading environment, then I better work my arse off to get things done!

I win here, I win there...
 

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I win here, I win there...
 

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