R or Python for FI Analyst?
Hi all,
I'm a senior with 3 months left in university. I'm taking two programming courses with the same prof. The prof offered to combine the courses and bootcamp me in one language. I'll basically be building yield curves and backtesting trading strategies. He used to work in the industry and has given me a ton of resources to go through.
I have the option of learning and doing the project in either R or Python. The desk I am returning to is pretty light on programming capabilities so they have no real preference. (Toronto big 5 bank if that matters).
I gotta start this week, any opinion on which language to go are appreciated. The workload is enough that I can't do both, but would be interested in learning other languages down the road if needed.
Python. Anything you can do in R you can do in Python with its scientific libraries (i.e. NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Matplotlib), but you can also do a lot of other tasks as well, such as automating mundane things or cleaning up messy Excel sheets.
I wouldn't even say R is a programming language. Once you know Python to a decent level, it'll take you half a day to pick up R - the learning curve for R is more the statistics behind it than the actual syntax in my opinion.
cosign
Python, r is mostly isolated to quants not much use outside of that and other stats based jobs, Python could be useful outside of analysis.
Python would be a better fit for your current requirements as well as future (other languages) Pay close attention to the concepts because once you get a hang of those, learning any language becomes easy.
Yeah, Python.
And if you enjoy doing all that, might as well get into C++ (low latency/trading systems/HFT algos) and get into the big boy club if you're into this type of stuff.
Hi!
I would also suggest Python. Very senior HF person said the same thing: once you know Python you can easily pick up R.
By the way, I am also interested in Trading (penultimate year student with S&T internship lined up). What kind of stuff are you exactly doing? Is there a place I could start Fixed Income - related programming as well?
Learn VBA/Java -> Learn Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing
All of a sudden Python and R look pretty wimpy
In all seriousness though pick whatever language suits. Java and VBA are beginner languages but either would probably sufficient. Also yeah R isn't a programming language? I remember "learning" it in a day to run like 1000's of regressions. It was useful for that.
I hate VBA, useful for automating day to day tasks, thats about it. I think that python is hands down the way to go, check out dataquest.io, they have a lot of very useful applied stuff. Would highly recommend it.
python is your best bet, it was the first language I picked up and while I don't use it anymore, it was instrumental in landing internships/jobs, plus you're learning a skill that will set you apart.
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