Hedge fund quant. AMA.

All of the quants I know have PhDs. I'd not heard of "quant" being used outside of that echelon.

>>1022806
It's rare, but definitely happens. Many sell side firms (GS, MS, Citi definitely) and some buy side firms like PDT, AQR, and Jane Street hire undergrads as quant researchers.

>>1022803
What are your hours?
How much of your time is spent testing versus creating a new algo?
What was your undergrad in?
How tight is the leash they have you on?

>>1022838
>What are your hours?
50-60 hours a week. Closer to the 60 end mainly because I'm a first year and don't want to look bad. Some people definitely work under 50 hours.

>How much of your time is spent testing versus creating a new algo?
Really hard to say since testing is inherently part of the research process. If you're working on a strategy and it has a terrible IR on one asset class, it's totally possible that with a few minor tweaks you can get a pretty good IR on another asset class. That being said, a lot of the idea generation comes from the PhDs, while the junior researchers (undergrads and MFEs) are more responsible for implementation and testing. I still have a lot of flexibility in suggesting tweaks and modifications though.

>What was your undergrad in?
Doubled in computer science and finance from a top 10 school.

>How tight is the leash they have you on?
Less tight than you would expect.

What's your round trip ping time to the NYSE quote and execution servers?

Is there even a single guy there from something like a state school? Or is it all cream of the crop colleges dropping kids into that world?

Apologies for the changing ID, I'm on mobile.

>>1022853
No idea. I don't do anything related to HFT or work on any strategies where that matters.

>>1022856
Only the very top state schools like Georgia Tech, UIUC, and Berkeley. Quite a few people who did their undergrad at mediocre schools, but did their grad at top schools.

>>1022862
Fuck doesn't sound like something that would be able for me to do. What's your pay like?

>>1022803
How's the pay?

>>1022868
Really varies since it's very dependent on your bonus. I'm expecting about 140k-180k my first full year.

How did you aquire your job, did you just apply and we're very qualified for your position or was it through networking?

>>1022896
Applied through OCR on a whim and turned out that I was a good fit based on my background and previous research I did with my professors. I was a pretty nerdy kid who didn't really know how to network, so I got pretty lucky.

>>1022901
What was your research based on if you don't mind me asking?

>>1022901
What's the work environment like?

Setup, technologies, etc. What do you use?

>>1022901
What other things besides quantitative finance were you considering doing after undergrad? Or was that your primary goal? I'm in a very similar boat in terms of backround and have no idea what to do with my life.

>>1022908
Machine learning applied to commodities trading.

>>1022912
Pretty typical trading floor setup in rows. Matlab, R, and Python are all commonly used. AWS and in-house clusters available for Hadoop/Spark purposes.

>>1022914
Silicon Valley since I had offers from a few large tech companies with comparable pay. I did an IB internship before, but decided banking wasn't for me. Realized working as a software engineer would be a waste of my background in finance, so I picked this job. More salary growth opportunities as well. Not to mention that a switch from quant finance to tech, from what I've seen, is easier than the other way around. I'd definitely recommend this path if it's available to you.

>>1022921
What courses in CS were totally unnecessary to what you do?

I just plan on taking machine learning and its prerequisite courses.

What courses did you not take that you wish you had taken? The usefulness doesn't have to be tied with your job description, consider the work environment, for instance if all you co-workers were Chinese you would have wished to take Chinese in college.

>>1022803
What internships did you do?

What advice would you give to someone wanting to work in a hedge fund after college?

Is it possible to pursue a graduate degree and work for a fund at the same time?

Are your days long, or is it 50 to 60 hours because you also work weekends?

What are your days like?

>>1022942
All the required classes I took were definitely helpful and I chose my elective classes with a focus on AI/ML so they're all tangentially related. The low-level and EE classes were pretty useless.

Should've taken more math. At the bare minimum, you'll need a strong background in calculus, discrete math, statistics, probability theory, and linear algebra. Classes in convex optimization and the such are also helpful. Sell-side quants do more pricing so differential equations and stochastic calculus are more helpful there. Take classes on financial derivatives (most undergrad finance degrees are a joke and don't teach this stuff in enough depth).

>>1022951
>What internships did you do?
2nd year - IB at BB, 3rd year - S&T at BB

>What advice would you give to someone wanting to work in a hedge fund after college?
Do internships every summer and network as hard as you can. I got very lucky without networking. Buy-side positions available to undergrads are very limited, so don't be discouraged if you don't land one; you can always do 2 years on the sell-side first.

>Is it possible to pursue a graduate degree and work for a fund at the same time?
Never heard of this, but if you find a night-time/online program I don't see why not.

>Are your days long, or is it 50 to 60 hours because you also work weekends?
Honestly 10-12 hours is pretty chill. I don't work weekends.

>What are your days like?
Get in around 7:00am, check on results from whatever has been running overnight, read some news/market commentary, grab a quick breakfast. Code and read academic papers until noon, when I eat lunch, and then code again. Fix any issues with production models during trading hours. Occasional meetings with manager to discuss progress, sell side people to discuss market trends, and other researchers to see what they're working on. Leave at around 6pm.

I would like to work at a hedge fund. Finishing my undergrad this year. Applying to grad school for next year. Ultimately would like to be in the biotech business. Am thinking about doing a MBA healthcare and MSF double. Is this a good combo? Will this combination provide a pathway to a hedge fund or health asset management?

>>1022968
I already graduated with a worthless degree so I know I screwed up. At least you had your shit together. I wanted to do sell-side but without the proper majors degree no one will listen to you.

>>1022975
I'm not experienced enough to give you advice confidently, but I'd say an MBA is preferable to MSF, so you don't even need to do both. Make sure your MBA program is a top 10 or at least top 25 program for a good chance at working in HF/AM. I don't know many good programs that take kids right out of undergrad, so you might want to get a few years of work experience first.

>>1022984
Finance is cruel and superficial, I'm sorry. I hate the rules of the game, but I know they won't change so I just played along.

>>1022994
Finance is soulless but at least you're doing well. Any advise on how to enter the sell-side with a non-finance degree?

What do you actually do?

any book list recommendation for a beginner?

I'm a engineering student at a top tier college of my country but I want to work in the financial market

>>1023048
What's your degree in? I've seen many people get IB jobs with degrees in the social sciences. You just have to network really hard with alumni from your school. Don't just look at bulge bracket firms, also consider boutiques and smaller firms. Otherwise, your best bet is probably to just work a corporate job related to your major and then go for an MBA.

>>1023052
I use math and computer science to develop trading strategies that beat the market. Data can range from financial statements to satellite imagery to online posts.

>>1023071
Most of the things you learn on the job, but the two books I've found most related to what I do lately are Elements of Statistical Learning and Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives. Firms are more concerned about whether you have a good quantitative background and whether you're interested in finance. They'll teach you what you actually need to know.

>>1023083
My major was in international relations, so its a social science. I look at smaller firms, since its my best bet to learn the trade. But I don't know how to write a resume related to finance.

>>1022803
With respect to your experience in the industry, how viable have ANNs for quantitative analysis and forecasting within different time frames?

In the simple (hobby) simulation I set up, they seemed to consistently outperform the market when there was a stable upward trend, underperform when there was a stable downward trend, and freak the hell out when there was excessive volatility. At the time I got distracted by other life obligations, I was investigating ways to anticipate market conditions during a given day to improve risk management with respect to the performance patterns I observed.

Thoughts? Any similar observations/insight?

>>1022968
>discrete math
Why?

>>1022803
Do you have any regrets from perusing quant work? Like, is there any reason you wouldn't rather be something like an actuary?

>>1023083
What Industries does your firm focus on like general info Health, Retail, Tech etc. If you do focus on any, does your firm hire analysts that have an expertise in those industries.

Also, I'm hoping to break into sell side finance or MBB consulting. Do you have any tips or inside information that you can a Finance/ Info Systems student. My financial knowledge is good, Maths is ok & Interpersonal skills are great.

>>1023096
Read http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/ and http://wallstreetoasis.com/ for information on breaking into the sell-side. It'll be difficult, but international relations honestly isn't too bad of a major for finance. I've seen many people pull it off.

>>1023102
Neural networks and deep learning are amazing for many things, but from my experience in industry they're not great for systematic investing. The consensus, at least at my firm, is that they're too much of a black box and the weights/gradients are not easily interpretable when compared to more traditional ML techniques like SVMs and decision trees. The theory isn't as well understood and there just isn't much economic/finance intuition behind the results.

>>1023106
Extremely important for understanding theoretical computer science, which is where I feel quant investing is moving towards. You'd be surprised how useful combinatorics and graph theory can be when developing your own algorithms.

>>1023107
I kind of regret dedicating all my time in school to studying and polishing my resume. Really wish I spent more time having fun and being social, but I'm sure many other engineers share the same sentiment. Didn't want to be an actuary because it seemed repetitive and I've heard salary isn't very good until you pass the exams.

>>1023126
We don't have a particular industry focus. I actually work mostly with fixed income products rather than equities. Read the two sites I listed above for advice.

How low should the Eout for a regression perceptron be for practical use?

Would it be wise too feed your strategy with regression & logistic regression input to strengthen performance?

Assuming u want to trade on a 1-5day timeframe, how often should you retrain your networks with the new data?

NN's or SVM's for timeseries forecasting?

>>1023083
>I use math and computer science to develop trading strategies that beat the market. Data can range from financial statements to satellite imagery to online posts.

First year Auditor here, I prepare those financial statements documents that you use. I've always been curious about investing and this might be the year.

Question - what exactly do you look at in regard to the financial? Equation? Please, I'm very interested.

>>1022803
Are you a new?

What's your solution for the unpredictability of fat tails?

What kind of maths do you mostly use apart from statistics and calculus

>>1023264
I want to know this as well.

>>1023291
>Enter a thread expecting advice on quantitative research
>get a (You) instead
Thanks lad