Do quants pose a threat to traders?

[murray t turtle]

transaction costs aren’t like a rake at the poker table.

markets aren’t zero sum because the underlying asset (the economy is generally growing in real terms and there is generally inflation). Trading is just divying up that growth.

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Good points/trading is not a zero sum game at all in stocks + ETFs anyway.
Traders, investors, market makers, specialists, mutual funds, funds, chart printers, WSJ, WSJ ads, IBD Newspapers, book publishers,etc............. brokers can all make money.

 

[ChipShotTrader]

So you met the daughter of Robert Mercer (a billionaire) and Julian Robertson's son (also a billionaire), while in school, and both these men are well-known traders and fund managers.

No doubt, you are well-connected!

Did they share any trading secrets, by the way?

Just kidding.

Have a good weekend.

The highlight of the week is that some nobody @DiceAreCast called my life a fantasy, and that I am liar (and retarded too)! And that he is going to call me out!

You can't make this stuff up. I am loving every minute of it. My reality is somebody else's fantasy life, and to me it's just my normal, regular life...

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/question-about-lawsuit-for-broker.358604/page-14#post-5384766

 

[777]

Here is a good book, written by an ET poster, that should answer many of your trading questions:

 

[777]

I don't know that much about quants, but my understanding is they focus almost exclusively on micro time frames and arbitrage opportunities. There are other automated systems that trade on larger time frames, but those are no different than hand traders, except the executions are done without human error, provided they were programmed correctly. I'm probably wrong, so please correct me.

And because the market is a zero sum game, if the big banks are hiring theoretical physicists from mit to help them make money, then someone else has to lose. So my question is who are the losers? Is it always retail traders, more specifically day traders, or are the quants competing against each other, and hand traders are by and large isolated from them.

Obviously they do, especially for manual day traders:

If you mean are things harder or are far fewer manual day traders doing well.
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Zero sum game examples:

A. Two friend playing poker at ones home is zero sum. If one wins a dollar the other loses a dollar.

B. Two friends play poker with each other at a casino that charges each ten dollars an hour to play, taken from the first big pot, is not a zero sum game.

Every dollar lost by one player does not equate with the other winning a dollar.
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In example A, the wins and losses balance out.

In examle B, the wins and losses do not balance out.

In the longrun, if the players are close in ability or the fees for playing are too high for the stakes, both players figure to lose money.

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You could call trading zero sum but it is not for the buyers and sellers as money leaves the game to fees, slippage, etc. Long-term investing is not and here economic factors weigh in as well.

However, perhaps I am nit picking as you asked a great question!!!