Wanna be a Quant ?

[Poole]

can someone seriously explain to me what the purpose of a quant is?

to me it looks like someone who backtests data, comes up with some screwed black box trading model that applies large leverage, and then hopes the market doesnt trade 3 or more standard deviations, so they dont have to blow up the fund...

i mean seriously thats what I think, no jokes, whats the truth?

 

[Equalizer]

Quote from Poole:

can someone seriously explain to me what the purpose of a quant is?

to me it looks like someone who backtests data, comes up with some screwed black box trading model that applies large leverage, and then hopes the market doesnt trade 3 or more standard deviations, so they dont have to blow up the fund...

i mean seriously thats what I think, no jokes, whats the truth?

This question has been asked and answered on numerous occasions, but even the experienced ET epsilon semi-morons still appear to have no idea, so maybe that is asking a bit too much for a noob like yourself to know:

In order to avoid repeats, Read what one very smart ex-Quant has to say:
http://www.markjoshi.com/downloads/advice.pdf

 

[syswizard]

Quote from annaland:

No offense to you or any MBA, but generally speaking if you ask any quant or PhD he will attest that an MBA is just a series of power points – nothing quantitative about it. Ask an MBA to derive the Black-Scholes, Vasicek, or CIR model. They probably won’t even know what the latter two are!
Carnegie offers great quant and MBA programs. Compare and contrast for yourself:

Sorry Anna, but I did my MBA thesis on the Black-Scholes option valuation model and formula years ago. I told Surf this at the NAG forum/conference.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from illiquid:

When it comes to the actual trading, what's the difference between a Quant and a Fundamental Analyst? Does either know any other solution to a losing position besides averaging down?

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from annaland:

PS. surf is not a homosexicle...

No doubt, men everywhere are breathing a collective sigh of relief. Women, on the other hand, are almost certainly exhibiting a pallor in the ashen-gray family.

 

[kinggyppo]

Quote from marketsurfer:

yes. dr.giles from oxford was one serious dude! euler discretization, the milstein method, asian barrier and lookback options, quasi monte carlo--- interesting lecture for sure.

best,

surf

:eek: Wow those are some big words there, you musta had lots a skoolin!

 

[black diamond]

Quote from syswizard:

Sorry Anna, but I did my MBA thesis on the Black-Scholes option valuation model and formula years ago. I told Surf this at the NAG forum/conference.

... and I built a Vasicek model in my MBA program. Definitely not the stuff most MBAs do but at some schools it is an option.

I also did some "quant lite" work in fixed income for a few years - risk and strategy stuff. Probably the most common profile of my coworkers was MBA or MS finance with engineering/CS/ or other technical undergrads and at least some progress on the CFA program. I did have one boss who was a math phd but he was the exception.

I am not saying this is the normal quant profile - both places I worked had some groups like this and some more traditional phd-heavy quant groups that did the hardcore model building. But you can get into the same neighborhood with an MBA, and I thought the work we did was actually more fun.

 

[IluvVol]

Quote from Equalizer:

LOL! That is a bullshit course devised by the "Wilmott money making organisation" for wannabes.

If you don't want to do a PhD, there are many decent masters programs in Mathematical Finance and Applied Finance these days, but they'll take you longer than 6 months part time - and they don't have "take home" exams like the CQF - LOL!

Agree that a decent Masters program in Financial Engineering beats the certificates hands down. For someone who can only do this part time, besides a full-time job, there are plenty of part time Masters program out there, although I dont recommend doing it remotely.

By the way Wilmott is a very respected guy despite the fact he tries to sell his stuff, whats wrong with that. Go to the Willmott quant finance forums you will see guys posting such as Patrick Hagan, Carr, Pieterbarg to just name a few. Lol, unless you work in the industry you might not even recognize the names of those innovators and leaders of the field. Wilmott has recognized the nitche by selling "education" to those who could not get into the top programs or dont want to put in the time (1.5 years plus). At least his stuff is real not the cheap crap 90% of snake oil salesmen try to market here at ET.

 

[IluvVol]

Quote from syswizard:

Well, I'll tell you one thing: I met Wilmott in person and I must say the guy is pretty much into himself and pretty arrogant to boot. I introduced myself to him and told him I would like to be able to join his online forum. He said I couldn't because I didn't have a corporate or university domain name in my email address. Here, he lets all of these faceless people join the forum, and won't let me in, even after I told him "this is where I live", "this is where I work", "here's where you can contact me". He wouldn't make an exception to his "policy". Oh, the policy is in-force because he wants the ability to go after someone legally in cases of defamity, etc.

Lol, maybe you should think a bit harder...maybe he just does not want the same amount of losers at his forum than what is sneaking around here. (not suggestion you belong to the latter). By the way, I think the normal Wilmott quant forum is free to join, no special affiliation needed. So, not sure what you are even talking about.

 

[IluvVol]

Quote from marketsurfer:

yes. dr.giles from oxford was one serious dude! euler discretization, the milstein method, asian barrier and lookback options, quasi monte carlo--- interesting lecture for sure.

best,

surf

Lol, thanks for educating us on monte carlo methods and what you remember form the lectures. However, to clarify m.c. is pretty much the simplest solution technique in quantitative finance. Nothing gets easier than that. One notch higher are variance reduction techniques but also those support m.c. What quant programs are really about is stochastic calculus and the solving of partical differential equations. But thanks, Marketsurfer, for keeping us all on top of the latest developments ;-)