Anyone know any Quant houses they could point me to ..?

[nickb123]

Hi,

I'm a recent MSc grad.. I specialised in financial engineering / synthetics and arbitrage, volatility analysis, option trading etc..

I also have a BSc in mathematics so I'm from quite a mathematical background ..

I've just started at a proprietary trading company (futures .. equity Index, fixed income mostly ..) they make most of their money trading news figures and technical analysis.

I'd like to find out about some trading houses, funds etc.. that do more quant based trading, stat arb etc.. as its really where my skills lie .. i'm not enjoying the quick get-in get-out trading style and primarily I think I may enjoy something more quant based.

If anyone out there could just mention a few houses, funds etc... that would be worth contacting it'd be MOST appreciated .. finding these guys is one thing .. but actually finding out what they do with out being down there and working is something else!

Any help guys and gals would be great.. thanks

 

[arsenalboi]

There are loads of quant funds out there. I've actually come from a similar background to yourself, and started at a hedge fund, working on quantitative trading models. But after a year I've come unstuck as a few of the other senior traders lost a lot of money. So I'm looking for another role out there, i.e. as a quant trader but at a quant fund. The problem is this is a PhD dominated area, and you need to be really good not only in statistics, filtering, data cleaning, high frequency finance, micromarket structure, tick data transform methods but you also need excellent programming in at least 2 of C++/Java/Matlab/VBA and knowledge of database systems such as SQL/Sybase and you need very good programming skills in a statiscal software package such as R/S-Plus/SAS.

There are a few quant funds: GSA Capital/DE Shaw/Cantab Capital Management/Oracle...But you would need at least a Phd to get in there.

My advise to you would be to learn as much as you can by yourself at home through self study. Learn about time series/high frequency finance. At work learn as much as you can from the traders you sit with. Eventually when the job market improves, the major quant funds will start hiring MSc level candidates. If you do apply now to these firms and you don't get in now, you might spoil future opportunities with them when you do become better.

Alternatively why don't you do a part time MSc/Phd?