i dont think undergrad in banking and finance makes u more quantitative. In fact, unless u went to Ivy’s or the top 20 programs, banking/finance doesn’t mean squat. ppl with good quant are engineers/cs/math. CFA L1’s quant is on the same level as 9th grade math.
If anyone actually read the post, i wasnt asking anyway if my credentials are good enough. I don’t give a stuff about that. It was more an ask about what a quant job is like, in general if people find it exciting etc. I mean please people, everyone here is just so focused on what letters and crap they have after their names. Maybe you should have T.W.A.T.
hahaha this turned into a hillarious thread…But I took up a similar junior quant role in Stamford at a hedgie and my background is bachelors in Applied Mathematics and Economics and Level 2 candidate…So similar to yours and its fine for the role…I start mid march so lets see how it pans out…
its true. people on here love to rip people. i remember when i first came on i got ripped cause i said i wanted to be an ibanker. i sense that this is the same type of treatment people get in the finance world. its sickening. this is why they say you need thick skin. in addition to that, i have been perfecting my 1 2 followed by a left. pacqauiao over marquez
Frank, when you first came on, you were ripping yourself… no one started it.
lol. hilarious.
storko…i recall differently. either way, the point remains that you guys like to rip people here. most of the time is uncalled for.
I agree, but what can you do? I am on this forum 50% entertainment, 50% information.
I am on this forum 80% boredom 20% to pass time in between calls.
Here for 20% inspiration, 80% perspiration.
Truth is the ripping aint too bad, I love giving back, and thrive on it with the wankers here. But when you are asking a serious question and the thread just degenerates into ripping, it can be extremely frustrating, and kind of defeats the purpose of this forum in the first place.
I miss WillyR telling us how good he looks in his suit.
For your own benefit maddane, it was you who started giving attitude…
so is there a quant analyst in this forum?
For TRUE quant forums, try Nuclear Phynance or Wilmott.
Maddane, Read these books then get back to us… 1. Yet Another Introduction to Analysis (Victor Bryant) 2. Principles of Mathematical Analysis (Walter Rudin) 3. Probability and Random Processes (Geoffrey Grimmett, David Stirzaker) 4. Probability with Martingales (David Williams) 5. Diffusions, Markov Processes and Martingales (Chris Rogers, David Williams) - 2 volume set 6. Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time (Tomas Bjork) 7. Financial Calculus: An Introduction to Derivative Pricing (Martin W. Baxter, …Rennie) 8. The Mathematics of Financial Derivatives: A Student Introduction (Paul Wilmott) 9. Stochastic Calculus for Finance (Steven Shreve) - two volumes 10. Martingale Methods in Financial Modelling (Marek Musiela, Marek Rutkowski) 11. Financial Modelling with Jump Processes (Rama Cont, Peter Tankov) 12. Monte Carlo Methods in Financial Engineering (Paul Glasserman) 13. Monte Carlo Methods in Finance (Peter Jackel) 14. Numerical Mathematics and Computing (Cheney and Kincaid) The above listed are a reading list I have put together at the suggestion of some experienced quants, and rest assured it is not comprehensive Google: Mark Joshi Advice for Quants - the first response should help you out
they’re to be read by quants, but i doubt all quants have read it. the list of readings suggests that this is at least a graduate survey of readings.
Thats why the Mark Joshi article is useful to read… He emphasizes that most quants are educated at the PhD. level with a MFE as the bare minimum (of course there are exceptions, but we are talking about real quant jobs, not someone using regression to check for correlation).
I guess if I even were to get the job, I wouldnt go much further considering im not PhD, a mere bachelor
Thats the sad reality of life. I would love to work towards a quant job but I just can’t make a five year commitment to a phd program when I wasn’t a math/science type undergrad, and I’m probably not smart enough to land a phd school anyway. I don’t know where you are from but I think the market conditions everywhere are varied. For example, my brother is 25 and looking for a quant position in New York area and he got himself some nice interviews (he’s only a BS in computer science), but on the interview they asked him so many technical questions that it was clear a PhD would have done well. Also, the impression I got from him and others about the quant job market in New York is that it is heavily populated with Indian and Chinese PhDs who have bad english skills and spent there entire lives in school. The point being, in India and China they have fewer options (this is such a generalization so don’t kill me on not sounding political correct) in terms of education (i.e. not as many philosophy majors) that if your smart you study a quantitative discipline. I think the keys to being a succesful quant are extremely high aptitude as well as academic achievement, but also some serious English skills. Most foreigners who have the first two qualities but not the third typically get stuck programming code 9 hours a day with little bonus potential, but having mastery of the English language plus some solid networking skills will help you land the coveted BB trading positions or front office work in a hedge fund. The one knock on quants that benefit CFA’s is the CFA knowledge of financial markets. It sounds meaningless, but I think most traditional quants spend all their years in academia that they have no notion of behavioral finance or even how a balance sheet and an income statement are related.