FrankArabia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > doing a PHD in math just so you can become a quant > trader…that is completely irrational. Everybody wants to be a quant. People at work ask me everyday how they can become quants. Quants are cool.
JoeyD, Sublimity and Danlieb are our in house PhD holders or pursuing PhDs
Don’t get a PhD just to get a trading job. It’s far too great a commitment. Get a PhD because you love the subject and you want to devote your life to researching and teaching it. You can get a pretty good trading job (albeit not true quant/algo trading job) out of a top 15 MBA program.
itstoohot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > bchadwick Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > If your maths skills aren’t bad, you might try > the > > CQF program. It’s 6 months, rather than 4 years. > > > Not a slam dunk proposal, but you did ask for > > quick. > > and also quick (CQF way) comes with a $20k price > tag 
True, the price is a bit steep. On the other hand, you’re done in 6 months, as opposed to 2 years (master’s program, which you are likely to have to pay for), or 4-6 years (Ph.D. program, which may not be paid, but you won’t be wealthy doing it). So… what’s the opportunity cost on 1.5-5.5 years of your life?
(dup)
Yes but value(CQF) != value(MQF)
why not get a regular 9 - 5 and trade your own money?
David Tepper, John Paulson are not quants. Not all quants are good traders. Warren Buffet is an economist. Some quants are good traders. Jim Simon is an exception. Not all phds in math or physics go to wall street. Most of those who genuinely love math or physics despise the wall street quants. Two of my friends are astro-physicists and one is a math pdh at Fedex. Do you want to be a trader? Do you want to be quant? OR Do you simply want to be rich? Get in the line for third one. There are no gurantees. What will you do the day when Wall Street decides that Behavioral Finance provides more alpha then BSM models. Food for thought. FYI…if you were to really include in your SOP of good phd programs that you want to take the shortest path, good luck getting in.
Jus curious, what does SOP mean?
achilles Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Two of my friends are astro-physicists …do they ever say, “It’s not like its rocket-science or anything…”
achilles Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- Warren Buffet is an economist. Since when?
@ bchadwick Statement of purpose/essays = SOP @joemontana What I meant is that Warren Buffet studied economics. @mar350: not really, but they are split on Pleiades distance.
justin88 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Muddahudda what kind of quant trading do you want > to do? I’d like to work for a CTA/managed futures building models and applying them to the markets. Something akin to the turtles.
^ Graham Capital comes to mind. An AF legend used to work there - JDV. Have you read Covel’s “Trend Following”? Fascinating book!
Yes I have. As well as the turtle one (name escapes me right now). I’ve also met a lot of these guys in a business context (can’t remember if Graham were one of them), but it’s just not the sort of question you would ask directly in a meeting! Thankfully we have the collective knowledge of AF…
Just my 2cents, in my current company our quants have (mainly) engineering backgrounds: in applied maths for example. There is also one of our quant who is an aeronautic engineer with just an additional year in general finance… Paul
joemontana Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > achilles Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Warren Buffet is an economist. > > Since when? His degree is technically in economics if i read his biography correctly. You practice economics when you buy businesses even if you dont’ have a degree in microeconomics. all of us are essentially economist, some dont’ realize it and some are better than others. Quants are essentially mathematical economist using a bunch of insane assumptions. I took a course on financial economics and it had a section on option strategies which is really the whole scholes formula thing. that stuff is just intuitively appealing and it makes you sound really smart.
Again you do not need a PhD to be a trader or develop equity research models for traders (quant equity research). Unless ofcourse you plan to work at like Rentec or Blackrock, I beleive both those places love physics PhDs. BI know a guy at DRW who got a option trading job right out of school. Another at DB and MS doing exotic trading, all had engineering backgrounds and their 4th year engineering projects were lightyears ahead of the usual criteria. Also most rate traders do not have PhDs. Most of these guys could have gone onto Harvard/Stanford/Cal Tech to do their masters in like computer, electrial and chose Wall Street instead. A Phd is overkill for most products these days.
Muddahudda Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > justin88 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Muddahudda what kind of quant trading do you > want > > to do? > > > I’d like to work for a CTA/managed futures > building models and applying them to the markets. > Something akin to the turtles. How are your programming skills? A lot of quant shops do modeling in legitimate programming languages (i.e. not Excel) such as C++/Java/Python/R/Matlab/etc.