The Quants, by Scott Patterson

Has anyone read this book? If so, what do you think of it?

I read it and like it. It’s not technical. Reads like a story book as it’s written by a journalist. Gave me the impression that all HF mgrs play poker. It also gave sufficent details of the history to each of the main players and to the overall quant invasion onto Wall St.

I also read it and liked it very much.

good read.

Do you guys think that getting it in audiobook format will be smooth? Would I miss too much? I find it much easier lately to do so.

lol @ people who can’t do math being jealous of Quants. lol @ the CFA

Supreme111 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > lol @ people who can’t do math being jealous of > Quants. > > lol @ the CFA OMG, r u nrvs abt prom? I totly hope Mike asks u! LOL - u r so funy! Take your high school ass back to your math desk and calculate something.

Dont give him so much credit, did “quants” at your school get asked to prom? Even by dudes?

lol @ you proving my point with your inarticulate post.

Supreme111 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > lol @ you proving my point with your inarticulate > post. You just proved my point, by your inability to understand that you are being referred to as someone with incredibly immature and underdeveloped social and communication skills. As bad and junior high-school’ish as your communication skills are, I was able to derive three things about you: 1) You pride yourself at being very good at math. 2) You do not get along well with people, especially those of the opposite sex or people who don’t laugh at a ‘good’ math joke. 3) You can and will not complete the CFA program.

jcole21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 3) You can and will not complete the CFA program. Lol what? What does being quantitative (or not) have to do with the CFA program? If anything quantitative skills would help… unless there’s a vignette on dating cheerleaders in L2 or something.

LOL lol Lol LMFAO @ every1 in this thread… lolz

What the hell happened to this thread? Supreme111, are you really in high school? What’s up with the lol thing? Who’s jealous of what? I don’t even understand what you’re talking about.

lolz! : )

justin88 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > jcole21 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > 3) You can and will not complete the CFA > program. > > Lol what? What does being quantitative (or not) > have to do with the CFA program? If anything > quantitative skills would help… unless there’s a > vignette on dating cheerleaders in L2 or > something. It doesn’t, and I agree that the only thing a quant background would do is help - but this clown sounds like a jaded schoolgirl, LOL, meaning he has tried and failed, or didn’t even sit for the exam.

You don’t HAVE to be good at math to be a quant? Or, can you just be good at counting or gymnastics instead. There are lots of ways to be a good quant.

Supreme111 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > lol @ people who can’t do math being jealous of > Quants. > > lol @ the CFA LOL @ you kicking a$$ in pre-algebra, in the 10th grade.

As a Quant (not in trading, though), I loved the book. All I can say is we continue to make the same mistakes we made two years ago. I am convinced most Quants just don’t ‘get it.’ Human behavior can not, and will never be modeled by what Ph.D.'s in Physics study.

To think that human behavior can be broken down into numbers is just fundamentally wrong. Think about it like this, how many *perfect* straight edges can you find in nature? Answer? 0

Yeah but working in major banks/hedge funds isn’t natural human behavior. Many of them have their employees work under strict guidelines, hence some super smart people are able to take advantage of this. I really think there are people out there who have created algorithms that can beat the markets on a consistent enough basis that they are profitable year in and year out.