Cover image for How I became a quant : insights from 25 of wall street's elite
Title:
How I became a quant : insights from 25 of wall street's elite
Physical Description:
xiii, 386 p. ; 24 cm.
ISBN:
9780470452578

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30000010229969 HG172.A2 H69 2007 Open Access Book Advance Management
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30000010229968 HG172.A2 H69 2007 Open Access Book Advance Management
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Summary

Summary

Praise for How I Became a Quant

"Led by two top-notch quants, Richard R. Lindsey and Barry Schachter, How I Became a Quant details the quirky world of quantitative analysis through stories told by some of today's most successful quants. For anyone who might have thought otherwise, there are engaging personalities behind all that number crunching!"
--Ira Kawaller, Kawaller & Co. and the Kawaller Fund

"A fun and fascinating read. This book tells the story of how academics, physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists became professional investors managing billions."
--David A. Krell, President and CEO, International Securities Exchange

"How I Became a Quant should be must reading for all students with a quantitative aptitude. It provides fascinating examples of the dynamic career opportunities potentially open to anyone with the skills and passion for quantitative analysis."
--Roy D. Henriksson, Chief Investment Officer, Advanced Portfolio Management

"Quants"--those who design and implement mathematical models for the pricing of derivatives, assessment of risk, or prediction of market movements--are the backbone of today's investment industry. As the greater volatility of current financial markets has driven investors to seek shelter from increasing uncertainty, the quant revolution has given people the opportunity to avoid unwanted financial risk by literally trading it away, or more specifically, paying someone else to take on the unwanted risk.

How I Became a Quant reveals the faces behind the quant revolution, offering you'the'chance to learn firsthand what it's like to be a'quant today. In this fascinating collection of Wall Street war stories, more than two dozen quants detail their roots, roles, and contributions, explaining what they do and how they do it, as well as outlining the sometimes unexpected paths they have followed from the halls of academia to the front lines of an investment revolution.


Author Notes

Richard R. Lindsey, PhD, MBA, is President and CEO of the Callcott Group, LLC, a quantitative consulting firm. For eight years, he was president of Bear, Stearns Securities Corporation. Dr. Lindsey is also Chairman of the International Association of Financial Engineers. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Dr. Lindsey was the director of market regulation for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Before joining the SEC, he was a finance professor at Yale University in the School of Management. Dr. Lindsey has done extensive work in the areas of market micro-structure (the design and regulation of securities markets) and the pricing of derivative securities.

Barry Schachter, PhD, is Director of Quantitative Resources at Moore Capital Management. He is on the advisory board of the International Association of Financial Engineers and is cochair of its Education Committee. Schachter spent the early part of his career in academia, most of that time on the faculties at Simon Fraser University and Tulane University. He also founded and maintains GloriaMundi.org, a Web site for risk managers, and BelRanto.typepad.com, a Web log on risk and hedge funds.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 President, Leinweber & CoDavid Leinweber
A Series of Accidents
Grey Silver Shadow
Destroy before Reading
A Little Artificial Intelligence Goes a Long Way
How Do You Keep the Rats from Eating the Wires
Stocks Are Stories, Bonds Are Mathematics
HAL's Broker
Chapter 2 Global Head of Advanced Equity Strategies, Barclays Global InvestorsRonald N. Kahn
Physics to Finance
BARRA's First Rocket Scientist
Active Portfolio Management
Barclays Global Investors
The Future
Chapter 3 Strategic Business Development, RiskMetrics GroupGregg E. Berman
A Quantitative Beginning
Putting It to the Test
A Martian Summer
Physics on Trial
A Twist of Fate
A Point of Inflection
A Circuitous Route to Wall Street
The Last Mile
Chapter 4 Chairman, Upstream Technologies, LLCEvan Schulman
Measurement
Market Cycles
Process
Risk and Return
Trading Costs
Informationless Trades
Applying it All
Electronic Trading
Lattice Trading
Net Exchange
Upstream
Articles
Chapter 5 President, Capital Market Risk AdvisorsLeslie Rahl
Growing Up in Manhattan
College and Graduate School
Nineteen Years at Citibank
Fifteen Years (So Far!) Running Capital Market
Risk Advisors
Going Plural
The Personal Side
So How Did I Become a Quant?
Chapter 6 Chief Insurance Risk Officer, ING GroupThomas C. Wilson
Quantitative Finance: The Means to and End?
The Questions
The Early 1990s: The Market Risk Era
The Late 1990s: The Credit Risk Era
The Great Strategy Debate: From the 1990s to Today
Lessons Learned
Chapter 7 Former Managing Director of Quantitative Strategies, SAC Capital Management, LLCNeil Chriss
The Glass Bead Game of Explorers and Mountain Climbers
Computers
College Years
The University of Chicago PhD Program
Academia
The Harvard Mathematics Department
Moving to Wall Street
Quant Research
Quant Research and the Mathematics of Portfolio Trading
Quantitative Portfolio Management
Mathematical Finance Education
Final Thoughts
Chapter 8 Head of Quantitative Financial Research, BloombergPeter Carr
My First Eureka Moment
Accounting for the Future Instead of the Past
Postdoctoral Studies and in the Endà
Chapter 9 CEO, Hermes Pensions Management Ltd. CEO, British Telecommunications Pension SchemeMark Anson
PhD, Why Not?
Legal Arbitrage
Managing the Outcome
Certain Uncertainty
Chapter 10 Senior Quant, Bloomberg L. PBjorn Flesaker
Growing Up
Choosing Academics
Heeding the Call of the Street
Becoming a Real Quant Again
Chapter 11Peter Jäckel
The English Connection
London Calling
Cutting One's Teeth
All the Models in the World
For Future Reference
To the Front
Chapter 12 President, Andrew Davidson & Co., IncAndrew Davidson
Conjecture 1: If It Quacks Like a Quantà
Lemma 1: If You Don't Know Where You Are Going, Any Road Will Get You There
Lemma 2: Pay No Attention to the Man behind the Curtain
Theorem 1: If It May Be True in Theory but It Won't Work in Practice, Get a Better Theory
Theorem 2: To Thine Own Self Be True
Chapter 13 Managing Director, Merrill LynchAndrew B. Weisman
Econometric Voodoo
Trading for Fun and Profit
Tools of the Trade
Lessons Learned
Chapter 14 Managing and Founding Principal, AQR Capital Management, LLCClifford S. Asness
Chicago
A Big Decision
On Our Own
Moonlighting
Geeks of the World Unite
Chapter 15 Managing Partner, Diversified Credit InvestmentsStephen Kealhofer
A Startup
Practical Defaults
The Entrepreneur
Inventing a Business
Portfolio Management of Credit Risk
A Room with a View
Chapter 16 Head Risk Management & Quantitative Research, Permal GroupJulian Shaw
Gordon
Capital
CIBC
Barclays Capital
Fat Tails and Thin Peaks
Adventures in CDO Land
The Strange Evolution of Value at Risk
A Paradox
Permal
What Makes a Good Quant?
The Art of Leaving Things Out
The Art of Choosing the Right Tools
Do Quants Lack Business Sense?
Tips
Chapter 17 Deputy Director. Masters Program in Mathematics in Finance, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York UniversitySteve Allen
In Which the Author Is Seriously Misled
In Which a Fortuitous Opportunity Appears
In Which Reason Prevails and all Rejoice
Chapter 18 President and CEO, Windham Capital Management, LLCMark Kritzman
A Brief Chronology
How I Developed My Quant Skills
How I Applied My Quantitative Training
The Future for Quants
Chapter 19 Principals, Jacobs Levy Equity ManagementBruce I. Jacobs and Kenneth N. Levy
Portraits of Two Investors
New Concepts, Foggy Ideas
The Jacobs Levy Investment Approach
Benefits of Disentangling
Integrating the Investment Process
Relaxing Portfolio Constraints
Integrated Long-Short Optimization
Books and an Ethical Debate
Portfolio Optimization and Market Simulation with Shorting
Chapter 20 Chairman, SBCCTanya Styblo Beder
Yale
First Boston
Graduate School
Swaps
Giving Back
Chapter 21 Head of Risk Management, Clinton GroupAllan Malz
How Not to Get a PhD
How Not to Get a PhD, Continued
RiskMetrics' Salad Days
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Chapter 22 Senior Advisor, Morgan StanleyPeter Muller
What's that Smell?
Life at BARRA
You Gotta Know When to Fold 'em
The Call that Change Everything
Chapter 23 President, AJ Sterge (a division of Magnetar Financial, LLC)Andrew J. Sterge
On to the Real World
Cooper Neff
Early Days at Cooper Neff
Active Portfolio Strategies
How I Became a Quant
Chapter 24 Senior Principal of Marshall, Tucker & Associates, LLC and Vice Chairman of the International Securities ExchangeJohn F. (JacK) Marshall
From Premed to Derivatives
Frustration with Academia and the Birth of a Profession
The IAFE and the Road to MSFE Degrees
Notes
Bibliography
About the Contributors
About the Authors
Index