Experiences of top quants

-Book review of ‘How I became a quant’

This book tells stories of 25 famous quants, and their stories were written by quants themselves. So, you will see their different writing styles and experiences.

·      Most of them have a Doctor’s degree in STEM. It is reasonable because quants need to apply quantitative skills in solving financial problems, and advanced degrees are a proof of their strong academic problem solving skill.

·      25 quants have careers in different areas, including structured finance, portfolio management, risk management, derivatives, algorithmic trading, etc. It shows the broad application of quantitative tools in current finance industry.

·      Many of them worked for small companies focusing on a small area. The other many quants led quantitative groups within big and well known financial groups.

·      The most mentioned quant association is IAFE(IAQF), and the other mentioned organizations are CFA and SQA.

·      Some quants finally built their own business, and you will find they cover more topics besides finance and technics.

                    

There are some suggestions/ideas which sounds sincere.

·      “A second point, which was not lost on me, is that the market tends to place a significant premium on complexity.” (Andrew B. Weisman)

·      “A clear conceptual picture often is a better solution than a mathematical model that misses a key component.” (Andrew Davidson)

·       “Simply put, I realized it was much more important to be true to yourself than to remain loyal to a preconceived notion. In my case, the notion was that I had to be a physicist.” (Gregg E. Berman)

·       “In many cases model-based prices are best used as indications of whether to buy or sell, and not for valuation.” (Leslie Rahl)

·      “To summarize, I think good quant investment managers (like quals, there can be bad ones) can really be thought of as financial economists who have codified their beliefs into a repeatable process.” (Clifford S. Asness)

·      “In the absence of a defined process, you could not generate the data needed to make the assessment. At the limits of our knowledge, we have to take a position in order to create a view.” (Stephen Kealhofer)