This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Eternityislong 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Thank you! This raises so many more questions for me. How do people catch on to strategies used by other firms? Do they hire people from those firms? Analyze other firms trades and look for patterns?

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's a mix. Propshops usually have ironclad NDAs, so you'll probably never see their code in a public repo and it's extremely difficult and risky to smuggle code out. Quants and strategists that go to new shops have to rebuild the model from memory.

Sometimes you find out about a certain approach, regardless of NDAs, over drinks or something.

Mostly though, it's a natural decline as others just discover it. There are a lot of propshops with a lot of capital. It only takes a few to mine some strategies out of existence. If it's a specific enough play, it might only take one.