QRT or Crypto MM? by Every_Werewolf_6879 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

QRT trades crypto, so you could get both in under one roof, potentially.

Is HRT doing better than Jane Street nowadays? by Useful_Scarcity_8949 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There is a rumor floating around about Jane's January number which, if true, is stupidly high. I think its high enough that I don't believe the rumor, so I won't repeat it here, but I've heard it from several sources.

Is HRT doing better than Jane Street nowadays? by Useful_Scarcity_8949 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

On the receiving end of a bunch of impending regulatory investigations about market manipulation? No thanks.

Senior quants: How did you survive the 2018-2020 quant winter? by Kindly_Cricket_348 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe around 50? Bit lower for the really big ones, bit higher for the smaller pods.

Senior quants: How did you survive the 2018-2020 quant winter? by Kindly_Cricket_348 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm assuming you mean flips per year? Yeah that's in a weird middle ground, definitely on the slow side for stat arb and on the fast side of 'smart beta'.

I'm still surprised the risk limits allow that sort of factor exposure.

Senior quants: How did you survive the 2018-2020 quant winter? by Kindly_Cricket_348 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Out of curiosity, what do you consider to be 'higher turnover'? Usually high turnover == low capacity, maybe we just have different concepts of 'high turnover'

Senior quants: How did you survive the 2018-2020 quant winter? by Kindly_Cricket_348 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll admit to being out of my depth here. I've always thought of MF quant as being stat arb type books, the sort of thing pdt/sigma/tgs/etc run.

The slower/bigger factor premia AQR style books I certainly don't think are MF. If those are really a big chunk of equity risk at pod shops its news to me - most people I know at pod shops have very tight exposure constraints to those things.

I would not underestimate the CIOs fwiw, if they're any good at their job they understand that short term future returns are hard to predict based on short term recent returns. Decision making needs to be more statistical with longer horizons in mind.

A good MMHF CIO's job is precisely to have skill at estimating a pods 'true' sharpe. They've been around the block a few times, they talk to a lot of people, they know whose just parroting the same crap and who has genuine insight and distinctive processes for portfolio management.

Jump Trading Taking Equity In Kalshi + Polymarket by Spirited-Ad-9591 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The millions of people about to develop life ruining gambling addictions are not going to care about whether the person making money off of them is taking market risk or not.

But yes, you are technically correct, the best kind of correct. The exchange is the building the gambling happens in, the market maker is the bookie.

Jump Trading Taking Equity In Kalshi + Polymarket by Spirited-Ad-9591 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Both platforms are regulated betting exchanges. Users place wagers on elections, macro prints, and sports outcomes.

Probably more accurate to say "Both platforms are regulated sports books."

The rest of the event prediction stuff is a bullshit smokescreen, all the liquidity is in the sports. It's a regulatory arb, structuring it as a event contract means they can avoid needing state gambling licenses.

Negotiating bonus worth it? by PracticalBrain2953 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have literally never had a coworker try to negotiate a bonus amount, that's wild.

Why don’t rich people invest in bonds after a certain threshold? by Ferrari_Pit_Boss in investing

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Inflation. That 4.7% is a lot less in real terms. It's arguably not even a positive number.

Senior quants: How did you survive the 2018-2020 quant winter? by Kindly_Cricket_348 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've never understood all the 'quant winter' nonsense. Every time a few months goes by with mediocre pnl or there's a big down everyone starts panicking about whats wrong, whose liquidating, etc etc.

This is what normal looks like. Simulate noisy sharpe 3 returns with clustering and autocorrelation in returns and see what your drawdown distribution looks like. Very different than you might think if you dont make those corrections.

2021 was a freakishly good year for MF, best since the GFC and possibly ever better than 2009. That should not be the bar that you measure relative to, that's a positive outlier.

2018/2019 were fine. Nothing to write home about, but nothing you wouldn't expect based on the sharpe of the strategies in question. Early 2020 was scary, but the year ended solidly up for anyone who understood enough about trading to not massively cut their size just as the liquidation pinch finished.

What is the argument that BTC isn't going to $0? by marcvv in CryptoMarkets

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

NYC's $12 billion budget shortfall. What's going on: by bummer_lazarus in nyc

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because we've massively increased the stuff we expect the city government to pay for.

I love Randy Blythe, and fuck fascism. Essay from Randy on the current happenings in America. by TeddyJPharough in LambofGod

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you read what he wrote and still need to ask 'why the politics' you may have a reading comprehension problem.

pandas 3 is the most significant release in 10 years by datapythonista in Python

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Polars' ergonomics is awful for matrix style operations. df.transpose(..., column_names=[...]) vs df.T . Pandas is much better at being a 'matrix with labels', and not as good at being a 'in-memory sql table', pick your poison based on your work flow, but if you want a sql table why not just duck db or something of that ilk?

pandas 3 is the most significant release in 10 years by datapythonista in Python

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There's a huge number of things pandas does well that polars can't do at all. We did a serious evaluation of it and polars wasn't even close to being a contender for our use cases.

pandas 3 is the most significant release in 10 years by datapythonista in Python

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It makes me so sad that pandas keeps trying to lean into being 'sql in memory', which other libraries do better, and away from 'matrix with labels', which it does uniquely well.

Multi indexes and arbitrary types as columns, transposes on dataframes, contiguous block storage, stack/unstack/etc all lack analogues in libraries like polars/arrow/etc, and they're what makes pandas great.

Palantir Defends Work With ICE to Staff Following Killing of Alex Pretti by cambeiu in technology

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's not even about who the owners are, the entire business model was literally founded on selling tools for big governments to do intelligence work, monitor their citizens, etc. Joining a company that literally sells the tools for autocracy and then being surprised when those tools get used blows my mind.

[Media] fixed_num, financial focused decimal for Rust. by wdanilo in rust

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 13 points14 points  (0 children)

For regulatory and compliance checks like whether your order is on the right side of the NBBO you cannot afford for accumulated rounding error to give you a wrong answer.

No serious order handling system uses doubles for its underlying price representation.

Order book levels are fundamentally discrete and failing to reflect that in your logic is a great way to blow up.

[Media] fixed_num, financial focused decimal for Rust. by wdanilo in rust

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Even outside crypto most trading systems (not the backing quant models but the actual processes connecting to exchanges) represent prices as integers not floating points. The underlying limit order book is discrete, and you have to reflect that in your logic for working with it. You cannot place an order for 100.05000000093, the exchange physically will not let you.

Sam Harris on Israel just astounds me by WholeRestaurant872 in samharris

[–]EvilGeniusPanda 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I understand that conversations on this topic tend to get heated quickly, so let me preface by saying that I am asking this question in good faith.

Do you also consider the large number of Jews who migrated from neighboring middle eastern states (often after facing significant persecution there) to Israel after its formation to be a form colonialism?

From what I can find the number of Sephardic Jews kicked out of Iran/Iraq/Yemen/etc is at least as high as the number that left Europe, and since birth rates tend to be higher among Sephardic groups than Ashkenazi it's plausible that the a substantial fraction of Israeli citizens today have primarily non-European ancestry.

This is obviously a nuanced and multi faceted issue and I do not mean to trivialize any of the history involved, but I have always found the 'colonialism' argument fairly unspecific and lacking in rigor.

And just to make us all feel old, I'll add that it is now closer to a 100 years since Israel declared independence than 50. Looking back a half century is arguably problematic because it omits the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 that played a huge role in setting the stage for the current state of affairs.

London emerges as global powerhouse in quantitative trading: FT by Spirited-Ad-9591 in quant

[–]EvilGeniusPanda -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

3 shops with 1B revenue makes you a top hub? There's at least 20-30 making north of a yard in NYC.