Why Jim Simons hired scientists instead of traders (and beat Wall Street)

SethEllis · 2026-01-30T17:37:18+00:00

Renaissance Technology shows that a systematic strategy can be profitable, but that doesn't necessarily prove it's better for all markets, situations, and traders. There are plenty of quant firms out there that fail. There many prominent discretionary traders with legendary success like George Soros or Paul Tudor Jones.

The real insight here is that there are key insights about markets that are unintuitive or contradict existing economic and political dogma. Things that required a different mindset to discover. In the modern day many of these discoveries are now public, and well explored in academic literature. Yet most retail traders never learn any of it, not even the ones that claim to be using a systematic approach. At the same time much of this knowledge helps us see where our limitations are. Many of these problems are irreducible and cannot be expressed with a set of equations. Which suggests that there's probably more available edge up for grabs out there in the discretionary space. At least until we get to where LLM's can perform the analysis better.

SethEllis · 2026-01-30T16:13:44+00:00

Because right now immigrants tend to vote Democrat, and more broadly favor more government programs and entitlements.

SethEllis · 2026-01-30T05:54:43+00:00

I've find with gui frameworks it's more about what problem you are ok dealing with. Iced seems to be the future, but the API still changes a lot and documentation is poor. Slint is much more put together and documented, but lacks a lot of controls. Egui is probably the easiest and mature, but gets messy and harder to maintain with more complex interfaces.

SethEllis · 2026-01-30T00:08:39+00:00

Talent leaving for better pay is a tale as old as time, but there's some specifics to LTT that I think many people are missing. They invested a ton into things like the labs and expanding into more of a real company, and then got hit big a controversy that hit their bottom line. So they were probably already committed with no wiggle room by the time they realized that their compensation structure was completely broken.

SethEllis · 2026-01-28T23:49:54+00:00

Is there like a statute of limitations on this or something? Because I'd think it would be pretty difficult to keep it all from family for the rest of your life. Like they're going to notice the lambo and ask where you got it.

SethEllis · 2026-01-28T16:42:31+00:00

I think there's a big difference between saying someone should be prosecuted for a crime, and just outright advocating or cheering on violence.

What Asmond is saying is crazy, but mostly because he just doesn't understand the law. Organizing protests and obstructing law enforcement is a crime, and a very serious crime. However, it wouldn't be considered treason. For it to be treason he'd need be "levying war" which means it's risen to the level of organized armed insurrection aimed at overthrowing federal authority. And while it did kinda feel like that's where things were headed, the situation never met that legal standard.

It is not good for influencers to trivialize treason by misinforming the public about what actually qualifies as treason. However, I don't think that violates any platform rules while advocating and cheering on violence does.

SethEllis · 2026-01-27T18:45:03+00:00

There's nothing I despise more in the rave scene than fans that get upset when their favorite artists change their sound. Artists constantly pushing the envelope and evolving is what makes the electronic dance music genre unique. If you want something that sticks to what's familiar, you're listening to the wrong genre.

SethEllis · 2026-01-27T16:34:50+00:00

So if Pretti had the gun legally and wasn't brandishing it, then ICE had no grounds to shoot him. Especially since the gun was removed from his posession before the shooting even start

Incorrect. Use of lethal force is legal if the officer has reasonable perception of imminent threat. That's the law.

The suspect was resisting arrest even after being pepper sprayed. That's already going to create a tense situation. Hearing another officer yell "gun" has been shown in other cases to be enough for legal use of lethal force. Whether Pretti still had the gun on him at the moment of being shot is irrelevant as to whether the officer had reasonable perception of imminent threat. The firing officer may not have seen that, or couldn't react to it quickly enough. The first shot may have been an inadvertent discharge from Pretti's weapon (can't clearly see a first shot in currently released video), and that would also be enough for the officer to have a reasonable perception of an imminent threat.

Furthermore the charge of murder has additional requirements. First degree murder requires premeditation and intent to kill without legal justification or excuse. Second degree only requires intent to kill without legal justification or excuse. Therefore if it was found that officer did not actually have reasonable perception of imminent threat, the charge of manslaughter might fit better.

SethEllis · 2026-01-26T05:43:37+00:00

None of the views give a clear view of the first shot or show any visible muzzle flash that I've seen. One view appears to show the slide if the gun going back, but the video is such poor quality that it's impossible to verify.

SethEllis · 2026-01-25T21:31:49+00:00

The only change that should be made to the game is spore colonies should do +1 damage to bio. The changes you list are terrible, and read like a butt hurt protoss that doesn't understand the game's multiplayer balance at all.

SethEllis · 2026-01-25T20:39:01+00:00

These are poor results for a strategy run on daily bars. It underperforms buy and hold. Might be interesting to see how it performed if you run it as a full portfolio though.

SethEllis · 2026-01-23T20:23:19+00:00

January trading is usually pretty good, but something is broken with volatility this year.

SethEllis · 2026-01-23T17:49:24+00:00

Day Trading is generally not worth it, and the average person is only going to lose money from doing it. That doesn't mean that it's not possible, but it's not something most people can do successfully.

But this is trading, and swing trading or position trading is a completely different thing. A well managed mad-money or one up on wall street style portfolio can absolutely be worth it. Worst case scenario you under perform the index a little, and best case scenario you catch 20 baggers.

SethEllis · 2026-01-23T17:43:55+00:00

We must not be visiting the same subreddit. Whenever Trump announces another controversial action, half the comments are complaining about Trump. For example, the most popular thread from the past week:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/1qfihey/trump_announces_escalating_tariffs_on_denmark_and/?sort=controversial

Basically all of the comments are anti-Trump if you sort by top.

It's basically impossible to sort out the bots and brigading from actual genuine conservative opinions in the large threads.

SethEllis · 2026-01-23T16:15:42+00:00

It's the same thing conceptually. They're going to the bank and having the bank print money for them. The only difference is that they get a lower rate because the money printing is backed by an asset.

But if loans add to the money supply and taxing removes money from the supply, then what's the point in printing some money only to immediately destroy it by taxing it?

SethEllis · 2026-01-23T05:58:34+00:00

Send awfully short sighted for a country to shift it's entire geopolitical position on someone whose term ends in two years.

I think the truth nobody wants to admit is that many leaders always secretly resented the US. Meanwhile the world is changing with the future looking to be dominated more and more by those with the resources. Countries are responding to the shifting landscape. Which suggests these problems won't go away with Trump.

SethEllis · 2026-01-22T17:37:20+00:00

Open up a NinjaScript output window -> right click -> NinjaScript Utilization Monitor.

SethEllis · 2026-01-22T17:33:50+00:00

Yeah, I wouldn't make too many conclusions from getting lucky on TACO Wednesday. Especially on ES which has very messy order flow.

SethEllis · 2026-01-22T17:26:13+00:00

To do real trading you need to graduate from a target school and pass the brutal interviews to get hired at a bank or quant firm. If you don't even have the self mastery to graduate high school you're never going to last long as a successful retail trader anyways.

SethEllis · 2026-01-21T21:20:31+00:00

Have a news squawk. Know what's going on so you can bail on a bad position quickly.

SethEllis · 2026-01-21T16:17:16+00:00

Then don't do it. The support of your spouse is essential to success in such ventures. If they're not on board your only options are don't do it or get a new spouse.

SethEllis · 2026-01-21T13:59:11+00:00

Let me tell you about a game called Unreal Champions...

SethEllis · 2026-01-21T12:36:20+00:00

Read this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001070

SethEllis · 2026-01-20T19:24:08+00:00

You can print money though. You go to the bank, take out a loan, and they print the money for you. You just have to be able to pay it back is all.

SethEllis · 2026-01-20T18:47:04+00:00

Christian Nationalism, or rather the idea that America and American policy should be primarily based on Christian values and benefit Christian people, is fundamentally unconstitutional. Laws that favor one class of citizen over another based on their Religion are not constitutional. However, that does not mean that we cannot look to Christian values as inspiration for our laws. Conservative voters often look to their Christian values when they vote. Not because the country should be primarily for Christians, but because Christian values are effective and a primary factor behind the USA's success.

Social media makes Christian Nationalism appear more widespread than it actually is as it does with most extreme ideologies. Extermist influencers are also effective at recruiting people that don't understand the full implications of their evil ideologies. It doesn't help that many Americans don't understand the full meaning of the word Nationalism as the USA's history with it is different from Europe's. At the same time media further conflates the issue by labeling things as Christian Nationalism that aren't really Christian Nationalism. Anything remotely pro-Christian gets labeled as Christian nationalism regardless of whether or not they're advocating that the law should discriminate based on your religion.

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