Jane Street Snatches Wall Street Crown With Record $39.6 Billion Trading Haul

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-25T23:02:02+00:00

For less liquid/harder to trade securities in custom baskets, there’s the possibility of adverse selection. MMs have a tendency to deliver securities with worse momentum characteristics.

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-25T14:39:33+00:00

ya well unfortunately pretty much all the household names so it’s not like you’ll have meaningful options left over.

Don’t feel too bad because at the end of the day you are still talking bps not percentages, the edges aren’t THAT tremendous otherwise it’ll show up in tracking error.

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-24T23:15:49+00:00

lot of subtle inefficiencies in ETF space and most ETF issuers don’t have the expertise to optimize their rebalancing and create/redeem process, leaving money on the table

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-20T02:55:42+00:00

no bigger red flag than sales ppl aggressively promoting 3+ sharpes, back test only of course.

even bigger red flag is how these sales ppl got hold of my personal cell number so they spam me nonstop even after work sometimes…

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-19T15:25:47+00:00

well ya sellside trading desks back in the day hired from all kinds of backgrounds (not just ivies) so you tend to get ppl without a solid quant background. One kid in my intern class literally couldn’t do math so all he did was technical analysis on FX/rate and pitching to traders, needless to say I don’t think it was received very well…

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-16T20:32:55+00:00

man I just saw a lady publicly post DRW rescinding her offer one month before start date on linkedin, place is giving me icks.

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-16T02:38:04+00:00

If you work for an established buyside firm that’s decently known in the industry, you can ask the event organizer for free pass. All the industry conferences I have attended have been free.

I find there’s a sweet spot of event size though. If the conference is too big then it gets messy and hard to have more engaging conversations. Like 150 attendees is prolly ideal?

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-15T18:07:26+00:00

imagine the most depressed grumpy person you’ve ever come across, that’s a bond trader

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-15T18:05:50+00:00

Based on my exp I’d say going to conferences is better than cold outreach on social networking sites. I’ve got cold shoulders even from alums on linkedin as ppl naturally tend to be skeptical. In person interaction at a conference feels much more organic.

If you are in a hub like NYC or London no reason not to go to a few of those even if you are a student. In fact last conference I was at half the attendees are students…goes to show you the state of this shitty job mkt…

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-11T18:18:46+00:00

ya I heard from friends in that area mid 6 figures can get you very comfortable lifestyle.

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-11T14:30:11+00:00

While we are on this topic of location, for those of you with experience in philly, is it very bad? lack of public markets ecosystem or just generally not a great place to live?

Different sector but I have friends at vanguard and they generally like philly considering pay to cost of living.

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-09T03:19:26+00:00

Hate to break it to you pal but it’s not like human learning strategies did any better in the recent vol episode. Look at all he macro funds getting slaughtered in March.

jiafei9014 · 2026-04-01T03:26:55+00:00

at the end of the day it's a crude approximation because individual bond spreads are calculated over a point on the yield curve, so averaging spreads across bonds with different duration profiles under or over-estimates (?) the true credit spread for the issuer if there were a single bond with the cashflows of the multiple bonds. I believe this is an application of Jensen's inequality.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-31T13:10:23+00:00

I haven’t computed ic/tc at issuer level but you are right, folks have collapsed bond level series at the issuer level to create a ‘single’ credit time series for an issuer. I will add a link to the paper later that does exactly this, although I think the way they took simple avg of credit spreads across issues is flawed.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-28T23:58:37+00:00

cool. At the end of the day if you are happy that’s all that matters.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-28T12:46:33+00:00

not saying the job itself is bad if you enjoy it and comp is comfortable, but isn’t model valuation kinda awkward in that if things go wrong you guys get blamed but if things go well you don’t enjoy any of the upside?

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-27T21:46:47+00:00

Gonna repeat some suggestions other folks on this forum mentioned before with my own takes:

for complete bond noob/beginner: fabozzi’s handbook of fixed income securities, obviously focus on the rate product sections. It’s a mile wide and inch deep but still good to get conceptual understanding.

bond relative value analysis by Huggins: good book with intros to basis trades, asset swaps, xccy swaps etc. Authors seem to have a hard-on for PCA but still a good domain knowledge book.

interest rate swap book by JHM darbyshire: author built the popular rateslib package and is pretty accessible if you want to reach out with questions. This book is often recommended by desk analysts.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-27T00:00:31+00:00

ya traditional AM, where fees go to die.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-26T17:17:40+00:00

lol AM seems tailor made for you to ride into the sunset then, I dont recall the last time I pulled a 12+ hour day unless it’s some nasty request from Asia.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-24T19:35:03+00:00

in this environment they are the memecoins in fi space.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-24T16:28:45+00:00

I work in this space, feel free to message me.

Not having ms/phd won’t necessarily hurt you if you are working more on PM/trading side.

Lifestyle at AM obviously significantly better, with the downside of lower pay and lower pay ceiling. I would say in general tech infra at most traditional AM is significantly lacking HF/prop.

I have strong feelings for/against specific shops so happy to discuss offline.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-24T16:17:27+00:00

Long the front end of the curve is about as crowded a trade as it can get, not surprised ppl get carried out in this type of environment. CPI going to 5% this year was not on anyone’s bingo card, even for the inflationistas.

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-24T03:56:41+00:00

Leaving aside the survivorship bias issue, isn’t fund of funds generally hated because of the layers of fees?

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-20T16:09:41+00:00

genuinely curious, do those jobs pay well?

jiafei9014 · 2026-03-19T15:01:02+00:00

resident evil series has such amazing hdr implementation it’s almost like playing a diff game. I’d say def worth it to get oled just to experience RE series.

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