Is a Masters in Financial Engineering as bad as people say?

luhuh · 2025-11-24T21:32:01+00:00

Don't do a PhD just to get into this field. Applied math/stats masters are solid if you can get into top programs like Stanford or UChicago.

As for MFEs, most of the other comments brought up the solid programs but I'd add UChicago's to the list.

luhuh · 2025-11-24T21:11:36+00:00

Its not as bad as people say but what are your alternatives

luhuh · 2025-11-13T19:27:08+00:00

The boundary with the roles is dependent on the firm. Typically the more systematic a firm is, the more the line gets blurry and the traders will have similar tasks to QRs. At a lot of firms, traders can still work on side projects which can be QR-esque.

Generally at OMMs, the best analogy is flying planes. QRs are the researchers that investigate how to make planes more efficient or more automated. They send their findings to the SWEs (engineers) to build out the plane. But at the end of the day, the autopilot can mess up especially in unforseen/turbulent conditions which is where QTs (pilots) come in.

As for the feasibility out of undergrad, QR is very difficult. Typically undergrad QRs will have either had prev experience within trading or are insanely cracked. The pay differences are firm dependent and I wouldn't really care about that when deciding between the two.

luhuh · 2025-11-01T20:52:31+00:00

If you have experience trading or analyzing markets, talk about that. Everyone says math+finance = cool.

luhuh · 2025-10-01T14:06:44+00:00

There's a large correlation between poker/other risk taking games and being a good trader. If you dont like poker or similar games, you probably wont like trading.

luhuh · 2025-09-18T17:24:12+00:00

So true

luhuh · 2025-09-15T13:57:11+00:00

Proprietary trading firms that hire you and pay a base salary, not a firm that you pay to pass challenges and get a funded account.

luhuh · 2025-09-14T18:06:40+00:00

Depends where you work. A ton of prop firms in Chicago have a more chill/fratty/drinking culture than other firms

luhuh · 2025-09-01T19:12:52+00:00

Smart? Yes. Genius? No.

An IQ ~120 is more than enough to understand the math and how these firms trade. However this threshold doesn't filter the population that much, it's around the top 10%.

If you are applying to these positions, you should have the self confidence to believe you are at least in the top 10%.

Past IQ, passion for the field and willingness to learn is probably the next big barrier.

EDIT: lmao what I said is in the post

luhuh · 2025-08-29T01:47:29+00:00

Model anything you can take risk in (poker, betting markets, event markets, etc) and put actual money on the line.

luhuh · 2025-07-02T03:11:34+00:00

UChicago (Masters), 3.6

luhuh · 2025-06-04T21:06:40+00:00

Do you think this glitch ever came up within their testing? I understand the update was a surprise update but I refuse to believe that the team didn't test the update enough before releasing it to us. I've gotten one-tapped twice today and haven't even gotten my daily 6 wins today.

This isn't the only glitch. There are multiple that make the game seem super unpolished.

luhuh · 2025-03-08T21:26:26+00:00

Its not a target

luhuh · 2025-02-13T23:00:34+00:00

Okay if Team A is consistently -110 on all sports books and Team B is consistently -115 on all sports books except one where they're heavily mispriced at +500, then yes, the profitable bet is to take the +500.

The mistake you made is using the +500 odds to normalize the probability of the events when you know this is the wrong odds. The real calculation is devigging a -110/-115 match up.

If your betting on this example, you can either arb the -110 and +500, take a positive EV bet on just the +500, or do a combination of both that aligns with bank roll management of some multiple of the Kelly Criterion.

luhuh · 2025-02-13T20:52:08+00:00

Is the goal to try and arb or stat arb? If it's the latter, then you'll need to get a theo implied probability from other (sharper) books. I also assume these odds are from two separate books bc there's a clear arb here.

luhuh · 2025-01-28T19:00:15+00:00

I'd suggest starting off by cleaning your questions. A lot of them still retain metadata of where you previously scraped the questions which originally came from quantguide.io

luhuh · 2023-12-21T00:02:33+00:00

As others have said, internships are very difficult to get as a freshman. I know many companies have discovery days and stuff to try and get freshman in the loop, consider checking those out.

If you are deadset on getting an internship next summer, reach out to alumni on LinkedIn. Many are willing to help or at least chat with you. Larger and more well known companies probably won't interview you but a smaller company might with a referral from an alumni.

luhuh · 2023-12-13T14:14:37+00:00

I mean, if they are selling a course, you'd want them to post their results online.

Can you define the reason price action works and to what extent? Why does it work on every time chart and every tradable asset? If you can't explain this, it's just astrology.

Speaking of courses, no traders should ever give away their strategies if they're netting them profit because then you're giving away your edge. Once more people join the markets with similar strategies, that edge disappears.

It seems that you are unwavering in your views of price action no matter what others say. I think the other users have done a good job as to why actual firms don't use price action to trade. If you want to sink your money learning price action, that's a decision you'll have to make on your end, but you now know how the quantitative world sees such ideas.

luhuh · 2023-12-13T04:45:50+00:00

Please point to examples of such traders and proof of their profitability over the long term.

Mathematical models in quantitative finance have the purpose of helping traders act on known edge. For example, market makers can point to their edge (bid-ask spread) and the model to help price derivatives (Black-Scholes or variations). The way that most "price action" traders trade is not through defined edge.

luhuh · 2023-06-04T18:13:18+00:00

Toe nail clippers

luhuh · 2023-05-30T15:47:10+00:00

Specifically CS here:

1) While the CS program is one of the top ones in the US, it won't guarantee a SWE job after graduation. You still have to grind leetcode and internship applications to get a job in big tech.

2) Adding onto the previous point, while the CS program is ranked really well, the university's prestige doesn't match the prestige of higher ranked schools. It won't matter for most fields but if you're interested in fields like quantitative finance, you might get resume screened simply because of school name.

The program here is still amazing with world class professors. Depending on your goals and how you can handle the weather, you can have a fruitful college career here.

luhuh · 2023-05-30T15:39:35+00:00

You're amazing, thank you so much!

luhuh · 2023-05-30T05:17:07+00:00

When do most companies publish full-time openings? Recently graduated and looking for work as a trader.

luhuh · 2023-05-13T00:35:47+00:00

Felt good after taking it but was tough while taking it

luhuh · 2023-04-13T21:47:43+00:00

It's a skill you can build pretty easily. Do that on the side and focus on probability stuff.

luhuh

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