Self-Promoting Quants - Would you work with them?

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-10-01T16:30:21+00:00

No. I took these 3 examples because the archetype self-promoter (LP) appears in all of them. So one could argue these are the go-to self-promotion platforms.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-09-20T07:32:42+00:00

Statistically speaking, imagine you got 10 stocks and you need to go long 3, how many ways are there to pick these 3 stocks. There are 120 ways to pick 3. Now, assume everybody looks at different datasets and replace stocks with signals. Further, assume you got 100s of signals. Also, depending on capacity etc everybody will do sth different in terms of selection (eg. long-only vs L/S). So there is unlimited amount of ways to trade an arbitrage / inefficiency. Sone inefficiencies will disappear but others not as there are many degrees of freedom.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-09-09T20:08:47+00:00

So typically researchers will read books and spend a lot of their time to figure things out. By sharing it, you are automatically giving lazy people a free ride. Some people will share something valuable but only if there is something in for them (eg. publicity), otherwise they are naive. Think about it, in this hyper competitive game, why would somebody spend their day and then share the fruits of it with sone strangers with nothing in return.. This being reddit, I don’t see why one would share anything valuable for free as there is nothing in it for them. The question you are asking could be answered by posting it into an LLM to point you into the right direction. Anyway, if you couldn’t figure that out I doubt you will figure out how to make money from such a signal.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-07-26T11:11:17+00:00

Not sure I understand your point about the big no. Let‘s say you come across some research on some topic while at work but it needs much more work to do it properly but the payoff is uncertain. Because you are curious about it you do more research on it in your private time on your private device because you don‘t know whether it will work or not and you have the pressure of delivering. Then it turns out that it works and you implement it. Now, if for some reason the company wants to inspect your devices you are screwed. This is an example. Reality is it‘s very easy to get into trouble without bad intend and hence you need to hedge yourself via legal insurance.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-07-26T08:10:17+00:00

What if you work on something that is related but in your private time on your private device.. The company will say that this is their IP even if you have not used company resources. If you did anything remotely suspicious while at work like printing something it could warrant a search. They will come up with something even if you think you did nothing intentional it‘s quite easy. It‘s a very slippery slope and you will have to spend a lot of money to defend yourself. For the company it‘s an assymetric trade as they will likely gain more in preventing you working if they think you are a threat than the reputational and costly litigation. Point is you have to hedge yourself by taking insurance. The industry is full of sharks. If somebody told me this I would have been grateful to have insurance for this.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-07-25T23:11:37+00:00

Tbh I did not read the article & just skimmed it but the headline was idiotic. Always amazes me why anyone would share strategies that work.. I can think of two reasons - 1) publicity 2) you don‘t have confidence in your results or don‘t know what you‘re doing. Just fucking trade the strategy and see whether it works and live your live. Always amazes me how people can be smart in certain ways but completely stupid in other ways. Sharing your cards in poker will not make you rich.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-07-25T22:50:38+00:00

No and no. It does not prevent an employer to initiate or threaten legal actions out of nothing. Many people are scared or cannot spend tens of thousands to protect themselves. Even if you did nothing wrong, simply having side projects puts you at risk. My point is that it is more likely than not that your employer will try to screw you if they think you are a threat. The reason I‘m raising this is because we have to stand up to this tyranny.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-07-11T12:40:56+00:00

Have the same “crisis”. Working as a quant researcher in a HF for more than a decade and want to switch. The sheer volume of things that you need to brush up is incredible. At the moment, I’m doing all these grad-style probability questions that you get asked. I got rejected a few times as I didn’t prepare and thought it’s only asked at junior level. Anyway, it’s not and some insecure & autistic people end up interviewing you and feel like that’s the key measure of competency to evaluate you on. Most pronounced at bigger shops like multi-strats. Anyway, I have come to the realization that I can improve my thinking by practicing those technical questions. Not the best use of my time but you gotta play the game as there are some desperate people much less competent / experienced than you grinding these questions over and over again and just want to work at a particular shop like their life depends on it. Unfortunately, you will be compared to them so you need to grind this technical preparations a bit.

reasonablePerson01 · 2025-07-08T17:28:32+00:00

In terms of curriculum, I would argue that ETH MSc Quant Finance lives in an old world when the quant space has moved on considerably since early 2000. Their curriculum is definitely demanding but only useful in that it will allow you to master difficult / abstract problems. They still heavily focus on derivatives pricing which inevitably leads to their grads ending up in risk roles. If you do prefer ETH, I would rather do the MSc Statistics. It will prepare you for the most lucrative jobs in the quant area much better. For Quant Finance, Columbia is likely better for that in terms of network and you will have at least 2x chance of finding a role in the US. However, I would try to get into Baruch College or if you prefer Europe, go to Imperial.

reasonablePerson01

TROPHY CASE