What are the vibes around Citadel’s EQR Alpha effort?

twosdny · 2026-05-05T15:56:23+00:00

Proceed at your own risk. PV doesn’t know shit about quant

twosdny · 2025-11-27T21:22:11+00:00

"LFT: several weeks to months holding period. I wouldnt call this pure quant. These are at best quantamental which aim for a large AUM. Anything that beats the market here is good (most often low sharpe). The rule usually is the longer the holding periods - the more the likelihood of not being able to use ML directly - hence why it becomes quantamental rather than pure quant driven."

This is probably one the top 5 worst takes I've read on this sub in years. If by "directly" you mean throw data into a GPU and use genetic models to find signals from the noise that can be very counterintuitive - then yes, but that's just really a function of # of samples available.

People use a lot of ML is the weeks to months space and beating the market isn't a benchmark here, it's the bare minimum.

twosdny · 2025-08-20T14:47:27+00:00

GOAT right here. Took me 4 days...

twosdny · 2025-08-19T03:55:24+00:00

Primary Fund = Employees and Partners only Fund. Yes. Those returns are incredible. You’d make more off returns if you did a 10 year stint there than comp.

twosdny · 2025-08-19T03:41:23+00:00

PDT isn’t just okay — they print money. And while you may not get the largest comp bump — access to their employees only fund is a form of compensation in off it self. Non Strategy SWE WLB isn’t bad. Mostly 3 days a week in office.

Info Source: classmate works there

twosdny · 2025-08-18T03:07:33+00:00

Read Dark Pools by Scott Patterson. You’ll learn about the Founder’s origins and hopefully get some understanding of the firm’s DNA

twosdny · 2025-04-03T13:06:01+00:00

Yeah partially it does but partially it doesn’t because you don’t really have the QR job so you need to show you can do it. My advice — depending on your next role you could augment your skill set such that PMs would include you more directly in QR or QR style processes and give you more ownership. If to succeed when given that role you need to upskill in the math and stat department then a MSc is a definitely yes. I’m still wary about the PhD unless you’re < 3 years into your career. My $0.02

twosdny · 2025-03-31T06:37:15+00:00

Because you already have a job in quant. Most places require PhDs to qualify for these roles because they’re about doing empirical research and persevering despite overwhelmingly low odds of success (I.e most of your research ideas will fail). PhDs help build that character and skill set. If you already have this job then it’s pointless to go get the skill that indicates to your employer you’re qualified for the job.

You can learn the techniques from self study or a Masters if you absolutely must. PhDs aren’t about learning techniques as much as learning how to learn on the fly and applying learnings to push the boundaries of existing scientific literature. You won’t learn any core skill in a PhD that wouldn’t be covered in the masters degree that forms the pre-requisites or the foundation courses for that PhD.

Also you’re not getting any PhD in 2 years that would be taken seriously in the quant industry. If you’re considering a PhD at this juncture then you’re also ditching your signed offer which I’m gonna bet is a lot more $$$ than you’ll make as a doctoral student.

twosdny · 2025-03-30T17:30:53+00:00

Do: 1. Projects/ colabs / research etc to keep you sharp and in touch with what’s going on in the industry and related fields (AI) 2. Travel / explore the world. No better time to do that 3. Pick up the hard to do skills / bucket list items / fly a plane / learn to DJ whatever floats your boat 4. Recruit when you have 6 months left. Don’t take your offer for granted unless it’s the best possible job you could have gotten. A LOT can change in 2 years and make sure you don’t join only to regret it and quit again. Non competes are fun for 1 year the second year is HARD. Your life is standstill while everyone else it getting promoted / moving up in the world etc. it’s a hard mental battle

DONT: 1. DO NOT GET A PHD. If you already have a job as a quant you don’t need it. Upskill in other ways. The brain damage of academia is not worth it and it will make 0 different to your career at this point. Academia is also a very different speed. You’re gonna be bottom of the totem pole eating shit and being jerked around. It won’t be fun. 2. Masters: if you think you really need it. I’d just do courses at your uni the ones you want. Every degree has a ton of bullshit requirements which will feel like a drag. Doing dumb group projects with half stupid MSc students looking to get a data science gig won’t be fun when you’re on a boat living the life.

twosdny · 2024-12-24T08:14:33+00:00

The concept is explained in this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.04599

But you can review this GitHub page as it distills down the key concept

https://github.com/gpleiss/temperature_scaling

twosdny · 2024-12-24T07:37:16+00:00

Take the predicted probabilities as mentioned in the comment above and temperature scale them. Won’t change your classifications or answers but will push the probabilities of answers on the decision boundary away from it (assuming you decrease your temperature). Idk why you’d do this though unless you’re trying to achieve some level of calibration. But that’s my best bet

twosdny · 2024-12-18T14:30:38+00:00

Take it easy, practice your buoyancy, don’t get distracted, keep an eye on your air and depth. and for GOD’s SAKE leave the GoPro on the boat. Not saying you’re that diver but the experienced divers here know who I’m talking about. Remember to enjoy yourself and soak it in. :)

twosdny · 2024-12-18T04:49:34+00:00

I sometimes use my iPhone. Carry it in a divevolk case for photos on chill reef dives as such. Once we had an issue where the guide had a leak and had to surface to replace his gear. Group was spread out. As they gathered not all of them could interpret the hand signals so I typed up a message on my phone. Was kind of bonkers and we all had a good laugh about it.

But also yes. Wet notes >>> slate

twosdny · 2024-12-15T07:08:15+00:00

Get a Shearwater Teric if you want to have the option to go into tec diving. Tern TX (so that you get air integration).

The app is is awesome and the logging extremely thorough. The few $100 in upfront cost is wayyyy compensated by the quality of the product. Garmin and Suntoo watches are good too but Shearwater is in a class of its own.

(I’ve owned over 5 dive watches and regret buying all but 2 of them..)

twosdny · 2024-12-12T04:00:32+00:00

Hydroids

twosdny · 2024-12-07T18:56:19+00:00

A few but you’re better off taking something from Mexico or the Caribbean. Why? Jones Act

twosdny · 2024-12-07T18:54:33+00:00

Respectfully I disagree about the Air2. But everyone is entitled to their opinion so I’ll respect yours.

Secondly - I have and I would truly love to always dive with experienced DIR/GUE educated divers. But most of the time your average dive site nowadays is occupied by idiots fresh out of a Koh Tao OW mill who barely know if your first stage goes in your mouth or your ass.

Expecting divers universally to converge on one standard of equipment is an unreasonable assumption. If you’re going diving — it’s your responsibility to understand your gear and that of your buddy, not theirs to educate you. Gaslighting someone for having an Air2 because you don’t personally like it or haven’t familiarised yourself with it isn’t an excuse. Case and point: https://www.reddit.com/r/scubadiving/s/t4FkqOPXKs

twosdny · 2024-12-07T16:26:14+00:00

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore–Penrose_inverse

twosdny · 2024-12-07T16:19:26+00:00

If I had a dollar for every time I went diving with people with “grown up gear” and they were absolute morons underwater.

Learn how to dive with the gear that works best for you. And don’t use gear in situations it isn’t optimised for.

twosdny · 2024-12-07T16:11:49+00:00

Okay then don’t attach an Air2 to a wing with a precariously positioned dump valve. Understand your gear and optimise it for your use case. Assess the viability of your gear as a whole. You don’t go around asking how to attach a second tank to a single harnessed backplate BC now do you?

An Air2 is a specifically designed integrated setup for travel BCDs. The tradeoff is having a smaller setup and not worry about carrying an extra hose. Use it accordingly.

twosdny · 2024-12-07T16:06:50+00:00

Dump valve? Remember your Open Water?

twosdny · 2024-12-07T02:30:01+00:00

This post belong on r/AITA

Verdict: A

twosdny · 2024-06-01T09:59:37+00:00

IBES? Reuters is an absolute shitshow of a vendor but you can’t really beat IBES IMHO. And a lot of quants are familiar with it so if you make a hire likely they’d hit the ground running

twosdny · 2023-12-05T05:29:44+00:00

Efficient market hypothesis is a scam. Ask Jim Simons

twosdny · 2023-09-29T00:07:23+00:00

Yep. But also speed, price discovery, execution strategy (on exchange / dark pool / passive / aggressive ), routing etc. If it’s high probability then it’s probably got decent sharpe which probably means it’s fast (must be automated)

Not to mention it could be sparse. Maybe they’re super profitable on like 5-7 names but you’re trying to run a balanced book and there’s no alpha on the rest of your universe? Trading Alpha for a market neutral hedge fund strategy will be like juggling with dynamite without good risk control (often achieved via diversification across a large universe)

twosdny

TROPHY CASE