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The Quants Run Wall Street Now

wsj.com

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Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#21

Post by grzm »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #20
grzm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work when I'm in private windows in Chrome or Safari.

Have you tried from a mobile device or using a mobile browser's user agent? Seems like a lot of work but right now a lot of companies care only about mobile views and want to show growth in it-- so there's some reason to believe it would work for mobile but not for desktop. Simply because the company doesn't want to send away mobile traffic so their metrics look good.

That's one I hadn't thought of. Using the User Agent option in Safari, in a private browsing window, still no-go for this submission for me.

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#22

Post by doctorshady »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #8

For those who don't know this trick, click the web link and go to the site via google (which is what the web link does) and more often than not the paywall disappears and you can read the article (at least consistently for WSJ articles this works). I do wish the web link was on the index page instead of the comments page so it was faster/easier/more obvious to use it.

You can also just check the archive.is link :) - http://archive.is/8dNIW

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#23

Post by icantdrive55 »

wand3r wrote: post #4
zootam wrote: post #2

paywall

Sick of paywall posts. I don't get why this is down voted. Google trick doesn't work for all paywall posts.

I just wait until someone here summarizes the article, and posts it here---it's usually more concise, and less wordy. And after a few hours, with all the people chiming in, why bother to read the original article.

I wouldn't want to be a journalist these days whos work is condensed, and put on to sites like this.

Then again, the WSJ could put up a site like HN. I wouldn't even mind a few ads.

(And no $400/yr. for a digital version is not something a guy like me considers reasonable.)

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#26

Post by cheez »

mianos wrote: post #7

They do if you think balancing an index weighed fund is high math.

For the most part, execution does not require high math, but the modeling required to find arbitrage or alpha does.

So for example, managing an index weight fund is simple on the face of it but when and how you choose to rebalance your portfolio can affect your drift. This is the part that requires high math. This is even more important if you're talking a billion dollar fund as opposed to a 100,000 personal account.

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#27

Post by jessriedel »

There's a plot where they differentiate "quant hedge funds" from "other hedge funds". How are they defining this? (To what extent is this just a matter of quant being sexy and more firms describing themselves as quant?)

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#28

Post by lisper »

cheez wrote: post #26
mianos wrote: post #7

They do if you think balancing an index weighed fund is high math.

For the most part, execution does not require high math, but the modeling required to find arbitrage or alpha does. So for example, managing an index weight fund is simple on the face of it but when and how you choose to rebalance your portfolio can affect your drift. This is the part that requires high math. This is even more important if you're talking a billion dollar fund as opposed to a 100,000 personal account.

> the modeling required to find arbitrage or alpha does

Not really. Even if everyone is just throwing darts, half of the players will beat the market, and the more players you have the more extreme the outliers will be. Of course, the converse is also true, but no one pays attention to the losers. Both Vegas and Wall Street prosper from this same principle.

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#29

Post by jzwinck »

melling wrote: post #24

What languages are quants using to build their models? R, Python, Java, Haskell? Are there any favored tools?

Major ones include R, Python, Matlab, and K/Q, roughly in that order of current popularity. Matlab used to have more marketshare and Python less.

Re: The Quants Run Wall Street Now

#30

Post by vinceguidry »

grandalf wrote: post #14
wand3r wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than those, NYT. It's usually not too bad but iirc they are dropping support for work arounds. It also seems to be posted with very high regularity and volume here.

I wish it would end. I'd like to simply hide all paywalled articles. Why not offer a flag?

I'd like a flag, but I don't want it to hide paywalled articles, but rather to just make them a different color. That way I can skip the link and just focus on the discussion.

I think this would cut down on most of the meta-discussion that happens every time a WSJ or FT link gets posted.

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