201–210 of 246 posts
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Sounds like your friend might suffer from impostor syndrome.
Even so, had he joined DEShaw he would still have the syndrome which could easily affect his work there (as a self-fulfilled prophecy). Happens all the time.
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I was hoping that wouldn't come off as elitist in this crowd— it's really just an observation on the difference between technical and non-technical people. Which I guess highlights why I kept my mouth shut in school. When your job involves doing something that strikes you as straightforward and intuitive, but is bizarrely valued at several times, or tens of times, the labor of your peers, it's pretty hard to talk abo…
What they will never understand is how we get it so intuitively— not unless they put in the decades we did to get there. Huh? That's pretty much like any other skilled trade. I don't understand tractors like my grandfather does and he's made a lot more money selling them than most programmers will. I'm not more valuable as a human because I know code and he knows combines. (Now, one could argue that they were simply…
Most people, though, can't be bothered. The payoff takes years of self-guided study. After all - it's new stuff - the established education system probably won't "get it" so you have to guide yourself.
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Squirrel it away for 5 years then retire on 5% returns on a million bucks ($50,000) a year?
But I don't want to retire! I know that by doing what I love for the rest of my life, I'll have enough to sustain my basic needs. 500k seems excessive. It's simultaneously too much for me to spend efficiently for myself, yet too small for me to do bigger things like fight cancer, invest in education, etc (like Bill Gates).
This is slightly OT, but can anyone recommend a good book for understanding the modern finance industry (IB, quant, trading) and its impact on the economy? Finance in general is just a giant black box to me.
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Black-Box-Quantitative-Trading/...
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If those extra packets could suddenly and uncontrollably leak out on the Internet and destroy everything, requiring a trillion dollar government bailout to fix it and ten years to restore confidence in the infrastructure, yes I would be pissed and doubly so that this inadequate analogy was used to defend it.
When did HFT "destroy everything, requiring a trillion dollar government bailout" to fix?
When scads of people were writing CDO's and swaps and other clearly garbage papers in 2007, they probably used your logic to justify their recklessness, and here we are.
This is slightly OT, but can anyone recommend a good book for understanding the modern finance industry (IB, quant, trading) and its impact on the economy? Finance in general is just a giant black box to me.
Inside the Black Box: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Black-Box-Quantitative-Trading/...
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If he does what you do but makes 5 times as much as you, then you'd be a fool to not apply to such jobs.
Maybe, but there are a number of reasons why you might not want to: 1) The US financial system is unsustainable. Specialize in it and you will find yourself out of a job eventually. 2) It's unethical. If you understand that your excess salary is coming from wealth that is stolen from people through the mechanism of inflation, then you may want to opt out of the corrupt system for peace of mind. 3) If the people actua…
Economics is not a morality play. Your "currency" isn't worth squat without someone to accept it as a medium of exchange.
Don't forget that gold was at times an inflationary currency that also happened to have the nasty side effect of destroying populations located in areas with good mines. Like, I dunno, most of what is now Mexico, for instance.
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I'm not sure I agree with that. And I say that as someone in my late 30s. Granted life is pretty good now if you're a recent graduate of a good school. You almost have your pick of jobs. But when was that not the case? It's true that you tend to have less commitments in your 20s. You should take advantage of that. Most people in their 20s still spend their money on crap however (cars, ski trips, eating/drinking out,…
You don't necessarily need vision or hands either, there are blind C programmers who can use foot based interfaces. (I heard this on slashdot years ago, so I don't have sources, but they supposedly exist!)
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I've never bought the liquidity argument. Ordinary investors don't need to buy and sell at any time. They'd be happy buying and selling once a day (as with mutual funds). What if the market consisted of a deep daily or hourly auction with lots of buyers and sellers matched up to discover a fair price? How is the current system better than that?
Your system might be more fair, but not one would use it. Traders want an exchange where they can buy/sell as soon as they receive new information, not in the future when everyone else has same information.
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Your system might be more fair, but not one would use it. Traders want an exchange where they can buy/sell as soon as they receive new information, not in the future when everyone else has same information.
Today's markets don't operate 24/7 (they close at night for instance), and yet everyone uses them because they have no choice. Limiting HFT can happen through regulation.