The SEC rules if you're in the US are quite strict. You likely wouldn't be able to do quantitative trading own your own while working at a quant. Though, it might help you get hired as a modeler.
Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
11–20 of 85 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#12I was wondering the same thing last year. I ended up in twitter/reddit rabbit holes until I found a somewhat dodgy guy on twitter (@TerribleQuant - account is now deleted). The person compiled a guide with study resources, courses, YT videos, podcasts, textbooks and everything else you can think of in 21 pages. If you look for: BBM PUBLISHING INC “Roadmap” Resource Guide 3rd Edition you might be able to find a copy.
It doesn't look like the account was deleted. I think the user just changed their username: https://twitter.com/quant_arb/status/1487265241692053509
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#13Noobie Question: Does this actually work? I thought alpha was very little and always fleeting so only big hedge funds generate profit from it.
I'm a trader who runs a couple of profitable strategies. You can generate alpha by implementing quantitative (or discretionary) strategies as long as you adhere to the basic principles of profitable trading with a strong emphasis on risk management. There are a million possible trading strategies, which of these will suit your personality/risk tolerance/system design is a matter of personal choice.
Could you please say more about what the "basic principles of profitable trading" are, or point us to a reference?
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#14The SEC rules if you're in the US are quite strict. You likely wouldn't be able to do quantitative trading own your own while working at a quant. Though, it might help you get hired as a modeler.
This is untrue. You generally can’t if you’re working for a broker dealer but you absolutely can trade for your own account working for a hedge fund. The fund might consider it a conflict of interest but the SEC won’t care.
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#15I wish I had started with QuantConnect before I wrote everything from scratch; all the other free/open source tools didn't seem to meet quality standards for me.
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#16I was wondering the same thing last year. I ended up in twitter/reddit rabbit holes until I found a somewhat dodgy guy on twitter (@TerribleQuant - account is now deleted). The person compiled a guide with study resources, courses, YT videos, podcasts, textbooks and everything else you can think of in 21 pages. If you look for: BBM PUBLISHING INC “Roadmap” Resource Guide 3rd Edition you might be able to find a copy.
It doesn't look like the account was deleted. I think the user just changed their username: https://twitter.com/quant_arb/status/1487265241692053509
Oh yeah, this guy is fun.
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#17You should know this is a really bad idea, unless loosing money is your goal
"Automated" trading, even if there is an edge (and unless you are a crook, there is not) will sink you with transaction costs
You should know this.
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#18Fastest way is probably to just write the code. You can get crypto market data for free. https://www.binance.com/en-AU/landing/data and others.
If you want equities, I think you can get that from Databento for low cost (won't need the CME cert for their stuff to get historical from here).
Then just write the code. The basic structure is not that much in a modern language (use Java, Rust). To trade, you can use Sequencer architecture as basic https://sissoftwarefactory.com/blog/an-introduction-to-the-s... (article describes so maybe jog your memory, but has only old code link so useless if not new to you, just sequence your messages) ChatGPT will help build this quick.
IMHO if you want to do this, crypto markets are ideal. Fees are high, but low upfront costs. Can eke out small wins with low capacity strategy.
Should be advised, though. Everyone who wants to get into this does this stuff and then finds that if you want to do big, you need to apply large force on long lever. So everyone and their uncle had "a few profitable strategies as a side bet". Means nothing at small scale. Only for fun.
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#19Noobie Question: Does this actually work? I thought alpha was very little and always fleeting so only big hedge funds generate profit from it.
I'm a trader who runs a couple of profitable strategies. You can generate alpha by implementing quantitative (or discretionary) strategies as long as you adhere to the basic principles of profitable trading with a strong emphasis on risk management. There are a million possible trading strategies, which of these will suit your personality/risk tolerance/system design is a matter of personal choice.
is your strategy more profitable than indexing? or are you aiming for something else, like beta-neutrality?
Re: Ask HN: How to get into quantitative trading?
#20Lots of other great answers, another one I came across recently is FinGPT[0]. For backtesting there is zipline [1], but doesn't look like it's maintained anymore. [0] FinGPT: Open-Source Financial Large Language Models https://github.com/AI4Finance-Foundation/FinGPT [1] Zipline is a Pythonic algorithmic trading library https://github.com/quantopian/zipline
another comment in here mentioned Zipline Reloaded¹, a fork from a guy who wrote a book using Zipline. Last commit 6 months ago, much better than 3 years from the original.