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Jim Simons has died

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Re: Jim Simons has died

#141

Post by chronic640201 »

tombert wrote: post #103
chollida1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was 62% per year for 33 years.

That is insane . Like, completely insane, shouldn't-be-possible insane. I guess the theoretical limit to how much money you could make in the market is "the sum of all volatility", but I wonder how realistically possible it would be to even dream of beating 62% yearly.

Mathematics can only take you so far. At the end of the day, people run the exchanges. Not math.

The returns of modern HFT market makers are even higher. With their unfair “business” advantages such as PFOF, privileged dark pool and block trade access, and military internet infrastructure.

Think 60%+, per year, at least. Over 10-20 years, of course.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#142

Post by tdullien »

1024core wrote: post #44
filoleg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His whole RenTech story was fascinating. Effectively an outsider in finance who gathered a bunch of other outsiders (aka big mathematicians), and decided to start a hedge fund that takes zero interest in the actual companies and trades solely on math. Which makes sense, since none of the main people involved in its creation had any corporate or finance experience, but tons of math experience and knowledge. This is ov…

IIRC his fund averaged around 30% gains per year, every year, over 30 years. (I'm going from memory here, too lazy to look it up). That is just such an unbelievable performance number.

Important to keep in mind that these returns ceased to be compounding quickly: they restarted from scratch 10bn each year to score 30%.

Successful quant stratégies tend to hit capacity limits...

Re: Jim Simons has died

#143

Post by phyalow »

sergius wrote: post #104
tombert wrote: post #10

Sadly I've never been able to snag an interview with RenTech (and I've applied like a dozen times), but they're the ones that actually made me start taking finance a lot more seriously. Maybe if I ever finish my PhD they'll hire me. I had previously thought of HFT and Quant as a bunch of "finance bros", and kind of dismissed it as "not real CS" [1]. Reading about RenTech and Jim Simons made realize that there's actua…

You should read these books: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43889703 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25733505 And some of the myths you have may be dispelled :-)

Both are excellent, I'll add these two too:

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/186124

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/482347

Re: Jim Simons has died

#144

Post by _vaporwave_ »

filoleg wrote: post #18
tombert wrote: post #10

Sadly I've never been able to snag an interview with RenTech (and I've applied like a dozen times), but they're the ones that actually made me start taking finance a lot more seriously. Maybe if I ever finish my PhD they'll hire me. I had previously thought of HFT and Quant as a bunch of "finance bros", and kind of dismissed it as "not real CS" [1]. Reading about RenTech and Jim Simons made realize that there's actua…

His whole RenTech story was fascinating. Effectively an outsider in finance who gathered a bunch of other outsiders (aka big mathematicians), and decided to start a hedge fund that takes zero interest in the actual companies and trades solely on math. Which makes sense, since none of the main people involved in its creation had any corporate or finance experience, but tons of math experience and knowledge. This is ov…

“The Man Who Solved The Market” is fascinating because it spans almost the entire history quantitative finance (through the lens of RenTech) dating back to the 1970s.

Simmons was one of the first to realize the advantage of collecting and analyzing vast sums of data to identify patterns in financial markets. They were digitizing magnetic tapes and collecting more data than they could even process given technical limitations of the time.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#145

Post by crynom »

chollida1 wrote: post #97
questinthrow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are US senators that make millions by using their spouses as intermediaries to buy and sell shares. Insider trading as a crime only exists for those that are not well connected enough

Those senators just trade on their own behalf because its not illegal to. Why would they involve their spouse? If it was illegal for them to trade but their spouse made a trade it would be trivial for the SEC to trace it back to intel they learned.

It is illegal. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/203...

You are right that enforcement is weak, but that is not because it is legal. The notion that members of Congress can legally trade on knowledge derived from or used in the performance of their duties has not been true for over a decade at this point.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#146

Post by creer »

rybosworld wrote: post #80

I might be naive but it seems unfortunate that so many bright minds end up using their talents to catch trillions of pennies in the financial markets.

He did a few other things also. RenTech didn't even require all his time.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#147

Post by cess11 »

infecto wrote: post #29
questinthrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While mister Simons might not be the best example, I sometimes feel that you can easily beat the market if you are well connected and have access to information that can move the markets before anyone else. For example how much know-how do you need to beat the market if you're a US senator? You know before anyone else what's going to happen regarding policy and can plan accordingly. There were rumours about this even…

That kind of theory is the same as chemtrails are real. Insider trading exists but the amount of secrecy to make that theory a reality would be unobtainable.

Did he put a lot of money into politics or did he stay away from it?

Re: Jim Simons has died

#148

Post by FredPret »

djtango wrote: post #109
FredPret wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's truly inspiring that they've been able to keep their headcount low over a long period of spectacular success. Most organizations would have choked themselves on tens of thousands of bad hires long ago.

Probably because it was run by mathematicians who I assume have no love for managing lots of people. Combine that with how most the company spend all their time thinking about making money and that's probably why the company never succumbed to bloat

I think you're right.

I also think they have sufficient career progression (in terms of problems solved and $$$ earned) that nobody feels the need to build a big team. Pure speculation though, I know nothing about RenTech except that the pay is... generous.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#149

Post by gcanko »

filoleg wrote: post #18
tombert wrote: post #10

Sadly I've never been able to snag an interview with RenTech (and I've applied like a dozen times), but they're the ones that actually made me start taking finance a lot more seriously. Maybe if I ever finish my PhD they'll hire me. I had previously thought of HFT and Quant as a bunch of "finance bros", and kind of dismissed it as "not real CS" [1]. Reading about RenTech and Jim Simons made realize that there's actua…

His whole RenTech story was fascinating. Effectively an outsider in finance who gathered a bunch of other outsiders (aka big mathematicians), and decided to start a hedge fund that takes zero interest in the actual companies and trades solely on math. Which makes sense, since none of the main people involved in its creation had any corporate or finance experience, but tons of math experience and knowledge. This is ov…

When I read "The Man Who Solved The Market”, I blown away with the story of Robert Mercer who arguably paved the way for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. I wonder how different the world would be if Simmons didn't exist, the butterfly effect can sometimes have some massive unintended consequences.
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