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Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

bloomberg.com

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Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#21

Post by rz2k »

yellowstuff wrote: post #20
infinite8s wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that on trading floors. Why do traders keep bats at their desks? Are they actually intimating threats of violence to support staff who are stuck on the floor dealing with them?

I think the bats are mostly intended to be humorous, but at least occasionally they are actually used as weapons. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-12/ex-barclay...

Hitting someone with a 12-inch bat is probably better than stabbing a cab driver with a penknife.[1]

[1] http://dealbreaker.com/2012/12/in-wake-of-exec-accidentally-...

Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#22

Post by thenewwazoo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #17
kchoudhu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quants are the guys who run the math so that the bat-wielding psychopaths that are traders don't accidentaly shoot their feet off. They usually have PHDs. They have some prestige on the trading floor. Edit: They don't literally have bats, you guys. But when the guy who's paying you ~250K a year looks over your shoulder and asks for a risk report, the effect is more or less the same.

> so that the bat-wielding psychopaths that are traders don't accidentaly shoot their feet off. How do you accidentally shoot your feet of with a bat?

By bringing a knife to the fight, of course.

Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#23

Post by andy_wrote »

infinite8s wrote: post #18
kchoudhu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quants are the guys who run the math so that the bat-wielding psychopaths that are traders don't accidentaly shoot their feet off. They usually have PHDs. They have some prestige on the trading floor. Edit: They don't literally have bats, you guys. But when the guy who's paying you ~250K a year looks over your shoulder and asks for a risk report, the effect is more or less the same.

I've noticed that on trading floors. Why do traders keep bats at their desks? Are they actually intimating threats of violence to support staff who are stuck on the floor dealing with them?

The only time I've actually seen a bat on the trading floor was as a branded piece of swag from the BATS exchange: https://www.batstrading.com/

Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#25

Post by prostoalex »

polskibus wrote: post #5

Does UBS really oversee $2 trillion or is it a mistake? Further in the article it says that $1.5b is managed by quants. That is a very low proportion.

This includes their wealth management division. The relationship between customer and their wealth manager can range from very stringent "Buy AAA bonds and index funds for my account, rotate quarterly to harvest tax losses, always keep 5% in cash" to "Maximize my gains by taking various bets that might or might not be associated with UBS".

On the trading side they would have a variety of instruments (hedge fund is probably the most convenient and easily understood wrapper for various "miscellaneous" financial activity, but there are also private REITs, MLPs, CEFs, etc.) which would then try to attract funds. The funds would bring money from various sources, such as firm's own money, partners' personal capital, as well as wealth managers, some of which could be associated with UBS. This is the actual money available to quants.

Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#26

Post by gnarbarian »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Some one is bound to mention PG's submarine article, http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html so it might as well be me. I mean yesterday we had an article about how Goldman was making its SecDB available to high networth individuals and today we've got another article about how UBS is targeting the same group. UBS hasn't traditionally been held in the same tier as Goldamn Sachs etc as far as trading and quant jobs g…

Something really bugs me about the extent and influence of PR firms. It reminds me of how lobbiests often end up writing the bills submitted by legislature. Or sponsored articles masquerading as unbiased informative reporting.

It all seems very corrupt to me.

Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#28

Post by ryanmonroe »

insaneirish wrote: post #8
jasonkostempski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Looks like it's been used for a while but I never saw until this week and this was the second time I saw it. Sounds derogatory.

Not new and not derogatory: https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Quant-Reflections-Physics/dp/...

In the book he notes that it started out as a derogatory term. Can't find the quote in the book but I found this

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16FOB-OnLanguage-...

"When I asked Derman recently about his early years in finance, he said that at first he felt that quant, like rocket scientist before it, was largely a derogatory put-down for the brainy newcomers, many of them foreign-born: 'two-thirds pejorative, one-third grudging praise,' by his calculation."

Re: Why UBS Is Hiring So Many Quants

#29

Post by zhte415 »

polskibus wrote: post #5

Does UBS really oversee $2 trillion or is it a mistake? Further in the article it says that $1.5b is managed by quants. That is a very low proportion.

Oversee..

$2 trillion must include assets under custody, though I did think UBS had 3-4 trillion under custody, which is smaller than some of the biggest names, BNY Mellon, State Street, JP Morgan, Citi, Euroclear.

Under custody absolutely does not mean under management. Oversee is true: Their corporate governance is trusted to ensure these assets are held in safe keeping and administered for example for tax. It does not mean actively invested.

$1.5bn (managed by quants) is still a small number. My second job, at 24, was on a team of 5 people (total) that actively managed $6bn; the team was remarkably lean.

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