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Understanding Jane Street

thediff.co

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Re: Understanding Jane Street

#221

Post by oumua_don17 »

Inconel wrote: post #73
simtel20 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often a background or a degree from a prestigious university in the arts. Bringing culture and energy to the office that focuses on people and humanity instead of competitive math type geeks. Some firms like to feel like patrons of the arts giving writers actors poets etc a better job than waiting tables while exposing the firm to there influences.

Very much appreciate the insight. I don’t have good odds as a formerly homeless high school graduate, then again I wouldn’t have seen myself in my current job 5 years ago, so will most likely give it a try anyway.

>> I don’t have good odds as a formerly homeless high school graduate, then again I wouldn’t have seen myself in my current job 5 years ago

Shows that you are both courageous and smart with a positive, vibrant attitude. Thanks for sharing your positivity, much appreciated and more likely than not you will succeed in your try. Good luck :-)

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#222

Post by gadders »

JackFr wrote: post #212
benreesman wrote: post #60

I find this stuff fascinating, and this article is way above average for online posts about proprietary/algorithmic/quantitative/low-latency trading (very leaky Venn diagram there). I have a few nitpicks but overall it's informative and it's an interesting format: viewing an industry through the lens of a particular firm, especially one as fascinating as Jane. Anything that develops literacy in modern finance amongst…

Michael Lewis is a great writer, but the closer you are to the subject the more his shortcomings are exposed. I felt the same way about The Big Short and to some extent Liar’s Poker. He has an annoying tendency to assume that if he doesn’t understand something, either it’s completely inscrutable to everyone or simply BS. (And to pile on, The Blind Side was the touching story of how Lewis’s prep school classmate, an O…

Liar's Poker was autobiographical, though. He should have got that right :-)

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#223

Post by darkwater »

TrackerFF wrote: post #173
mkl95 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at all the rich people in the world, look at how old they are, and ask, are they retired? No! People who are driven and smart don't suddenly earn their first $5m go off and buy an annuity. They're more likely to go off and found their own trading shop at 30 than they are to retire. This kind of debate needs to be backed up by numbers or it won't be very productive. To get started we should know the percentage…

Yes, all depends on how you spend your money. $5m will get you something decent in Manhattan, but you could live like a King somewhere else. I have a friend that retired off just over $1m as he moved back to his small hometown. House cost $30k, drives the same car for 15 years, lives frugally.

If you live in a place where a house costs $30k and on top of that you live frugally, you can probably retire with half of that already.

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#224

Post by md_ »

hawk_ wrote: post #187
adave wrote: post #152

This reads like a very rosy picture of what these firms actually do. Surely they are secretive and tight lipped about all the money being made in low risk trades. There are known loopholes that market makers get to exploit since they help keep the casino going. No need to make its a noble profession or compare to impact to actual economy or mankind. These are the worst of the worst when its comes to exploitative and…

> to make money over retail trades You can call them vampire squid from hell but they don't exactly take money from retail, they tighten spreads for them if anything.

Wouldn't electronic front running take money from regular folks? Perhaps not from retail trades, but from mutual/index funds, pension funds, etc.

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#225

Post by stefantalpalaru »

melling wrote: post #66
bob29 wrote: post #3

Quoted post unavailable.

Thee article addresses this common question near the end. I like this part. “We don't demand that chess champions use their skills in something with more real-world applications, or that concert pianists find a more practical outlet for their manual dexterity and attention to detail.”

> “We don't demand that chess champions use their skills in something with more real-world applications, or that concert pianists find a more practical outlet for their manual dexterity and attention to detail.”

Maybe because chess champions and concert pianists don't hoard a significant amount of resources, depriving the rest of society of the means to thrive.

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#226

Post by FabHK »

SnowHill9902 wrote: post #209
em500 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. I've never heard a coherent explanation how liquidity on sub-second scale is a great social good, while at the same time the largest equity markets in the world are closed 2/3rd of the day, plus all weekends and holidays.

Because real world information has sub-second resolution and a healthy market should reflect that. It’s a continuous auction. Some markets are open longer such as FX.

> and a healthy market should reflect that.

You are begging the question. Why should a market reflect that? Why is that preferable to a daily auction (throw in a stochastic cut-off time to thwart HFT even more)?

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#227

Post by steveBK123 »

bitcharmer wrote: post #199
fiprofessor wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think people go to high-technology finance because they want to test themselves against a harder class of problem in a more adversarial setting against people who feel the same. Maybe this is so at other finance firms, but my experience with developers who go to Jane Street is quite different. Because Jane Street heavily advertises OCaml as part of its recruiting strategy, I know many people who ended up there ju…

Having worked in HFT for well over a decade now, I'd say OCaml is more of a deterrent than helps in getting access to larger pool of talent.

Esoteric languages is often a good screener for good devs.

A large talent pool isn't necessarily a positive if you don't spend a lot of effort on your recruiting (mostly filtering) process. It really just increases the risk of bad hires.

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#228

Post by SnowHill9902 »

FabHK wrote: post #226
SnowHill9902 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because real world information has sub-second resolution and a healthy market should reflect that. It’s a continuous auction. Some markets are open longer such as FX.

> and a healthy market should reflect that. You are begging the question. Why should a market reflect that? Why is that preferable to a daily auction (throw in a stochastic cut-off time to thwart HFT even more)?

Because you can’t make sure that all auctions happen at the same time. Consequently, news will disproportionately affect stocks having an earlier auction. That’s just one reason I’m mentioning.

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#229

Post by selimthegrim »

data_maan wrote: post #110
ChadNauseam wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good has cancer research done to a person living in Madagascar?

So you've established: People in Madagascar don't get cancer.

Well given the periwinkle was found there, not entirely without merit.

Re: Understanding Jane Street

#230

Post by vecter »

rgifford wrote: post #97
bitanarch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine someone outside of the tech community thinking along this line... "Making high performance CPUs that are also highly power efficient should make a ton of money. Why isn't everyone doing it?" Well, turns out that isn't exactly something that a small group of engineers can whip up in a garage anymore. Same goes for highly efficient market making systems.

CPUs operate due to quantified phenomenon. They're well understood. They've been refined over nearly 100 years. HFTs came into their own over the past decade or so -- during a time of falling interest rates, unprecedented growth, and notable lack of regulation in financial markets. One of these things is not like the other. I'd be entirely unsurprised to see most HFTs turn out like Lehman Brothers, Enron, or AIG. The…

HFT does nothing illegal. If you’re going to make strong claims like that, it would be good to provide some evidence.
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