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Just got the Motorola photon 4g. Its unreal. Bye bye blackberry.

Oh man. This is just awesome.

lol i am in my backyard in canada grilling up a bbq in the nice sunny weather and then off to patriots vs lions. gooooooooodtimes. be jealous all!

i am chilling in canada. perfect timing ;)

they are on ebay for $200. I think that is a great price for the tablet. I mean, i would buy it even though i have one for 100$.

You want to have either android or apple OS. The apps are the best part of all these gadgets and the android and apple app stores are solid. I have an android tablet. The reviews for the HP tablet are bad too and one of the main reasons the line has been discontinued. If you just want a tablet...

It's trash.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/volcker/FICC Citi 3.jpg thats what you want.... Here is full report... http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/Citi Fixed Income.pdf Some of these statistics have changed recently... Also...this is only for FICC...

Yes

lol FYI technically I am not an immigrant, just an international student from Canada in US.

I only interned on the credit team during the summer which was on the private side yes.

The owner of Saba Capital used variations of convertible arbitrage strategies that Thorp put out in his book while he was at DB. There were many people back in the day that used those strategies and variations of it. I don't know off too many anymore. I am sure the base of many convertible...

I have a BB 8530 but I am waiting for the new iphone 5. If it is a complete change from iphone 4 then I might pick it up otherwise I am going for the Droid Bionic on verizon.

Last year there were only 3 Baruch students attending.

umm.. what?

Anyone else from quantnet going? It starts Monday!

Tons of opportunities in risk management especially compliance and operations risk and counterparty credit risk. I don't know how quantitative op risk is but counterparty credit risk is highly quantitative. Jobs in technology, programmers, etc.

Did anyone else notice anything else interesting like this last week? I mean lot's of stuff happened last week. But what other observations did people see ?

Ha. Nice.

You should focus on banks near you. BB&T, Wachovia, BoA are all headquartered in North Carolina. Winston-Salem and Charlotte have many financial companies (banks mostly). Get some experience, and then try to make the jump to a nyc firm.

How was it? good turnout?

Not going to be able to make it today guys. Have fun though!

Yeah ^^ Sounds good to me.

I made it Sunday because you kept complaining about always doing on Fri or Sat. Tisk tisk... Let me down.

No. Just pick whatever and let me know. let's do 3:00 pm sunday.. some place with a Patio.

Unfortunately I cannot comment more than what I said. But think about what can happen if ALL CDS contracts get triggered.

Lol If only that was even remotely true.

I will be there.

Pandora... Weather Channel...GTalk ... Yelp...cnn

Yale has one of the most spectacularly successful endowments...anybody who has any experience there I think he mean't anybody who has worked for the endowments. Many students in business schools intern or work part-time as analysts for endowments. It is very common at the institutions where the...

Is this really a thread? come on.

An alumni in my program was a quant developer at a bank and is now a interest rate swaps trader at the same bank.

Just to save people from the misinformation I should mention... There are several quant groups in Ibanking especially in securitization(most banks have it in the private side). client structuring and credit risk and analytics which employ mostly MFE's and PhD's nowadays.

I don't know.

The salary depends on the firm. Regardless...I am starting on the rates desk in September and am very excited for it.

Stamford was pretty hot today but probably not as bad as NYC.

Lol I am currently working in investment banking at a big bank and work long hours and weekends. But I absolutely love what I do. I mean, they take care of you if you're working long hours. Dinner after 8 and car service to your apartment after 9pm is there and many other perks. I get to work...

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/fewer-perks-and-more-work-for-wall-st-s-summer-interns/ Wall Street interns have gone from pampered to pummeled. In better days, college-age interns at the nation’s largest investment banks, known as summer analysts, were treated like young royalty. But...

3 more weeks.

I am usually not into serious indian movies. I like comedy.I seen the Hrithik movie that was in Goa. Um.. I forgot what it's called but he is a paralized in it. I liked Rajniti.

... Lol wth. I only watch shahrukh,amir khan and hritik bollywood movies. I know... terrible. w/e.

I have data in spread for both. Your point about quotes is right. But, I have data in spread so that's not an issue.

They don't go into the difference in volatility. I think it might be some idiosyncratic issues. Also, maybe I should look at price volatility instead of spread volatility.

"The best trade I ever made was when I was blind hungover - PTJ"

It is a very common interview question.

Here... do this. If you find a result let me know...I been tryna work on it last few days... relationship between negative convexity bonds and their CDS spreads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

For myself..yes.

Tisk tisk.. Dissapointing answer.

lol Fine fine.... Let's do sunday afternoon at some patio in the city. July 31st

July 30th...(It's a Sat) ... Whose up for it?

Forward contract Futures and options require margin. Forwards might require collateral depending on your credit quality and prime broker . ;) Notice...my assumptions about you(having ability to enter into a forward) are just as realistic as your question. THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.

So what could be possible reasons for IG index to be more volatile than HY ? Annualised volatility (historical-since inception) is higher for IG. Even during crisis it's higher. Any thoughts ? The general understanding is that HY would be more volatile. bob

REPRESENT!

It's very common and almost a standard in financial firms. You will see soon enough.

Most financial firms (especially established boutiques and BB's) consider anything beyond a 60 mile move a relocation and provide relocation assistance.

Mmmmmm filet mignon

Most programs at banks take students out of undergrad for trading. The best ones get kept on and get moved to associate level or get the third year analyst level. The rest are kicked out and usually goto MBA and come back elsewhere as an associate.

Sounds good to me. I like that place. They had a groupon the other day also.

I just want it to be close to GCT. So that it's convinient for all. Pick a place and make the event.

Works for me.. Let's do Bierhaus NYC. It's by GCT. http://www.yelp.com/biz/bierhaus-new-york

Yeah. 7pm at Campbell Apartment? Hopefully there is a good turn out! @Andy Can you make a Facebook event for this ASAP please.

Is everyone fine with the July 8th at 7pm time then?

Yeah... I think it opened only for few mins or something. Even if you get an invite it doesn't let you in now. I got in right in time. haha

It just opened to public.

joypathak@gmail.com :)

I would appreciate an invite. :) joypathak@gmail.com

Oh man... Glad to read this. Makes me feel better.

CA is business casual for sure. It is definitely a unique experience. If you wanna do something casual I think Pershing Square would be better or other alternatives. I think some Irish bar nearby would be good also.

Campbell Apartment by Grand Central is very nice. http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-campbell-apartment-new-york It's a very common place for banking people. It's a classic place. Very unique. Or Pershing Square right opposite GCT

July 8th. Let's do something near Grand Central. It will be easier for people commuting in, people working mid-town banks(barcap,MS,JPM,etc), etc.

Sorry to bring this back up. What do you guys think of emerging markets desks out of US?

Unfortunately since I use my real name I can barely post online at all anymore due to compliance rules at work. Then again, I would rather not post at all than post something bad. I even had to delete Twitter. :(

Sorry to hear dude. Keep your head up. I am sure you will find something new.

Can you link to the CS research you found?

Yeah I didn't realise it was July 4th weekend. I will actually be in Canada then. Let's do the weekend after. Friday night or Sat night You guys can pick.

Not true. Most are in the 22-27 age. Either fresh out of undergrad or 1-2 years of experience. Very few are over 30. Some might be in the 27-30 range with 2-3 years working back office and are trying jump up. There are some part-time who are in the 30-35 range, but very rare.

July 2nd?

Canada Represent!!

I met two English majors last week who are in the rotational associate trading program at a BB.

Among the few traders and trading interns I have met, they attended the following schools:Yale, Stanford, UPenn, Harvard, Columbia,Duke and Princeton. Thats where the majority of them went to school. There are some from other schools like UConn, Baruch, Michigan, and some liberal arts colleges...

Go play division 1 sports for one of the ivy league schools and you will have a shot to get into S&T. Lacrosse is a good one.

do you mean as support to S&T as a desk quant or quant developer? or be a trader/salesman?

I doubt that will happen. More and more of secondary market is turning fully automated.

We will find out by July 16th.

I got asked GPA once...Completely irrelevant. Almost no one even asks for GPA nowadays.

It has a good base. I would say it is expanding a lot currently after the regulations exposed in NYC and London than "taking off" I suppose.

I wish you were right...

You need lots of experience. Most portfolio managers I know/heard off were previously traders at banks for 10+ years.

Risk jobs are peaking right now. I think there will be jobs in risk reporting/research/technology as those seems to be areas of high turnover. There seems to be a demand in the area of algo trading so basically quant developers. There will be a demand for quant developers I believe. I think...

Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong are taking off. Singapore especially due to it's location has become a hub for many firms, especially in commodities. I don't know much about the middle east but I know that there are SEVERAL family office type funds over there. I met a guy who was a portfolio...

lol @ Baller

This is a hard situation. I would not suggest spending all that money to do a Masters just to do another Masters. You're better off taking specific math/programming courses and applying to some MFE programs. Look into possibly doing math/programming certificates at nearby colleges. That might be...

I hope that is the case.

Only 2? That's disappointing. I expected better.

Business casual is fine, but invest in a suit. It's worth it. Looking presentable in an interview is VERY important.

A tip... Make sure you go through Dan's book before the refresher and try to code up as many of the pseudo-codes given before you start. It will help A LOT.

The Prize

Cuz Business Insider just featured it on their website today.

Do you mean research from the broker? I think you can get it from Bloomberg possibly. You have to be a customer to get it usually.

Vol skew for different asset classes and why they are that way. VIX (general understand of how it is structured). Know options/black scholes very well. Be able to tell how option prices change when you manipulate variables in BS formula. Know how volatility affects the commodity markets (its...

It should also be taken into consideration that many programs do not collect most of this data so we will have to wait atleast at minimum till next year or the year after to be able to make any good judgement. I think getting specific like (Countries/avg salary) and so on might be a bit too...

You're a self proclaimed 'Poker god'... why even go into algo trading? Just play poker and make money.

Going through the second book mentioned above... Elements of Structured Finance for Tuesdays final.

It says 2010. Not 2009. It states 82% I am not saying it was bad. It's good. But it's not the 100% or close to 100% that everyone thinks CMU places.

I used to get Market Depth from Interactive Broker for some algo work I was doing for a hedge fund. It was not too extensive. You can get more features for a fee. I mostly used for VIX.

From looking at CMU's employment report their 2010 class had around 82% placement only. 50 out of 60 students accepted offers after 3 months after graduation.

New York base marketplace? Just an extra section for people to possibly sell books and so on. Maybe furniture and what not between NYC area students.

Audio books.

Come up with a topic and ask prof if he would like to be an advisor. If not ask a prof for a topic he is currently working on and ask if he would like assistance.

Read current papers published in last few years and try to expand or use them to brainstorm ideas of new topics.

Trader Guns Money

No unfortunately. No pictures or interviews were allowed at the party. It was a relatively intimate event.It was a very small restaurant so I couldn't take pictures even if I tried. I will mention a few general things from the party and conference.

What an amazing dinner party with Bob Merton and several other finance heavy hitters. Saw two Quantnet members there! Represent! See you all again tomorrow!

Anyone going to it Mon/Tue?

ahaha. Comedy.

If anyone noticed that Jim cramer just went crazy on twitter a few minutes ago... this is why.... http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/the_surly_side_of_jim_cramer_n6lbud4FHdBo8OukSzpfpL

No need for the math degree after.

I don't know anything about this website. Looks interesting.

Very hard to get. usually only sublets.

you're going to be in school for a year so get a year lease. Also very hard to bail-out unless you're okay with loosing the security deposit.

You can get VERY good deals on 3 BR apartments. Very cheap per person and great buildings.

It's normal. Everything happened for a reason. There was no moved that occurred that was not explained by fundamentals or regulation (margin requirements).

But I have to agree with what andy and Alain have said. I went to the websites of some of the universities and saw the placement numbers to be very vague many places. CMU many seem to think, including me have excellent placement, but a closer look at their last years placement in their report...

It was on one of the other threads. You posted on it. One of the admits called and found out. You also said that you knew the one person who wasn't yet placed.

NYU said everyone but 1 person has been placed.

I have heard horror stories of cornel. I don't think they have good placements. Berkeley numbers seem to be great from what they have on their website. Same goes for NYU, Princeton and Baruch. I would add CMU to it also.

Did you get a makeover?

As many of you know Dr. Dan Stefanica released the second edition of his best seller book, ‘The Primer for the Mathematics of Financial Engineering’. When I heard that Dr. Stefanica would be personally signing every copy of the first set of shipments I went ahead and got myself the book and a...

lol Oanda.. IB. I have used both and I liked them.

I have read Black Swan. I talked to Taleb about both his books related to the topic. My statement stands. Not relevant to what I am looking for.

Var, derivatives fixed income is a profession? You mention it with quant developer so I need to make sure. There is a very big demand for quant developers/programmers in the financial industry. If you're a programmer it will not be hard to get a job. One of my classmates wants to be a quant...

I don't know if it's enough to get a job. It might be enough to full-fill minimum requirements but getting a job is a lot more than just meeting the requirements. Apply and let me know if you get a job.

Lol I think only U Chicago and NYU have a miniature touch of quant finance type of MBA option. Doing an MBA to be a quant is pointless. MFE will be picked over an MBA for any quant position basically. Although there are exceptions.

Thanks @bob Appreciate the info. I was looking for something along the terms you said. Especially the second post. Very helpful.

It is irrelevant in a empirical study and can be considered an outlier. It can just be ignored. No study will go back that far anyways.

Stock Market indices is what everyone has told me and what published articles cite. There are some index's available too that can be found monhtly. It's for corporate bonds. I can get data from dealers. I will just ask them I suppose. thanks.

Whats are some good proxies(economic indicators) for the business climate? I need something that is reported monthly e.g S&P monthly returns can be used. Are there any others? Edit: Also..how can I measure liquidity in the bond market? e.g I can use market depth..bid ask spread.. as proxies...

I only know of GSU that has a professional DBA program. Executive PhD.

R&D can be MO and FO depending on the firm. QR is usually close in connection with the trading desk. Back office is usually processing of trades, maintenance, operations, tech support, etc. MO is usually risk research, reporting, and maybe at some firms risk management although many firms have...

Baruch is close to 100% yearly.All the graduates of last years December graduation date are placed.So 100% for that. I think overall since the program started it is around 94-95%. I don't know the exact number. It's probably on our website somewhere.

I would say CMU and Princeton have nearly 100% placement too.

Risk Management, Ibanking (new demand) , Structuring, Technology, Research. Even though prop trading is gone there is still a significant amount of trading at banks.

Calm down.

Anuj you're leaving us? lol

I am reading Sanket's recommendation on top. I will read accidental Ibanker after that and then going to have a look at More money than god.

Momentum...Mean Reversion...Spread Trading...etc etc

I have had no problems with reading any books. I have read 4 books in the last 2 weeks. It's been great.

lol no kindle version.

Just curious if people have any recommendations for books. I recently got a kindle DX and literally have been addicted to reading from it for the past 2 weeks. Any suggestions? Wall Street related would be great. I like Michael Lewis type of books. I have read all his finance related books. It...

LOL Listen to him Ilya.

Yeah. This is basically what everyone said at the conference. It's a technology arms race.

No. The code that the firms run is already optimized to the max. I don't think there is more optimization left. It is all about technology now from the likes of it. It wouldn't make sense to say that the code is the bottleneck. How much can a code be optimized? I am not a programmer so maybe I...

I don't have any papers. Most of what I mentioned was from presentations at the seminars. I don't have it the powerpoint slides.

I went to a conference a few days ago whose main focus was Algo Trading and Execution. From what majority of the presenters and people I spoke to I gathered that the main bottleneck is in technology and not in the math/strategy. Everyone seems to be using the same strategy and the same...

I went to a Low Latency conference yesterday. Check out the firms in this conference brochure. http://www.a-teamgroup.com/insightevents/2011/nyc-btll/ . They might be of use to you. Check these out too. http://www.xignite.com/ http://www.exegy.com/index.htm...

Here is another one... http://www.amazon.com/Monte-Carlo-Methods-Finance-Jaeckel/dp/047149741X

You're taking a loan for education. You're INVESTING in YOURSELF. There is no need to hedge yourself. Go long(naked position) all the way! LOL If you're doubting your future that much...Should I buy a CDS on you?

Read the edit. And don't bother trying. IR swap notionals run in the millions. I would suggest.. Don't bother with anything. I have huge student loans with a floating element on the interest rate. It's not a big deal.

You want to get an IR swap for your private loan? Did you try Goldman and ask for a IR swap on a notional of 50K ... Lol EDIT: If you really are that interested. Look into IR Swap Futures http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/swaps/cbot-5-year-interest-rate-swap.html Do know that...

Ha. I worked for Nemak/Ford in Windor...Engine block R&D.

Lol Catia V5 Jockey. Haha

Just so you know Berkeley places very well in NYC. Their internship for this year was great with average of 8K. http://mfe.berkeley.edu/careers/placement.html It seems like mostly Associate level positions. Berkeley profiles are mostly people with a good amount of experience.

It depends on the field. For most fields, it holds true, but for PhD Finance and PhD Accounting it is mostly the opposite. There are more academic positions than graduates usually.

I absolutely love this right now. My student loans originate in Canada. I just took a loan to fund my last semester and I got a great deal (Almost 5 cents on the dollar!) .

This is mostly not true. There are students who have previously graduated from MFE programs (Baruch included) who did an unpaid internship during the summer and got hired by the firm full-time after graduation with a good salary. Many firms especially boutiques and hedge funds do primarily...

Have the one thread and you can update there. Multiple threads can get annoying.

Congrats to everyone on the decisions! Looking forward to meeting the Baruch people in June and the NYC area people in September at Quantnet Picnic potentially.

craigslist. or contact people you will be working with. I am sure there will be many looking for roomates.

Congratulations to the winner!

I am going to go to it this year!

Waaaaaht. Oh Lord No.

You're right. I could see people misunderstanding that. He did ask about the people making the money. It is a fact that there are people who make that money. If people can use it as motivation then so be it. There is a need of smart people in the areas of risk management and technology where MFE...

The key is to be the "rich" you mention over time and have programmers do work for you. But, quant developers at hedge funds make tons of money. You can make 200K-300K easy as a quant developer at a hedge fund or at a market making shop in 3-4 years after graduation if you're good. I know a...

I should mention... The ED was ex-salomon. Would that affect the answers? lol I think the question is very interesting because of the point that Andy mentioned. The criteria you use is what really matters. The criteria also gives away what you consider important in relation to other methods of...

It depends on who you interview with.

Here is a very interesting question I got asked by an ED recently. It wasn't an official interview but just a "conversation". Rank these. The criteria for ranking is completely up to you. Doctor Trader Engineer Bank Teller Postman

Around 31st and 3rd.

It's a 1 bedroom. Living room is used as a bedroom too. It is on 10th floor in a great location in Midtown.

I mean "our". Typo. I share with one of my classmates who is moving too.

I live 10 min walk from Baruch. $1850. You can take over my our lease possibly since I am moving to CT.

Nonono. Definitely not. Those are completely different roles. Well, the TA and Trading Analyst are basically the same thing sometimes in S&T. Sometimes TA is going towards Trading and Trading analyst might be more support doing pricing and research. You do NOT rotate through professions. You...

There is a article by Mark Joshi on the different types of quants. Google it and have a look at it. Maybe someone can post it. I am on my phone so I can't.

Are you interested in FX? :confused:

Most graduate programs are rotational. So you can choose to be on a sales rotation or just trading rotations.

Your ultimate goal is Desk Quant? Get into any department at a bank that has a quantitative component if you CANNOT get into the desk quant internship program. If you can get into desk quant internship program then you're set. Were you one of the students who got into Baruch? If so...we have a...

Undergrads? Maybe as analysts. Most trader I have met had at least masters(MBA mostly, some MFE). I did meet some with just bachelors of ivy leagues. S&T is the most competitive, the hardest department at the bank usually to get into.

Meh. If you're in sales then probably not.

1 Zimbabwean dollar

No. Trading is probably the best path if you have the mathematic and programming ability. Also, depends on the firm. at JP Morgan Desk quants are in QR team whereas at MS they are in Sales and Trading.

I was talking to a BB for a desk quant internship for structured products. It depends on your strengths. If you are a good developer then you will be given developer stuff, if you're good with risk you will be given more pricing/math stuff.

Make friends who have these resources and can give them to you for free possibly. ;)

There are paid resources to find ALL the hedge funds in existence. If they have internships, that is a different story. You have admission to Baruch?

Lol Where?

I am going to check out the Poker tables at Caesars tomorrow. Hopefully they are good to me like the blackjack tables were the last two days.

I prefer Blackjack.

Lol I will get one when I move in the summer. Guaranteed. I am cooking a filet mignon right now and could definitely use a foreman.