Most quants are practical-know-how virgins!

[themarketprofessor]

So i heard on my trading floor someone said "...these quants are just practical know-how virgins...? I tried to defend them - "Most of them are."

Not long ago, Wilmott said most quants are stupid! It was harsh of him to have said it. The fact is that most quants give traders some comfort in having abstruse models when we trade exotics, and the fact is that the quant models are mostly crappy and often faulty. Well, "a model is better than no-model" was a comfort they give us, but the truth is "no model is better than crappy models".

 

[moretodo]

No, the truth is that you are intellectually incapable of comprehending what quants do.

 

[themarketprofessor]

No, the truth is that you are intellectually incapable of comprehending what quants do.

The truth is that i have a quant-background so i know what other quants do, and i am not among those virgins! You sound like a quant yourself. And perhaps you have a dozen of crappy models under your belt.

 

[financeguy]

I think that's kind of a weird blanket statement to make. It sounds like an equivalent statement might be that quants aren't experienced traders, which would be fair enough. I'm sure most traders aren't experienced quants. Also I'm not sure what crappy models we're referring to here. No model is a totally correct picture of the world, but that doesn't mean they aren't extremely useful for pricing and managing risk.

 

[themarketprofessor]

I think that's kind of a weird blanket statement to make. It sounds like an equivalent statement might be that quants aren't experienced traders, which would be fair enough. I'm sure most traders aren't experienced quants. Also I'm not sure what crappy models we're referring to here. No model is a totally correct picture of the world, but that doesn't mean they aren't extremely useful for pricing and managing risk.

Financeguy, so you use model(s), right?! Which model do you use? Tell us so I'll point out what's wrong with it! And how crappy it is.