Quants without phds?

[SunOfBeach]

Depending on specifically what you mean by 'quant', I think that a PhD is becoming more and more needed to get a truly top job.

[ArturiusX]

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Depending on specifically what you mean by 'quant', I think that a PhD is becoming more and more needed to get a truly top job.

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I didn't know this was a baseless comment thread.

[mathemagician54]

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Depending on specifically what you mean by 'quant', I think that a PhD is becoming more and more needed to get a truly top job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know this was a baseless comment thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

? didn't you read the first response to my question by soko?

in all seriousness, are you saying you disagree with the person you quoted? Because it seems to be in line with your first post. Am I wrong?

[ImBetterAtGolf]

while i'm happy to see that this thread got to a more productive place, eventually, there seem to be a lot of people interesting in pursuing this type of career so maybe we should be a bit more careful with our advice.

there are a number of different jobs that quants hold. mathemagician54, what type of quant position are you looking for? are you interested in building derivatives pricing models? risk models? trading models? what do you really want to do? it may be that you don't really want to be a quant at all, but a trader and in that case this thread may be on the wrong track.

[jumbojacks]

http://www.nuclearphynance.com/

You could probably get some more advice there.

[mathemagician54]

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while i'm happy to see that this thread got to a more productive place, eventually, there seem to be a lot of people interesting in pursuing this type of career so maybe we should be a bit more careful with our advice.

there are a number of different jobs that quants hold. mathemagician54, what type of quant position are you looking for? are you interested in building derivatives pricing models? risk models? trading models? what do you really want to do? it may be that you don't really want to be a quant at all, but a trader and in that case this thread may be on the wrong track.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be honest, I don't know enough to say. All I do know is that I would like to try to do something related to finance that will let me use a lot of math (not trivial things though). You mentioned trading... i had some traders from a hedge fund come to my school for an info session. I spoke with them, and they said at their firm they don't really distinguish between quants and traders because they essentially do the same thing. Is this true of most hedge funds?

The reason I asked about quants as opposed to say, traders, is that after speaking to people who may or may not know what they are talking about, I was given the impression that traders did not necessarily use very much math; rather, they just implement trading strategies that say, the quants develop. (This greatly contradicts what the traders told me from the info session, since they said traders and quants serve the same purpose at their place.)

Is what the traders told me pretty standard for hedge funds, or no?

[stinkypete]

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To be honest, I don't know enough to say. All I do know is that I would like to try to do something related to finance that will let me use a lot of math (not trivial things though). You mentioned trading... i had some traders from a hedge fund come to my school for an info session. I spoke with them, and they said at their firm they don't really distinguish between quants and traders because they essentially do the same thing. Is this true of most hedge funds?

The reason I asked about quants as opposed to say, traders, is that after speaking to people who may or may not know what they are talking about, I was given the impression that traders did not necessarily use very much math; rather, they just implement trading strategies that say, the quants develop. (This greatly contradicts what the traders told me from the info session, since they said traders and quants serve the same purpose at their place.)

Is what the traders told me pretty standard for hedge funds, or no?

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i think in general the quants will be the ones actually developing the trading models, while the traders will be putting them into practice. but the traders have to have a good understanding of them - and naturally they'll have ideas that can be incorporated into the trading models - so there will be a lot of overlap.

[DcifrThs]

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To be honest, I don't know enough to say. All I do know is that I would like to try to do something related to finance that will let me use a lot of math (not trivial things though). You mentioned trading... i had some traders from a hedge fund come to my school for an info session. I spoke with them, and they said at their firm they don't really distinguish between quants and traders because they essentially do the same thing. Is this true of most hedge funds?

The reason I asked about quants as opposed to say, traders, is that after speaking to people who may or may not know what they are talking about, I was given the impression that traders did not necessarily use very much math; rather, they just implement trading strategies that say, the quants develop. (This greatly contradicts what the traders told me from the info session, since they said traders and quants serve the same purpose at their place.)

Is what the traders told me pretty standard for hedge funds, or no?

[/ QUOTE ]

i think in general the quants will be the ones actually developing the trading models, while the traders will be putting them into practice. but the traders have to have a good understanding of them - and naturally they'll have ideas that can be incorporated into the trading models - so there will be a lot of overlap.

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there are also traders who generate the models themselves. at Lehman they're called Desk Analytics (or desk quants).

the trading they do is mostly specialized (block trading).

but overall, yea, i think quants are typically the researchers and traders (in the more traditional sense) the ones that follow the model to make sure it gets executed.

Barron

[DcifrThs]

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Depending on specifically what you mean by 'quant', I think that a PhD is becoming more and more needed to get a truly top job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know this was a baseless comment thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

? didn't you read the first response to my question by soko?

in all seriousness, are you saying you disagree with the person you quoted? Because it seems to be in line with your first post. Am I wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

the move will take time. it isn't like all quants now require PhDs.

the job specs all say "quantitative finance experience. MS/PhD preferred" i have something equivalent to an MS Finance (i was one of only 4 out of 260 MBAs to take the math fin concentration meant for phds and ms fin students) but the job specs also say "excellent programming ability a plus. familiarity/ability to program in C++/Java/comparable language required"

the % of quant jobs that i've seen (efinancialcareers/monster/hotjobs etc.) that require a PhD (i.e. specifically say "phd required) is probably less than 10%. the reason is that the "quantitative" title can legtitimately be applied to risk analysts, trade idea generators, economists etc. so there are wide ranging job functions don't necessitate a PhD.

it may be the case that PhDs are becoming "more required" than previuos years but i can't speak to that...

Barron

[ArturiusX]

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? didn't you read the first response to my question by soko?

in all seriousness, are you saying you disagree with the person you quoted? Because it seems to be in line with your first post. Am I wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

A "top job" in general can be sought without a phd. A standard phd should suffice.

The OP asked if quants without phds existed. I said it depends on what you mean by quants, are we talking academic statistical crunchers or the more practical guys?