Reply to: move into trading?

[HarryPearce]

I need a large place to hide.

There are no Dukes in [Hampshire Wiltshire Somerset] but if you'd care to call the office at Longleat Lord Bath is always on the look out for new wifelets

Nick

[wendigo100]

Well first I'm not in the financial markets anymore, moved out to live a country life in deepest [Hampshire Wiltshire Somerset].

That's a big place you have there.

Are you a Duke?

[RightLaugh]

I haven't a clue what you lot are talking about. I'm a 9-5 Access Monkey and proud of it.

[Troll]

My dear chap, how kind. Contractors must be coming up in the world. Next you'll want to be my friend on Bebo :-)

Nick

Steady on! ... normal service will be resumed shortly

[HarryPearce]

Thanks... & it was meant as a compliment btw

My dear chap, how kind. Contractors must be coming up in the world. Next you'll want to be my friend on Bebo :-)

Nick

[Troll]

Mmmm! I'll take that as a compliment.

Well first I'm not in the financial markets anymore, moved out to live a country life in deepest [Hampshire Wiltshire Somerset]. So the highs / lows are not financial profit sadly. I suppose I just like stuffing my head full of nonsense, as my mother would have said.

The only problem with the approach, that is its low, is that of Herodotus "This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power."

The high is that of Socrates "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance."

TTFN
Nick

Thanks... & it was meant as a compliment btw

[HarryPearce]

Herodutus and Socrates

Nick... just reading that gave me a headache! do you actually enjoy & get personal satisfaction working at this level? if so what are the highs & lows?

Mmmm! I'll take that as a compliment.

Well first I'm not in the financial markets anymore, moved out to live a country life in deepest [Hampshire Wiltshire Somerset]. So the highs / lows are not financial profit sadly. I suppose I just like stuffing my head full of nonsense, as my mother would have said.

The only problem with the approach, that is its low, is that of Herodotus "This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power."

The high is that of Socrates "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance."

TTFN
Nick

[HarryPearce]

Was this the era of neural networks?

That's all gone, algorithmic trading is by comparison quite simple.

Neural nets were [maybe still are] part of it, but not the entire picture. AI applied to finance covers a huge gamut from statistical NLP [how to read the newqs automatically to ascertain likely changes in market sentiment], data mining to extract patterns in marketing activity, agent based trading models [try googling financial trading agent model], heuristic driven evolutionary optimisation [esp. for portfolio analsysis in the presence of non linear constraints] etc. But AI's nowt really the physicists are getting involved, anyone for quantum theory based trading http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/22098

Have a nice day ya awl!

Nick

[Troll]

I work on a quant desk - I'm not a mathematician, all I do is shovel data into systems that already exist. There are some very bright people that sit alongside me, but I'm not one of them...

I'm good at looking busy and nodding though.

Top man... your honesty is refreshing!

[Lockhouse]

I work on a quant desk - I'm not a mathematician, all I do is shovel data into systems that already exist. There are some very bright people that sit alongside me, but I'm not one of them...

I'm good at looking busy and nodding though.

[BlasterBates]

I suspect there's some element of truth in the idea of moving into trading.

I used to work in AI within the City and some of the work I saw was well into the realms of rocket science requiring supercomputing of the Cray or near Cray standard. My MSc examined a good deal of the financial trading systems that were about around ten years ago, and considering the advances in AI and computing power I'd be very surprised if the quants desks were not heavily involved in certain areas of the crossover between computational learning, stats, maths and high powered computing platforms.

I still remember my first day contracting in the City in '94. I was shown round the desks said hello etc etc and then came across one desk with no-one sat at it, but the books said enough a guide to Standard ML and another text on Lattice Theory (If you need to ask waht they are you don't need to know!).

As to the requirement for Java and multithreading I can only hestitate that they're working on heavily distributed systems for which Java excels. The Mac kernel that underpins Mac OS X for example automatically multitasks Java threads over multiple CPUs on multi core Macs which max out at 8 cores of 3 Ghz each IIRC. To get max performance out of such would require PhD level knowledge. Never mind the need for similar maths knowledge to hande the quants side of things.

That you'd be moving into trading implies the trading would be fully or near fully automated and you would be expected to develop the trading models.

Nick

Was this the era of neural networks?

That's all gone, algorithmic trading is by comparison quite simple.

[Troll]

That you'd be moving into trading implies the trading would be fully or near fully automated and you would be expected to develop the trading models.

Nick

Nick... just reading that gave me a headache! do you actually enjoy & get personal satisfaction working at this level? if so what are the highs & lows?

[BlasterBates]

With algorithmic trading the understanding of how it works is really important, so I think there would be opportunities. If you're new to trading then you need to learn finance first.

[brownie74]

also, you'd be entering the trading world at the age most of the traders are leaving it. early 30's, no? do they care what age you are? or does it mainly attract younger people because of the long hours / fastlane lifestyle?

[GreenerGrass]

OK, hands up time. Yes, I moved from development to trading and then on to my own business. It does happen.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you make the jump? To go from experienced IT contractor to novice/trainee trader would you take a big initial drop in income (to hopefully be ramped up again later plus bonuses etc.)?
I guess another factor is whether you want to be tied to London even more (which I'm guessing you would be as a trader...)