Do I need a PhD in a quantitative field to get a job in algorithmic trading?

Believe it or not, that can actually work both ways. When you work for an establishment your thinking can become closed within a box and it's probably one of the reasons why Renaissance hires people with backgrounds outside the industry.

 

From the perspective of an employer there is a benefit to hiring people with diverse backgrounds. The firm already has the people with industry expertise and it makes sense to add people who can think outside the box.
From the perspective of the OP, who has no market background, no experience developing strategies and no capital, thinking outside the box has little value. Before he can create his own approach to quant trading, he would benefit the most by learning the state of the art.
As a general note, thinking outside the box only helps if you own a box already. For example, ET is full of people trying to invent ways to get rich, yet through my years , I have not seen anything that struck me as genius.

 

What's your problem, you're acting like a total jackass here for absolutely no apparent reason.

 

Agree with this mostly but think people have different skills and there isn't one particular type of skill that's required to make money in this business. Youve got guys like Soros making billions that probably dont know one iota about quant finance or the japanese trader that worked out how the trading game is played and turned a small amount into 30 million.

 

as far as i know there is no formal education that will ever allow you to be successful at trading. a business owner who understands profit and loss on a daily basis, value of merchandise, yearly goals while enduring months of failure. these are the most likely successfully educated who might survive trading.

 

i hung drywall and did metal framing, went on to have 3 jets and a car company purchased directly from trading profits.

 

You also got guys that happen to buy a lottery ticket at the right time (btw, Soros falls into that category somewhat, with Taleb being squarely in there). Unfortunately, it's very hard to attribute success in this business.

Is 3 jets enough?

 

A car company, like Tesla? Elon is that you?

 

no much more modern cars than tesla. full carbon fiber and kevlar monocoque type cars that win a lot of races, yet us and european street legal. high end stuff.

 

the car company came with 3 jets. there were 4 but one crashed. i never flew in them, they were just assets.