the language you need to know

Discussion in 'App Development' started by ale2117, Nov 27, 2011.

  1. ale2117

    ale2117

    Hi everyone,

    i work as a junior trader (started less than 2 years ago) for a european IB, mainly doing vanilla STIR and Govies and i want increase my knowledge of programming.

    I have a BSc in economics and MSc in quant finance (theoretical master), but i am scarce at programmimg.
    I fear that for HFT and algo trading my background doesn't fit, as far as i know you need good math/fisics/engeneering background, but i would like to move to a hedge fund where still discretionary trading is done (global macro/relative value) and my experience in interest rate products can be an asset. i.e i am not super quant guy, but i get it and i ve been trained extensively on interest rate products.

    Can anyone advise me on THE lenguage that i need to know to rise the probability to be hired? What hedge fund require for a junior trader/assistan trader position.

    VBA? Matlab? Python? C++? Java?
    I know that C++ is the best, but takes time to learn and for the position i am looking for is not really what i need...

    any suggestion or advice is more than welcome
     
  2. rosy2

    rosy2

    how do you know c++ is the best? anyway, language doesn't matter; 99% of people give up within a week
     
  3. sle

    sle

    in the decreasing order:
    (a) Excel/VBA
    (b) Matlab or R
    (c) Python
    depending on what you are trying to do. for delta-1 fixed income world (talk to Martinghoul for more details), i'd go with matlab or R - easy to do all sorts of PCA and regressions, very rapid development etc.

    I use R, but that's because S+ was the language of choice at my first place of work.