I just want to say that in early 2004a headhunter asked me to interview with them. At the time I had made money daytrading somthing like 67 out of 72 months during a period that included some very bad markets. They said they needed someone with more quat skills. I have one thing to say HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
I interviewed at a number of quant shops and didn't get any job offers due to my lack of formal quant training (just a BS in Finance and CIS and self taught economics and statistics). Well, I'm up this year. I was up last year, the year before, the year before, etc. Quant shops are a den of fools. Fools with IQs over 130 and PhDs, but fools nonetheless. BTW, I'm rereading (third time I believe) When Genius Failed. Amazing how the same thing happens over and over. Do these people ever learn?
Ever played musical chairs when they start pulling lots of the chairs out? When the music stops playing it's chaos.....just like the current market.
UPDATE -Tykhe quant fund hasn't recovered Aug losses By Dane Hamilton NEW YORK, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Tykhe Capital LLC, a quantitative hedge fund named for the Greek god of fortune, has yet to recover after last month's market rout, unlike other computer-driven investment funds that have recouped much of their losses. New York-based Tykhe's Portfolios Class B statistical arbitrage fund plummeted 18 percent in August, leaving it down around 21 percent year to date, according to investors who have seen the latest monthly figures. And Tykhe's Portfolios Class C fund, a global equities fund, was down 26 percent by the end of August, leaving it down 25.8 percent year to date, investors said. Tykhe, for which Man Group Plc was a significant seed investor, declined to comment. Tykhe, which is managed by Ross Garon and other former traders at quant fund giant D.E. Shaw & Co, was pummeled by a market retreat in late July and early August that left many similar quant funds with large and unexpected losses. But quant funds managed by Renaissance Technologies Corp, D.E. Shaw, AQR Capital Management and others have recovered to a greater or lesser extent from the market declines after pulling back on leverage and waiting for the market to settle, according to investors and fund managers, who asked to remain unidentified. Tykhe, which previously managed about $1.8 billion, has not been so fortunate, raising questions about how long investors will hang on, analysts said. Daniel Celeghin, a hedge fund analyst for consultants Casey, Quirk & Associates, said that while he doesn't have specific knowledge of the current situation at Tykhe and hasn't advised the firm, he believes that under these circumstances investors are likely now evaluating Tykhe's assets. More: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN0723159420070907?rpc=44
No, from what I understand they were/are a leveraged quantitative multi-factor based equity relative value fund, i.e. long/short different equities, probably modeled to be beta + market neutral. If suddenly your shorts go up and longs go down and you're leveraged 3x or more then it quickly can become very very painful.