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I disagree with the notion that finance cannot be mathematically modeled because it is governed by irrational group behavior, political policies, social phenomena, at least in the equities space. I'll just speak from my experience as I'm not qualified to talk about derivatives or mortgages and...

Edit... Yes like Professor Raynes states, in the early days bridges collapsed and planes crashed. Doesn't mean engineers didn't change history. But I have to admit, pretty costly baby steps.

Well as a loose example, options market makers like to recruit engineering/physics/math majors. Yeah sure, the MFE is overkill, but I noticed for positions like this they like people who can do math (well more like elementary calculations far away from the level of PDE's, etc) and do it very...

Thanks Carl. I know there is no hard requirement other than the taking and passing of the courses itself. I was just wondering if it's almost an unwritten rule that you need to have A's in the core classes. Sort of like needing to show the 800 in the math GRE to be considered as a serious...

Do you need to have all A's in the following to get into MFE: Linear Algebra , ODE, Calc 3, and Probability? These are the only classes I have finished before I apply. No other math courses besided Calc 1 and 2 and Stat 1 and 2, which was a long time ago. What if you have a couple or more...

So has it been a specific truth in the current market condition that quants have "once ensconced in their jobs, they are quickly marginalized and relegated to the role of glorified programmer until being eliminated in the next headcount reduction because (with unfortunate justification) they are...

What do you mean after August 2009 you will need 150 credit hours? Have they changed the requirements to sit for the CPA exam? I think the 150 credit hours refers to all of the credits you need to take the test (basically an undergraduate business degree) of which a certain portion will have...

Just my opinion but since you already have a BBA in Finance, why the need for an MS in Accounting? I pretty much consider those two degrees almost similar in skill set and I believe the business world does too, unless you are targeting working for a big 4 accounting firm which of course would...

I figure one of the best investments I can make is to learn Mandarin. Would not mind at all doing the expat thing in a wild frontier like China, but I hear the living conditions with the food and air quality is almost unbearable.

Sent you my resume a while ago Domini. Could you please send me the guide at skang357@yahoo.com. Thanks and cheers. HH

What's more important to the programs? Linear Algebra or Ordinary Diff Equations? Also, anybody have any idea what the applicant volume is gonna look like for 2009 well now that the US economy and Wall Street has been decimated? Everybody applying to law school and MBA instead?

Doug thanks. That seems like something beyond Calc 3 which this is. Or at least so far. The gradient vector points in the direction of increasing f at (a,b) and is perpendicular to the contour of f through (a,b). The question simply asks for the equation of the line tangent to the contour...

Could somebody please help me solve part b? Suppose f is differentiable and grad f (-2,5) = -3i + 4j (i and j are vectors), and f (-2,5) = 1. a) Give the equation of the tangent plane to the graph of f at x = -2, y = 5. answer : m = -3 (slope of x) and n = 4 (slope of y)...

Do you want to make 150K now or do you want to make 100K to 150K two years from now when you graduate?

Hey Matthew, bummer about the UCLA thing. Personally, I think with that GMAT, you don't deserve UCLA. You deserve better. Looks like lack of having the math classes did you in. Calc 1 and 2 doesn't even scratch the surface. There are other programs out there that will let you in on...

The chances of you picking the right door is 1 in 3 (if you don't switch). The chances of you picking the wrong door is 2 in 3. You're twice as likely to pick the wrong door than the right door. So you should switch because Monty is now going to take away one of the doors. And the door that...

My Multivariable Calculus course taken at Pierce Community College in Woodland Hills is taught by a Math PhD from UCLA. I guess the guy just loves math and likes to teach. I think he makes maybe 80K a year. Dunno about this fascination with money. Seems to be coming from most people...

I beg to differ because I interviewed with DE Shaw and my math SAT taken in 1992 was 740. I believe the 800 score reflects the recenter. Also 1995 is a long time ago, and they probably don't interview many people who took the GMAT before then nowadays. I'm thinking around 740 or higher...

When they say 800 score on the math SAT, do they mean before or after the test was recentered in 1995? I hear you can miss around two problems on the math section and get an 800 after the test was recentered. So 800 may not reflect the perfect score. Sort of like drawing a loose...

By the time I will be done with school with and looking to find a job as a quant, I will be 37. I have worries that companies will try to pass me over for people 10 years younger than me. And I do have market experience. At 57, with no prior experience in markets or computer programming...

Success is directly correlated to the amount of hunger you have to drive your success. In that respect, age should not have any bearing unless you are simply too old to perform the basic physical necessities of corporate success like working for 12 hours a day 5 days a week. Some people...

I'm not the sharpest knife in the ginzu shed. So I might be wrong. But with my solution for the 99/100 prisoners being saved, the solution works (as I worked it out). Albeit it may be unreasonable to think that all 100 prisoners must keep a tally starting from the back whether the count of...

What's the extra thing they need to know?

Very clever answer. Took a thesis to do it. I would have never thought of it. And you're right if they didn't see the hats behind them, it's impossible to get all 100 saved.

I hope I never have to get this kind of problem in an interview. LIke ever. Honestly, unless you get this exact problem, I have a hard time envisioning regular MFE grads unless they are Gary Kasparov's nephew to get this problem right by solving it in his head on the first time hearing it...

Definitely possible dude. By the way, these guys are prisoners. Unless they were scientist prisoners in a Siberian boot camp imprisoned for colluding with spies to reveal state secrets, I bet my life that no 100 prisoners would ever come up with a way to save all of their own asses! Hat...

Yeah the teasers I mentioned were of the mgmt consulting variety where you don't have to be too much of a whiz to solve. I guess I tried to pick the easiest ones I could think of. There were also how many times do you have to weigh using a balance scale to find out which balls out of 6 balls...

Oh, I was just replying to Ilyak8's reply to Finmath's theory of way to solve the problem with only a minimum of 1/2 of the prisoner's getting executed with certainty. He said, if they were to switch the order of the hats with alternating B/W/B/W hats, then they would all die. I worked the...

Very nice GMAT. Congrats. You'll get in somewhere.

This is like the most intense brain solver type of question I have ever heard. FYI, there is a way to save all of the prisoners. A guy doing his PhD at UCSB actually did his research thesis on this problem and the implications of his thesis has relevance to algebraic coding theory or...

If alternating hats, exactly half die, and they will be the guys who are odd numbered starting from the back where the warden does his execution yes or no.

You are correct. But they have to agree before they line up that starting from the back of the line, the even numbered guys agree to say what the odd number guys said, while the odd number guys will just say what the even number guys hat colors are. As soon as they line up they have to make...

Oh yeah, no doubt, the commodities markets were king post 9/11 because geopolitics threatened scarcity and stability, negotiations inter country were maybe shakier, the coming up of China and India, a war, and even Katrina, etc. Anything with limited resources went up. Real estate as well...

The Northwestern 1 year MBA + IIT MFE seems like a good plan to me. You'll be done with both in two years I believe granted you get into both consecutively. Time is a precious resource. Speed is crucial. Love those greener pastors by the way. ;)

You should talk to more traders who traded both markets in both time frames and get more perspectives. I am pretty sure the vast majority of equities traders in both markets would choose tech in the late 90's over the post 9/11 bull market as a crazier market and one with more opportunities...

Just seems to work out with the stats, but not sure if it actually plays out like this in real life. You take all the possible outcomes, they all equal to one. So statistically, you choose one cup out of three at first, you have 1/3 chance. Leaving 2/3 chance of one of the other two...

Just trade the OTC NASDAQ. No seats and even MM's use the ECN"s nowadays to hide their cards. You can become the ECN and add to liquidity. That's the most democratic market available. It really is a trading forum like this forum quantnet. It's just that the "server happens to be in...

Yes, might as well try to learn something that even most in the financial field do not know as well and divert the focus in that area since it does pay better than most.

5 to 9 cent profit on a stock is pretty easy to do. That's because that's like betting money on which direction a dandelion will swing in a light breeze. Stocks move 5 to 9 cents all day long one way or the other. The problem with this strategy, IMO, is that you'll be right...

It sort of sounds like you're trying view the market as guaranteed profits as long as you play within certain confines such as profit limits of 7 cents and expect those profits to be recurring. I'm sure you can create your models using those assumptions. As to whether they would work...

If you buy GM to make 7 cents profit after 5 hours, you are in trouble and should not consider trading. A 7 cent move would take minutes or seconds even with a 10 dollar stock like GM. People employ strategies like this where they try to make pennies. You only need to make around 1.5...

I'm not trying to get this MFE because I believe it will make me a better trader or better reader of the markets. Honestly, I don't think it will make a difference, or make it even worse. I'm gonna rely on math equation to go ahead and model people's fear and greed which relates to their...

I have the option of taking either of these classes. Should I even forgo these two and just look at Probability Theory instead? So far I have MV Calc, LA, and C++ and scheduled to take ODE in the beginning of 09.

I know this discussion is about art and culture in the context of capitalism that ultimately polarizes the rich and the poor and is on a macro scale worse off for the entire city, or if you broaden it, for the country, but let's not forget another reason for the over the hill debate...

Looks like the interviewers have modified the problem. Used to be about a game show with doors and a prize behind the door. Now it's cups and coins. Tricky tricky.

Guy seems to be living in a fantasy world. He makes 100K a year in salary but makes 50K to 10K doing part time trading? Sounds like a day trader. Why doesn't he just quit his job and trade full time and make a million instead? If you can consistently make that money trading your own account...

Yeah I learned a lot in daytrading because I happened to be trading in a place in midtown that housed I believe two of the top 10 day traders in the country and also at a time in the market that most likely will never happen again in our lifetimes, 1998 to 2000. You know it is funny when I...

Yeah, I figured after a while that Wall Street is a big fraud/ponzi scheme designed to get a limited and select ivy league kind of boys club guys rich and also of course their network of clients, CEO's of big companies. They don't really produce anything or add to productivity. They just...

How come u think commodities can't be modeled? I think CTA's just use back data. But yeah, that doesn't really tell you anything other than on the average how it's going to trade. The commodities trend much better it seems because well commodity markets are moved not only by speculators...

Yeah this echoes my thoughts on the importance of psychology, instinct, and cold nerves to be able to trade successfully. All of the successful guys you hear about in Market Wizards, etc are macro guys who used leveraged directional betting. You need to be able to take a loss and not get...

Well thanks to dumbass Ivy guy named W we have the biggest **** hole in history of US.

My uneducated guess: because of quants and their trading programs. All trained and designed to buy at the same time, all trained and designed to sell at the same time. Given the same signals. You ever see the market at the end of the day when the program trades start going into effect...

Which article r u referring to in terms of graduate schools? Both of your links refer to College graduates, not graduate schools. Did we bash Dartmouth here? Surprising they get the most salary. I attribute to smaller sample size. Their school is small.

Excellent analogy. Who makes more and get all the credit? Dale Earnhardt Jr or Danica Patrick or Dale Earnhardt Jr. pit crew or Danica Patrick Pit Crew. No pit crew is going to be able to create an IRobot driver that's gonna take over Dale Earnhardt Jr. to drive the car and win races...

Depend where you get your MBA. I would still take MBA from H/S/W over any MFE degree even from Haas/CMU/Columbia/Princeton. I remember reading a survey of 500 or so (good sample size) MBA grads from UCLA ten years out of school and average salary is 250K. However, if you are getting an...

Sounds like you want to be a financial analyst in banking or asset management since you got the CFA 1 and 2. When I think financial analyst, I think either corporate financial analyst (working with accounting, budgets, variance analysis, strategy, projections) or I think of equity research...

What is the special recipe of this sauce. How do you make the sauce better than the other sauces so you create the ultimate dish, ie the greatest profit. I can give you an example in line with this sauce analogy but probably a little different from MFE programs as I am going to get the...

Turning 12K into 1.65 million is pretty good even in the dot.com era. But it is amazing that quants are interested in discretionary traders. All they do is detach their emotions when trades go bad, think objectively, buy dips and short tops and buy stocks going up, sell stocks going down...

Key takeaways I got from reading this excellent interview: Today we have a recruiting group, and what do they do?—they throw resumes at you, and it's, like, one business school guy, one finance major after another, kids who, from the time they were twelve years old, were watching Jim Cramer and...

What's up Quaker! A little bit of advice before I go on with my speech. Don't be dropping too many "W" bombs if you know what I mean. I did that about once in the other board, and already people start associating me with that and I start actually getting some not so savory replies (although...

A few thoughts come to mind when regarding the job market, prospects, and this story with the sandwich board: I too am an undergraduate of a reputable school. I currently am also unemployed and although I was able to get two job offers earlier this year, they are not in the same line of work...

Two things going against the guy (IMHO). 1) 48 years old. 2) Valuation consultant. I actually interviewed with HLHZ back in 98 after I graduated from school. They are indeed a valuation house that does M&A and public offerings to middle market companies making around 50 million to...

Thanks so much.:) I will mention those words to the schools when inquiring about their courses. I would go to NYC to start an MFE program but not to take a math course. It's sort of interesting. Some programs seem to say that a background with MV Calc and Linear Algebra combined with some...

Why would HLHZ need financial engineers? That's a middle market m&a and advisory shop based in LA. They don't even have a market maker and they work mostly with private companies. They're not in secondary markets. Once again, journalists really need to do some research before they start...

That is what I gather. But I am trouble finding out what colleges title their courses in calc-based probability. I guess it's called Probability Theory. Don't forget ODE and Number Theory as well, or is it Numerical Analysis.

I see that many of the aspiring quants are in their mid to late 20's. I'm about to turn 33 and although I have had 6 years of equity markets experience in sales, trading, and research, relocating to the west coast has forced me to take jobs the last four years in regular industry working as a...

I'm in way uncivilized LA. :D I had to look to the Jr. colleges to fulfill my MV Calc and Linear Algebra and C++ programming. I guess I need to take this kind of probability theory class. Honestly, I feel like I learned some of that already in my two stats courses in college. I'm...

Stats for dummies! :wall I can't seem to find any classes under 1000 dollars that I can take that is a calc-based stats/probability class. Surely, you will never find a class like this a jr. college. I am not even sure what most math departments would officially call a calc-based...

I took Statistics 101 and 102 in college. Don't have a description but you can assume those are the first two stats classes in the progression. I have never heard of this calculus-based probability and I'm not even sure if what I learned in my two stats classes have covered some of that...

Hi new guy here. 33 years old guy in LA area. No background in math, or comp sci. I have a BS in finance from UPenn, and worked for 6 years in equities. I started off by being a day trader on 499 Park avenue in the Bloomberg Building for two years. Later went to Seoul Korea and worked...