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That's what I thought. It simply that given that reducing the amount of immigrant workers is often popular with the voters base so it could have been a tactic. However as you say Andy I doubt the current government has much immediate say in the matter, especially if the number of visas was set...

Could the fact that we're in an election year has anything to do with this arguably populist measure?

Hi Maisatomai Here's my humble opinion, take it for what it worth. There's too much overlap between the CFA and a MS in finance, you want to diversify your portfolio of skills not learn the CAPM once again, dont waste your ressources. I think the very best thing for you to do given your...

I agree with Tbeas and purplyboy, the CQF, the CFA, self-study and/or Quantnet/Baruch C++ cert will give you better bangs for your bucks than MBA or MFE. I would very rarely advise to do the CFA but for someone with absolutely no formal finance formation it could make sense, maybe.

it reminds me of an old joke: You enter a room with 100 students, how do you know which one passed the cfa level 1? He comes and tells you.

Hi IM, I think you underestimate the importance of studying in a big financial center. If you want to do niche sophisticated things like algo-trading/high freq and do not plan on doing a PhD, you'll greatly benefit from doing your masters degree in NYC or London. You have a good background and...

Awesome blog Pratik! I'll check it out in more depth during xmas break

I'm doing their Intro to Databases class this semester and I think they have a great product. The delivery software and structure is much better than MIT opencourseware. I'm very thankful for them to make this available for free online.

Interesting stuff. Being myself in my early twenties I feel there's some truth to it, we're overstimulated with an attention spans shorter than a high-frequency prop shop's latency. This said, as much as my father is convinced my generation is filled with self-entitled sloths, I'm under the...

Yes 'their's upward mobility, especially for detail-oriented individuals. The market is flooded by young bright graduates while most finance firms are shrinking, and apparently this shift is structural and here to stay. Do a lot of due diligence before picking this field of work.

Yeah and given that Google announced this morning they're shutting down much-hyped Google Waves and Google Gears, and some tech blogs already announcing the dead of Google+, it seems there's downside potential being an early adopter of the Chromebook.

I'm curious about the new chromebook (http://www.google.com/chromebook/). It might not answer the programming needs of all the geeks here (including myself) but with more and more apps online (codepad.org, docs.latexlab.org) I wouldn't be surprised personal computing to head this way.

It cannot be B, because you have 1/4=25% chance to pick B so 50% cannot be the answer. Cannot be A or D neither, because there's a 50% chance of picking them, hence 25% would be wrong. Thus, as Tsotne put it, there's no good answer.

% corroborated in matlab clear; clc; n=100000; POS=sort(rand(20,n)); DIST=[repmat(realmax,2,n); POS(2:end,:)-POS(1:end-1,:); repmat(realmax,2,n)]; notCrowedAt=(DIST(1:end-3,:)<=DIST(2:end-2,:))&(DIST(3:end-1,:)>=DIST(4:end,:)); mean(sum(notCrowedAt)) % result ~ 5

The interviews were over and the candidates were selected in late september/early october.

With all due respect, using the PRM to show math skills is like using microwavable pizza pockets to show Haute Cuisine abilities.

I just read this morning this article on biases in hedge funds databases by Malkiel & Saha: http://neumann.hec.ca/pages/eric.jacquier/GdP/articles/MalSah.2005.Hedgerisk.pdf Interesting read for anyone with stakes in the precision of hedge funds databases.

Morningstar Alternative investment Center http://alternativeinvestments.morningstar.com/pandora/home/Standard.aspx

Hey Joy Pathak, I've heard those figures before (and believe them) but I can't find the source. Any clue? Thanks

I almost experimented with personal algorithmic trading at one point but my biggest obstacle by far was getting correct brokerage services, at least in Canada. You need to find a broker that is willing to take automatic orders (duh!) and one which has a very low transaction fees package...

"But the desire to play games is not the reason why the United States Air Force recently issued a procurement request for 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) video-game consoles. It intends to link them up to build a supercomputer that will run Linux, a free, open-source operating system. It will be...

Congrats on UoT!

Hey Pasion, I'm not a quant yet, only an MFE student. However my AI class taught me plenty of stuff I'm using now. For example, we had to program a checkers player with a time limit to make moves, so we were always asking ourselves 'how can we make this piece of code more efficient?'. We saw the...

My last year of undergrad at McGill, I registered in an Artificial Intelligence class aimed at seniors given by the comp. sci. department. The thing was I didn't even have completed the prerequisites for the prerequisites of the class, and I wasn't neither much of a hacker at home (yet). I was...

QMM masters and MFE look somewhat redundant to me. I think you would make yourself a more attractive candidate by concurrently pursuing the CFA certification while you are completing your QMM masters. You would probably be able to achieve this combination faster, would be better rounded (you...

It's definitely a 'plus', how much of a 'plus' is the question. Quants encompass a large spectrum of roles (trading, risk mgmt, portfolio mgmt, etc), and the utility of those certifications will vary greatly across these roles.

I wish I got acquainted with stochastic calculus last summer before classes began.

It's on my to-do list to do an entry for HEC, I just havent found the time yet.

I was in your position a year ago, decided to go for it right before the price-goes-up deadline, and now I am very happy I did. Now I'm in the middle of an MFE and most other kids, except some, will write the level I in June while I am already a year ahead. Don't worry too much about the...

Thinkpads for the win. Bought mine, a T42, $350 refurbished from IBM years ago, and it works like a charm (I'm using it at the very moment). Very nice hardware. I use Ubuntu Linux as OS, it is much lighter, no danger of viruses and a lot of support for programming.

HEC or UdM? CFA certification would help, but only passing the level I exam won't, it's just to easy to get. I doubt FRM or PRM would help either. You say , , . Finance in NY is an extremely competitive job markets, you MUST be ready to compete with Ivy leagues science PhD's and/or Ivy leagues...

In terms of content, I agree with Somebody above that the UdM program is probably more rigorous and better compared to the HEC one. For example, classes at HEC use mostly Matlab instead of c++ while c++ is much more used in the industry. Furthermore, I think one should learn the tough maths as...

I'm currently doing the MFE at HEC Montreal right now. It is by far the best program out of the three you mentionned above. Upsides: Good, industry oriented program. Great job prospects and reputation in montreal. Downside: Extremely little reputation outside montreal (although still better than...

I think it mostly depends on 3 things: 1 - Are you aiming at a quant job or Sales&Trades/IB? For quant job, the MATH 38200- CCNY class appears much better, it's easier to learn theory/maths early on and then learn the finance details after. However, the MTH 4500- Baruch class seems more aimed...

I just finished the 1st semester of my MFE, and I wished I took a class of the flavour of the MATH 38200- CCNY one.

I think there's two competing forces here; on one hand some students choose not to go in finance/fin. eng. in grad school because of all recent laid offs/volatility/scarcity in the job market, while on the other hand a bunch of finance/ math fin. majors are forced into grad school because no job...

There is a HUGE competition for trader positions, especially at the moment. A classmate of mine just secured one, there was 60 interviewees for that single post, so imagine how many applications that means. There is a substantial number of people in the industry that will tell you to forget...

I'm currently right in the middle of final exams of the 1st semester of my MFE, from an undergrad in science. If I could go back in time and say something to my self of a year ago, I guess I'd have the following two advices (in chronological order, if time permits): 1- Read Hull's Options...

Hi, here's a post I made in the Global Derivatives forum, it doesn't answers your question directly but I copied and pasted here anyway: "- I'm currently in Fin Eng @ HEC mtl, oh and by the way I did my undergrad at McGill as you did I assume My guesses, really depends how you compare to...