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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Author" data-source="post: 92194" data-attributes="member: 12902"><p>Generally that's true though I suppose it varies between different types of desks. Usually when one refers to a quant at an investment bank, it is a someone who develops pricing models and applications for financial products, which are used by traders to price and risk manage those products. So in that sense, yes, quants support traders. However, there is not just one kind of quant. You can find other quants at banks developing black box trading strategies, supporting risk management (departments that independently monitor trading desks' risk), creating relative value analysis tools and backtesting, and other generally quantitative jobs. You can also find quants in other places, from hedge funds to insurance companies. In particular, quants at hedge funds are probably the most likely to be those who are quant / trader hybrids, designing the logic by which trading decisions should be made as well as executing those trades. The main point, however, is that the term quant refers to a slew of jobs - hence your confusion. As a trader, the kind of quant I come into contact with at work almost exclusively is the kind who supports traders, but that's not the only kind there is.</p></blockquote><p></p>