Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant

Send us Fan Mail From 2020 until today (7/21/24), the economy has really come into the main conversation especially with inflation as bad as it has been. I bring on economist and personal friend C.R. Olschwang to discuss what is currently happening as well as some general economics around labor, supply, demand, consumption, and business. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail A fun interview with Alexander Unterrainer on KDB and building careers in quantitative finance in London. I have heard a little about KDB over the years but have never used it. Today I sit down with Alexander to learn a bit more about it and how he has built a career on it. He has also been blogging for over a year on how to program in KDB+ which is also known as KDB or q. KDB Lea...

Send us Fan Mail Jonathon Emerick is an energy trader and quant who also has a YouTube channel (QuantPy). We discuss his journey coming from chemical engineering to quantitative finance which included a Masters of Financial Mathematics. Topics covered in our discussion range from energy markets to risk management to YouTube and day trading. Jonathon Emerick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathon-em...

Send us Fan Mail Since I just turned 35 years old, I figured I would a podcast episode on the journey and the lessons I learned. It was a mixed bag of great years, some struggles, and now coming out the other side. Quantitative finance is a wild ride and never the same for any two professionals. Reflecting on 30 Years: The Journey to Becoming a Quant https://youtu.be/rGdfR66Dl4c?si=4A4hWtK8uP3KJQS...

Send us Fan Mail As many of you know I work in a high paying field and rub shoulders with many wealthy people. That being said, I didn't grow up around Wall Street or any other high powered field. I was an average American who took an interest in quantitative finance and ended up falling in love with statistics and economics. I tend to understand people from a variety of backgrounds because I...

Send us Fan Mail Should you have friends at work? Of course! You need a network around you. You need people to talk to who can relate to you. It makes work easier as you understand your colleagues better, it helps find work in the future, and it makes it enjoyable to go to work. That being said, I rarely ever hang out with my colleagues outside of work. However I do grab lunch with past colleagues...

Send us Fan Mail A subscriber asked how I paid for my masters degree as they are very expensive. The short answer on how I paid for it was working part-time and taking out government loans. For my undergrad my parent's paid the first 1.5 years and then I got married and was poor so the school covered my tuition. I also worked two part-time jobs during my undergrad to pay for rent, books, food...

Send us Fan Mail A subscriber asked how I manage my family, working as a quant, two YouTube channels, and a fair amount of hobbies including my homestead. There are really four tips that allow me to manage my schedule. It is also important to realize I do not succeed at everything. Social media makes it look like everything is running smooth with minimal stress however my life can be very stressfu...

Send us Fan Mail An industry professional asked me why is it so hard to get changes made within a company. They had made some suggestions for improving model validation however they were told there were resource constraints. Resource constraints are very real however this often includes company politics. For example, even if your team can make changes that will improve efficiency, save money, and...

Send us Fan Mail In quantitative finance I hear a lot of students say, "I love money" implying that will make them good at quant finance. It is a very shallow statement and one that shows the student hasn't thought much about that statement. The students that do truly love money for the sake of money are shallow people that won't make it in quant finance. Now that being said, I...

Send us Fan Mail The biggest lie in quant finance is that you can do everything required at the highest level of a model. This includes data engineering, model development (quant research), implementation (quant dev), and be the end user (often a trader or operations team). This full stack quant does exist however they are never the best at everything and they often work in a very specific niche....

Send us Fan Mail For this Thanksgiving season I would like to express my gratitude for my dad. My dad was a traveling salesman and the reason my mom was able to be a stay at home mom. The one skill that I am most grateful for is my work ethic. I learned to work along side my dad as a kid growing up. The example my dad set helped engrain in my the need and desire to work. I spent a lot of my childh...

Send us Fan Mail As Thanksgiving is this week I wanted to reflect on my gratitude for my mom. My mom was a stay at home mom and was lucky enough to be able to stay home and spend a lot of time with me as a child. Many of the life lessons around manners, religion, and domestic skills such as cooking and cleaning all came from my mom. My mom's attitude towards education is also what kept me som...

Send us Fan Mail Understanding performance reviews is challenging especially if you have not worked at a variety of firms. There will always be a human judgement portion which is not a hard science. That being said, reviews should be very specific to each position. When I moved from an individual contributor to a manager role, I was not happen that my annual review was average. Over the last 5 yea...

Send us Fan Mail Many things make legends who they are. It seems the commonality is the ability to perform at a very high level over an extended period of time. Looking at Fischer Black, Peter Carr, Rick Rubin, George Box, Gilbert Strang, and John Nash it is interesting to see so many difference between them yet they have all had significant contributions to their area of expertise. Soft skills se...

Send us Fan Mail As grad school programs and undergrad programs are starting up it is important to get the most out of the time you are there. School seems like it goes slow however by the time you graduate and have been working a few years it seems like long ago. 1) Network with a wide range of students. 2)  Do informational interviews with alumni and industry practitioners to learn what specialt...

Send us Fan Mail As a book review I give "Operation Paperclip" 5/5 stars! I'm not typically a big fan of popular paperback books (non textbooks). The dilemma in the books shows a brief insight into some of the horrible killings and crimes as well as the potential or perceived need for the science to end WWII with Japan as well as fend of Russia (cold war). Determining who was of val...

Send us Fan Mail I met Christina Qi virtually at the Princeton Quant Conference in 2023. I was really impressed with her presentation on hedge funds, data, and career advice. I connected with her on LinkedIn and found her posts insightful as she explains a lot about what she is doing career-wise even when it isn't the trendy thing to do. I invited her as a guest on the podcast to learn more a...

Send us Fan Mail The finance industry seems to be following the social movement of adding bias and personal opinions instead of allowing the invisible hand of capitalism to properly assign and balance resources and outcomes. Consulting firms are now coming up with politically driven definitions of bias instead of using the mathematical definition and customers can choose their definitions. From a...

Send us Fan Mail This past podcast season was a lot of fun and I got more interaction and ideas from listeners than ever before. The next season will be in the fall however I have not started planning yet. Let me know what your ideas are for an episode or season and I will try to work them into the next season. If you have found these episodes helpful, please share them on Linked or Twitter. Or if...

Send us Fan Mail So I had a previous video many months ago answering a subscriber's question regarding conflict at work. They were concerned with a list of issues that were ethical in nature and how to handling it. They were a junior employee and wanted advice on what to do. My advice was to just look for a new job. A comment on that video stated that it was good to know finding a new job was...

Send us Fan Mail As this channel focuses on quantitative finance and risk management, I tend to focus on financial topics specific to the industry and not personal finance. Due to many requests over the years I will explain how I manage my personal finances. I use a waterfall approach. I have a value selected for the maximum amount I need in my checking account. That amount is enough to cover my d...

Send us Fan Mail I had an absolute blast at the Princeton Quant Conference! The campus was amazing and my first time visiting, the students from schools all over the north east were interesting and excited in quant finance, and the other speakers and organizers were engaging. It was a great opportunity to meet new people and hear new ideas. If you have a chance to attend as a student, I highly rec...

Send us Fan Mail As an educator (content creator), holder of two degrees, and industry practitioner I see the struggle of providing quality education to the right people at the right price. The false narrative that everyone needs a college degree needs to stop. The majority of jobs do not need a college degree. Many jobs need training and universities are not qualified to provide all types of educ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is more of a podcast and YouTube update. I have a lot of great ideas for videos however I have been struggling to make content lately. Many of the ideas need a series of videos with structure and organization. They would also be amazing with coding example and beautiful charts however I have been so overwhelmed the last 6-12 months that I have not been making any of t...