Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant

Send us Fan Mail Milind Sharma is the QuantZ / QMIT CEO with a deep background in quantamental investing. His experience started with a solid education from Carnegie Mellon with the Milind Sharma is the QuantZ / QMIT CEO with a deep background in quantamental investing. His experience started with a solid education from Carnegie Mellon with the MS in Computational Finance program back in 1995 when...

Send us Fan Mail "Careers in Motion" is the fifth season of the podcast, "Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant." In this season I will talk a lot about career development as well as some issues going on in the finance industry. I will have a guest or two as usual and we'll talk about their careers and career advice. The career advice will specifically be on quant finance howe...

Send us Fan Mail As my journey unfolds I am at a cross road of firms in tech, fintech, and banking (risk quant). All of the opportunities have their pros and cons however making this decision is really challenging. Should I leave banking for another industry? Will the other industries have the rigor of banking? Maybe I can bring an academic rigor that would would really help these firms grow? Or m...

Send us Fan Mail How do you build a quant culture? Quants have very different needs from business professionals (specifically finance professionals at a bank). Quants operate on a high level of science and art all at the same time. Access to high quality academic and professional resources are needed to build and validate models properly. Mentors (senior quants) are needed to teach junior quants t...

Send us Fan Mail Peter Carr was a quantitative finance legend. His impact on the industry will not be forgotten through both his research and his personal mentorship to many people including myself. His departure was shocking and unexpected. The short time that I knew Peter was insightful, comforting, and inspirational. Peter took an interest in those around him by giving of his time and expertise...

Send us Fan Mail I released a quantitative finance masters ranking for 2022 and found the process very challenging. The goal is to provide transparency to students so they can see how the programs are structured, where they are placing students in the industry, and a view of program rigor. While I have a good grasp on what the industry is looking for and what it is like being a student is one of t...

Send us Fan Mail After conflict at the new job I have decided to take a break from the banking industry. I will be spending more time on generating content around quant finance and data science. The R video series will get new videos and I will try and add some more traditional finance videos around topics like options, stocks, and bonds. I also feel like no one really understands risk management...

Send us Fan Mail The question on what I think of De-Fi (decentralized finance) has come up often over the last year or two. I have avoided the topics as I don't view myself as a de-fi expert however after watching a presentation on the topic I figured I needed to speak up. While De-Fi's goal is to eliminate a centralized system I predict we will end up in the same system we currently hav...

Send us Fan Mail Oddly enough I get asked a fair amount about marriage on my quantitative finance channel. It typically comes from young men who are trying to plan their lives and want to know when they should start looking for a spouse. I have also been asked to talk about marriage because I was married fairly young at the age of 20. I do believe marriage plays an important role in developing a c...

Send us Fan Mail "What does a quant career look like?" The simple answer...they are all different. The long answer has to do with understanding goals and deciding whether or not you want to stay an individual contributor or become a manager. The higher up the corporate ladder you go, the less quant work you'll do. I'm trying to do both but at times I feel like I am being torn i...

Send us Fan Mail As Christmas is just around the corner and we passed Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, I figured I would talk about my struggle with gratitude. For me gratitude is a very hard thing. I want to be more grateful as it would make me a better person and I would be much happier however it is hard. I have really been thinking and working on being more grateful especially since my grandma pa...

Send us Fan Mail Academics and industry professionals alike  seem to think their field of study is correct while others are outdated or wrong. I completely get where the frustration comes from as there has been a lot of hype in many fields which is being pushed by people who aren't really apart of any field. Kaggle and towards data science come to mind however there are a long list of textboo...

Send us Fan Mail "What does a quant career look like?" The simple answer...they are all different. The long answer has to do with understanding goals and deciding whether or not you want to stay an individual contributor or become a manager. The higher up the corporate ladder you go, the less quant work you'll do. I'm trying to do both but at times I feel like I am being torn i...

Send us Fan Mail Often we focus on models so much that we forget they aren't perfect. There is a strong need for a validation team to check the work of model development. However this leads to disagreements between teams. There are many factors that play into this which include technical limitations, limitations of employee education and experience, usage limitations, and ego. Quants make the...

Send us Fan Mail I'm excited to have a long-time subscriber and friend, Andres Rossi on the podcast! I have watched him mature and grow from an undergrad student into starting his first job as an actuary after his masters degree in quant finance and actuarial sciences. In our discussion we talk about actuaries vs quants, actuaries in Italy, education, quant finance, data science, and risk man...

Send us Fan Mail Quantitative finance has a marketing problem in almost all areas. The academic institutions have spent very little time and money and defining what they truly offer students. To be honest I don't think many of them know what they are offering besides a piece of paper saying you graduated. Programs should be designed for a specific type of incoming student and train them for a...

Send us Fan Mail I quit my job at Santander working in model risk management. It was 6 fun years where I learned a lot however due to some corporate restructuring and a better opportunity where I would have more responsibility, I am moving on. In this episode I talk about interviewing at other firms as well as how to view different offers. How much money you are being paid is usually a main driver...

Send us Fan Mail Time is ticking and when you turn 30 years old it seems life changes. More realistically, sometime around the age of 30 as we are all unique. The biological clock is ticking away for having kids and finding a spouse. This life change can have a large impact on one's career, especially in quantitative finance. I am currently struggling with this as I am very career driven and...

Send us Fan Mail The decision to work in the industry vs academia is a hard one to make. Years into a career in the quant finance industry and I still wonder if I should go back to academia. My passion for education, training, and research is still strong and often the industry seems to be against these three ideas. Making money and focusing on the business takes precedence over education and lear...

Send us Fan Mail Back to office non-sense in banking has been sad. Many industries are also struggling with this however without using actual logic, you won't get employees to back your efforts and decisions. The banks on average have been looking at flex working where we will work in the office a few days a week and then work from home (wfh) a few days a week. Many of them behind closed door...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Season 4 of Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant! I'm really excited to be back here on the podcast and back on YouTube. While I was taking a mental break from content creation I ended up finding an amazing job offer with some unique risks. I ended up not taking the offer due to legal risks however when valuing a new job there are a lot of different angles to consider...

Send us Fan Mail I wish managers took the time to really get to know me and other employees. This is a reflection as an employee and as a manager. People have relationships that go unleveraged. It is often easier to use relationships to help develop better connections across a business and make working together much easier. Another issue is that managers often don't get a full view of your sk...

Send us Fan Mail The whole third season of the podcast has been about working at a startup. I have seen the highs and I have seen the lows over an eight year period with sideline views for a few years after. In this episode I share four pieces of advice I wish I would have known before or during my time with this startup. If you enjoyed this episode check out the other episodes where I discuss dea...

Send us Fan Mail Coping with failure is hard however coping with the failure of a business is even more challenging. Your life from money to time to ego all get slowly drained over time with a failing business however the final bankruptcy is the hardest part. It is the final nail in the coffin meaning there is no hope left. There is a lot of self reflection and doubt in failing. What if I would ha...

Send us Fan Mail While working with family has a lot of issues, there are some benefits of working with family for me. My dad worked a lot of hours and still does. An 80-100 hour week is considered a normal week for my dad. This work ethic and passion for business was a bonding activity where we had hours of just driving across the country and talking. I never once thought about my dad being gone...