Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant

Send us Fan Mail Data and the analytics needed to extract useful insights is really lagging in most if not all industries. I know many people watching and listening will disagree however there is no solid metric where we can see that things are working well versus slightly working better than no analytics. It isn't until you witness a great quant or analyst that you realize there is a lot of...

Send us Fan Mail When working at a start-up everyone comes out of the woodwork to tell you how to run your business. It is very challenging to figure out good and bad advice especially when you end up in really unique situations. There is no quick Google search for the right answer or there are a million opinions and no clear answer. Over the years of my career in manufacturing and in banking I&ap...

Send us Fan Mail The challenges of management are no joke, and no an MBA won't cut it! Getting real world experience especially at a small firm will allow you to really see how people think and behave. You can't be the fun laid back manager and you can't be so strict that everyone undermines you behind your back. Setting a strict system of how you operate while being reasonable and...

Send us Fan Mail Precast concrete is a dead industry due to inefficiencies, a lack of understanding on how to set up operations and manufacturing, and there has been minimal innovation in decades. The industry needs to be revitalized. It needs fresh blood from those who are experts in manufacturing. Learning to optimize the process will make the job more enjoyable for employees and more profitable...

Send us Fan Mail The startup struggles range from the expected such as not being able to pay bills to lawsuits from investors and competitors. One thing that business school does a terrible job at is describing what it is really like to be an entrepreneur. You can have the worlds best finance guy lay out budgets, the best CEO lay out the business plan, and the best employees on staff helping howev...

Send us Fan Mail Marketing at a startup. As a startup company we didn't have resources to hire anyone to do the marketing. I got involved by building a website to start and the later on we did some print marketing. Understanding your customer base is the most important part. Flashy marketing works for specific demographics however we sold to government agencies. The web browsers were super da...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode is all about the pricing and bidding system used in the precast concrete restroom industry. Since I come from a quantitative finance background I also cover open vs closed auctions where I briefly discuss the stock exchange in comparison to dark pools. The precast concrete restroom industry is closest to dark pools however there are only bids placed with no as...

Send us Fan Mail Who is the King of Crap and how did it all start? In the first episode of Season 3: Down to Business I talk about getting into the precast concrete restroom industry. I discuss who the real king of the industry is and how they shaped me. This will give you a good understanding of the industry before I dive into more specific topics on management, the joys of a startup, the failure...

Send us Fan Mail Machine learning, deep learning, and AI aren't as new to finance as many people think. I have a great conversation with Agus about his career and journey into quant finance. He provides some great insight on career advice as well as some of the issues he sees with using machine learning especially in finance. Some of the important takeaways from this conversation are: - Be ni...

Send us Fan Mail I interview Ali Masoumnia all about running a successful quantitative finance club at a university, how to approach professionals, the advantages of target schools, and are standards important in quant finance as well as life.  Video Version: https://youtu.be/S09aiwz3dbY Ali's currently reading: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (my affiliate link) https://amzn.to/3pyeIxY Support th...

Send us Fan Mail I sit down with Morgan Maxey to discuss a variety of topics from his background of becoming a lawyer to social programs and the broken legal system. The theme that seemed to come up over and over was person agency and personal awareness. The US was built to be a system that favored the individual over the group. And part of that American structure was meant to allow individuals th...

Send us Fan Mail I am excited to have Daniel Lackland from Ai4 come and chat with me about the AI community. Ai4 provides conferences that bring together some of the biggest names in the AI community from a variety of industries including tech, finance, healthcare, and a variety of others. They have been expanding what they do to include education which includes both paid courses as well as free Y...

Send us Fan Mail I'm excited to have Dr. Peter Carr as a guest on the podcast. We sit down and discuss his career coming from academia to transitioning into the new field of quantitative finance and how he ended back in academia. We discuss the competition for quant talent as well as how MBA programs are in a bad situation with application numbers plummeting and how finance has split into two...

Send us Fan Mail Racing motocross is brutal! The hardest part of the sport is not what you see at the races or on TV. It's all the work behind the scenes. From working multiple jobs to pay bills and keep the bike going to coping with constant failures to injuries and bike failures; it really makes the sport a grueling one. To those not familiar with motocross (or supercross) it's not jus...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Talking Tuesday with Fancy Quant we discuss what are corporate politics, how to be aware of the political setting, and how to play corporate politics correctly. It's never fun when you get screwed by some political situation. One of the biggest pieces of advice on the political scene at a company is being aware of teams and biases. To be an ALL-STAR at the...

Send us Fan Mail As someone who works in quantitative finance and runs one of the largest YouTube channels dedicated to quant finance, everyone wants me to talk about trading. First off, I'm not a trader and don't work for an investing firm. But the main reason is that everyone has an opinion on trading that they think is a fact. You really have two different camps and both are non-sense...

Send us Fan Mail America's university system is falling apart at the seams! Tuition costs continue to rise, the quality of education is falling, accreditation from the university system has become worthless, and standardized testing has lost its mind. In this episode I invited Louis a great friend of mine and ex-colleague to discuss these topics and provide some possible solutions. Both of us...

Send us Fan Mail A common question I get a lot is, what does a career path in quant finance look like? People assume doing math and stats doesn't change. We'll the process doesn't look much different than any other job. You start on small projects that have low impact and then get moved up to high profile, billion dollar projects where everyone is watching. You will then progress in...

Send us Fan Mail The year 2020 has been crazy all on its own without talking about the economy or financial markets. There have been a lot of warning signs above and beyond the common sense. What's common sense about an economic crisis coming? Well think about the definition of GDP...which is Gross Domestic Production. That's the amount of output from people work. If a larger portion of...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered how some people's lives just seem to progress so easily where as others seem like they are grinding with no results? One of the biggest differences comes down to social capital. I've seen many employees get their work done and be generally good people however to get that promotion you really need to build social capital. In this episode I'll c...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever thought about your perfect team? Who would be on that team? What characteristics would the team and the people on the team have? I discuss what a dream team is, the existence of a dream team, the individuals I would want on my dream team, and how to find new team mates. The idea seems far fetched as anyone who has hired or managed people knows how hard it is to find...

Send us Fan Mail Risk management seems to have lost its meaning. After the 2008 financial crisis banks have started labeling every department as risk management in some way. While it would be great if every department understood the risks they create or manage to any company, the over use seems to have diminished its actual value and meaning. The skills required to work in "risk management&qu...

Send us Fan Mail One aspect of life is all the emotions we have as individuals. One of the hardest pieces for me is managing my ego and I don't mean that in a one sided view of having a large ego. Being able to balance your ego is crucial for success in life as having more ego helps boost your confidence and allows you to take risk. Not having enough ego can prevent you from personal and care...

Send us Fan Mail As someone who has worked from home off and on before the Covid-19 event, I figured I would cover some basic working from home ideas as well as some pointers for managers and some realizations about office versus home productivity. I even share a way to handle micro managers who don't fully embrace working from home. I originally thought after the pandemic people would go bac...

Send us Fan Mail Today's Talking Tuesday with Fancy Quant is all about his adventure to New York City. I'll discuss why I moved there, what it was like on Wall Street, and why I left. At the end I will highlight some fun experiences of living the Wall Street lifestyle. There are aspects such as the cleanliness that I didn't like but overall I loved living and working in NYC. The vas...