Monday, November 4, 2013

A Deep Dive Into the Future of RoboAnalysts (will entry level hedgies still command $353K to start?)

Inspector Milo Perrier: I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.
Sidney Wang: I like it, but do not understand it.
-Murder by Death
Alphaville's Dan McCrum takes the Institutional Investor story and fleshes it out:
Puny human analysts to be crushed by algorithmic steamroller
...The world’s most successful hedge fund strategy is both the most secretive and the one that you could never invest in: Renaissance Technology’s Medallion fund. The fund ignores the mainstream finance literature, preferring to scoop up experienced cryptographers and mathematicians required to sign intimidating non-compete clauses, and it is willing to trade signals in the noise that work even if it doesn’t understand why.

According to II, however, new systems on offer to analyse the flood of news headlines and tweets can cost from $5,000 to $20,000 a month, less than the annual pay of a junior hedge fund analyst....MUCH MORE
As he notes, the machine readable stuff is so 2010 that it doesn't command much in the marketplace. That $5 to 20K Institutional Investor figure wouldn't buy much more than the Junior Analyst's assistant's go-fer. As MoneyBeat said a couple days ago:
Wanted: Entry Level Hedgies; $353,000 Salary