This group has been in operation for the last two years and have already expanded significantly, with a large presence in NY and a growing team in London. Through recruiting leading developers from within finance and elsewhere, they have been able to build a cutting edge platform from scratch, negating some of the legacy issues suffered by many of their competitors in this time critical part of the industry. They have augmented this with the addition of highly talented quants and traders, who work hand in hand with the technologists to develop novel algorithms in the liquidity taking and market making spaces.

This is an opportunity for experienced and proven high frequency quant researchers, with a track record of strong performance, to join one of the leading players in the space. In this role you will assume responsibility for the creation of the firm’s alpha generating algorithms. As such advanced mathematical modelling and computing skills are expected, as is experience developing successful strategies in the intraday space. You will work on ongoing research projects with traders and quants to create novel and original trading strategies.

Key skills/experience:

Track record of producing profitable and scalable strategies

• Market Making and Liquidity taking
• Equities/Futures/FX
• SR of 4+
• PnL of $5m+

This group has been in operation for the last two years and have already expanded significantly, with a large presence in NY and a growing team in London. Through recruiting leading developers from within finance and elsewhere, they have been able to build a cutting edge platform from scratch, negating some of the legacy issues suffered by many of their competitors in this time critical part of the industry. They have augmented this with the addition of highly talented quants and traders, who work hand in hand with the technologists to develop novel algorithms in the liquidity taking and market making spaces.

In this role the successful candidate will work alongside experienced PMs and Quants Trading across multiple global markets. They are interested in speaking with candidates with at least 18 months working in a high frequency trading environment and a focus on Equity strategies. They require strong mix of technical (with knowledge of C++ critical) and mathematical skills (time-series analysis, regression and monte-carlo especially) and exposure to successful strategies. In addition to contributing towards the implementation, backtesting and optimisation of models, there is scope for original research with the end-goal of implementing new high frequency strategies. So there is a chance to get exposure to proven successful strategies as well as development of new ideas. This is therefore a great opportunity to learn from a very successful group in a great environment with clear defined goals, in a very stable environment with excellent compensation on offer.

Unique within the investment banking space, my client is a prop desk with the capacity for growth and recruitment in a time when many of the competitors are withdrawing their prop activities. With a strong trading platform in place, and access to a large balance sheet, they are looking to expand with the addition of experienced quantitative traders to add alpha strategies to their highly impressive portfolio. They are interested in candidates with experience developing strategies from ultra-high frequency to two week holding periods.

Having had a very profitable year in 2011, my client is looking to expand their team and continue their success into 2012. They focus on strategies from ultra-high frequency up to two week holding periods, with strategies trading across equities, futures and fx. The group is run very differently from a traditional prop desk; the organisation is far more like a hedge fund – the bureaucracy is kept to a minimum, they have a flat structure and they are able to pay on % basis. This means that along with many of the advantages of operating in the Investment Bank, they also offer many of the attractions of a buyside firm – the best of both worlds.

My client is one of the largest Hedge Funds in the world. With a massive increase in AUM and exceptional performance for the year in 2011, they are looking to increase headcount across their business. The focus of their strategy is liquid asset classes. They take a quantitative approach with layers of fundamental macro analysis to create robust systematic trading strategies. The culture is highly academic in feel and collaboration is a key principle in the business model. This is a chance to join a firm that is currently outperforming the benchmarks, their competition and indeed anything else that might like to bear comparison!

In this role you will be undertake statistical and economic research on financial data to develop investment strategies for the equity space. You will be expected to create new strategies as well as enhance and optimise strategies already in production. Furthermore you will look at various aspects of implementation of the strategies such as trading cost models, risk models, optimization and portfolio construction – so this is a broad role with responsibilities across the spectrum of portfolio creation and management. As well as candidates with strong technical skills, our client is looking for candidates with an entrepreneurial spirit, who are able to challenge traditional ideas and come up with revolutionary approaches to proprietary investing.

ROLE

• Perform statistical and economic research on financial data to develop new, and improve current investment strategies in collaboration with existing Stock Selection team
• Conduct research on various aspects of implementation of investment strategies such as trading cost models, risk models, optimization, and portfolio construction
• Add features to proprietary research system to implement new research ideas
• Conduct analysis related to ongoing portfolio monitoring and performance attribution

REQUIREMENTS

• Graduate of a top Ph.D. program in Finance or Economics required
• 5-7 years of post-graduate financial industry experience
• Ability to drive research initiatives to develop proprietary equity quantitative trading strategies
• Experience doing empirical research and working with large data sets related to financial data
• Strong background in econometrics (or statistics) and knowledge of optimization
• Good economic intuition and thorough knowledge of finance and economics
• Experience programming in Matlab or similar tools; Python experience a plus
• Strong presentation skills and ability to discuss and explain involved concepts in finance and mathematics in both verbal and written form
• Analytical and problem solving skills with strong attention to detail
• Ability to work on complex projects independently as well as in a team
• Hard working and eager to learn in a highly intellectual, collaborative environment

My client is one of the World’s leading investment banks. Continued success of their Quantitative Prop trading business has seen the group expand significantly over the last few years with little sign of this growth coming to an end. They are now looking to further increase the group on a global basis (they can accommodate traders in NY, London, Paris, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore or Tokyo). Because they are not an American bank, they are not affected by the Dodd-Frank legislation. They see this as an ideal opportunity for them to acquire talent from competing firms as they offer an environment to continue to prop trade regardless of legislation that has seen many of their competitors shrink and/or abolish their prop business.

The group started out over ten years ago as a systematic, statistical arbitrage desk. Over time they have diversified from mid frequency strategies to incorporate higher frequency systems and they now trade equities and futures on a global basis. They have excellent platforms capable of accommodating latency dependant strategies as well as the capacity to house more capital intensive, longer-term strategies. The team is looking for profitable traders to join the group and develop successful quantitative strategies from microsecond up to two week holding periods. They are primarily interested in equities and futures. The ideal candidate will therefore have experience working on successful systems. As a guideline figure they are interested in strategies that have a Sharpe Ratio of over 2.5, though the SR should go up as holding period drops. They are open to considering candidates who have not been trading a massive book – here the benchmark should be $10m plus as they are in a position to help scale up strategies.

So what makes this an exciting opportunity?

The desk operates diverse strategies, which means that they are less exposed to market risk than competing groups. The team has a reputation for being one of the best groups in their space. The members of the group work together – the environment is collaborative which helps them to maximise profits. Profits are further maximised by their ability to scale strategies up making use of their huge budget. Furthermore their global presence means they can implement strategies across all global markets. They can accommodate their team members at almost any financial centre in the world. The group does not enforce the ridiculous non-competes currently being seen in the market. Finally the lack of turnover within the team attests to the excellent working environment, which is open and collegiate, as well as the fact that they pay their traders very well – it is not a group where the senior management take all the praise and profit.