The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019

More details than I was expecting, an entertaining page turner that shows Simons was only human. Arguably his biggest talent was in selling the vision and building an incredible team around him.

Simply, you are buying the majority of what is known about Renaissance compiled into a convenient book. But be aware - very little is actually known. Whilst Jim Simons himself is not as active as a decade ago, the hedge fund marches on and as such any real detail is worth far too much to divulge in a popular book.Investors like Soros have given up a lot more of their methods - in part because their strategies relied on directional views of macroeconomic factors are harder to replicate in the future. You would assume that if you had knowledge of the code used at Renissance today you could rack up some pretty mean trading profits - since that is exactly what they are doing!Still I think this is a must for any mathematician, and offers insight to one (of many) ways that mathematics can be applied to the world we live in.Personal highlight? The joke at the start of Ch 2:Q: What's the difference between a PhD in mathematics and a large pizza?A: A large pizza feeds a family of 4.

Absolutely love this book! Written in an entertaining style, I find it brings the characters to life and tells a great story. Not quite finished it yet - but I love the style and the story!

Must read

If you don't realise that financial markets exhibit patterns which can be discovered and exploited for profit - albeit no easy task - Gregory Zuckerman's book offers an insight into this central part of the industry; the bit the financial entertainment media have been misrepresenting for decades. There are no solutions in the pages that will make you money. Not the point, or value of the book and I'd have preferred if "The Man Who Solved the Market"had been left out of the title, though it likely helps sell the book.I didn't know Jim Simons smoked heavily; which will be why his voice resonates the way it does and his laugh is often followed by a cough. And Bob Mercer whistles a lot, maybe more than he talks, and was one of the main financial contributors to the 2016 Trump campaign. And how this connects with Brexit and goodness knows what else is quite eye opening. As with all worthwhile stories the book is about people, and how they relate to each other and their world.What made the Renaissance Medallion Fund work was obviously in part the shrewd harnessing of the various individuals exceptional intellectual abilities, and the exponential growth of computers processing power. Creative and curious minds meet mathematical modelling and data analysis on a massive scale.The real success of the company seems to come from the ability and willingness of a handful of principal players to work together, despite extraordinarily different social, political and personal alliances. Motivated by money, for sure, but the theme that much more was intrinsically involved is a strong thread which I think makes the book a 4 star read. Most pleasing of all was throughout there were no goodies or baddies!

good read

An unremarkable analysis yet through American project management and resolve a mathematical solution reminds of this Latin motto.What I liked - Useful biographies of key team players that advanced the success of Jim Simons's Medallion hedge fund and the Renaissance technologies founder. Good index enabling links and cross reference of hedge fund events - Global Alpha Cliff Asness and the Quant quake (refer Greg Smith's why I left Goldman Sachs). Capital and VC involvement described from David Sussman's refusal to GAM's agreement.What is missing - Old style hold strategy with long event lines was robbable by the quant funds whose techniques was to reduce the event time lines and increase the number of trades. Profitability per trade would diminish but the task was to increase exponentially the number of trades in managed pattern moves - page 223 Medallion was trading up to 300,000 contracts a day. Simplification graphics would help to better grasp essential features of machine managed control like event line time reduction: page 101 halts long term trades, page 113 reduction from 1 week and 1/2 to 1 day and 1/2, page 190 trades average hold 2 days, page 271 hold time 1 or 2 days increases to 1 or 2 weeks. Sorting the Sharpe ratio and evidencing its shape change through a year eventually pushes the ratio out to 7.5 needs illuminating.The future - investor nervousness. Retrenchment trades and fake chaff news leading to daily 100 point volatility swings in the Dow, Nikkei, Dax, are good for quant funds but negative for investor confidence and micro second entry and exit decisions - IPO management becomes precarious and issues are pulled.

Excellent well written book. Fascinating description of the building of a quant finance house and the many years of trial and error it took. Based on many interviews with the people directly involved makes it credible with well drawn character portraits. Interesting history of investing / speculating from Babylonian times to present included. It also is a primer for how the various software models are written. Shows inadvertently why billionaires should not be able to use their fabulous wealth to influence politics; being driven by maths and a desire to make money are poor qualifications for considering the greater good. Their years of remarkable profits makes crystal clear the limitations of traditional economic theory based on efficient markets, rational man and random walks.

Excelente libro sobre la anécdota de como los fisicos dominaron wall street, necesario leer para replantearnos nuestro papel en el mercado

Além da envergadura da biografia de Simons, que todos que tiveram algum contato com, seja através da imprensa ou por seus números de performance estrondosos, conheciam ou ao menos imaginavam, não podemos deixar de nos surpreender positivamente com a qualidade do material como um todo, demandou muito esforço e pesquisa , algo realmente surpreendente. Ainda nessa linha, observações feitas em relação a qualidade do livro tornam-se indissociáveis com a qualidade do escritor, digno de um campeão de literatura. Por outro lado, se vc espera encontrar no livro um guia para ganhar dinheiro, uma espécie de tutorial, esqueça, vc está no filme errado; mas se for para dar uma luz de qual caminho deva seguir, aí sim , vc encontrou o lado certo.

De forma sucinta: Adorei o livro.O Jim Simmons gerou 64% de compounded annual growth rate em 34 anos. Basicamente 1 € para 30 MILHÕES (ignorando management fees mas ainda assim os retornos deles são absurdos e ninguém se aproxima deles).Gostei muito de saber mais sobre a história desse senhor, sobre o crescimento da Rennaissance e sobre o impacto dessa empresa e dos seus funcionários no mundo (exemplo: Trump e Brexit só aconteceram devido à influência de um deles).Vale a pena ler, mesmo para quem não está interessado em quantitative trading.

The ex-code breaker, mathematician turned quant investment guru always wanted to make a lot of money - something that the modern populace associates to success. But what did success cost Simons? The writer takes us through Simon's journeys, his ups, his downs, and although this is a story about the "mysterious" Renaissance Technologies, it is considered Simon's life's work. His story illuminates the backdrop and allows the reader to give their own Straussian take on his life story.

Jim Simmons is not your regular trader with a computer screen and a bunch of offices. He’s the man armed with physicists, mathematicians as opposed to finance pros.It’s a terrific book on many counts and I wish to notify a few hereJim Simmons was a genius mathematician who thought he could crack the market by identifying patterns and developed a system.The system was not build in a day, It took multi decades with people armed with knowledge and perseverance to develop that system.As like any entrepreneur, Jim faced his set our adversity, challenges and setbacks which is a lesson that no matter who you are you have to go through such challenges.Another stunning lesson, Success rate of Renaissance was 50.7 % which means of the 100 trades they do they succeed only in 50.7 of them, despite which they were able to make a stunning CAGR of 66 % for 3 decades approx. Warren Buffett’s rate of return is around 23 % yet the time invested was higher in Buffett’s case. 3 lessons here 1. Your performance in business or trading or anything is driven by tails.2. Compounding is the secret to wealth.3. Mistakes are inevitable but make sure those mistakes doesn’t break you. You should be successful even with a 30 % success rate.Why I liked the book - As an investor I’ve learned there’s no 1 way to nirvana. Try and adapt to what suits you. But over arching theme is all major principles work for everyone. Like compounding, hard-work, Tail events , Rationality etc.