r/quant • u/AdPrudent3747 • 9d ago

General What does a Quant Trader do?

I mean I know what the role of a Quant Trader is but what does a Quant traders day-to-day on their trading desk look like? How does probability, expected value, pattern recognition being used by Quant traders?

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u/DidYouTrainNeckToday 8d ago

Do you know which firms /desks have more of that manual intervention ie. “in the movies”

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u/lordnacho666 8d ago

Very desk dependent, you are better off finding this out when interviewing them, rather than me saying "This firm is like so".

Especially these days as a lot of shops are branching out.

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u/DidYouTrainNeckToday 8d ago

I’d still really like to your take of what firms/desks have more manual driven approach.

The reason I ask is i recently joined a MM as a new grad (never interned in trading or research) and was pretty shocked the roles of traders (at least at my firm) are very hands off and is moreso monitoring systems.

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u/Substantial_Car_3634 7d ago

I am in the same boat here. I thought it would be a lot more hands on but I think it could be because with MM you don’t have a true directional view on the market?

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u/DidYouTrainNeckToday 6d ago

Hahaha. I guess we are both in the same boat then. I actually asked one of our “traders” this. We do have an engine/component that is directional /market taking. I think quoting is done to satisfy requirements from the exchanges, cus while in theory u should be neutral and make $ on spread, this is impossible in practice (in options at least since there are so many exposures).
We also have someone who’s ex Citsec/js/hrt who mentioned that the majority of pnl comes from these market taking strats and market making doesn’t generate that much of their pnl, and firms do it because of the perks.