Re: Advice requested: getting into computational finance

Posted by snovik on
URL: http://quantlib.414.s1.nabble.com/Advice-requested-getting-into-computational-finance-tp7422p7424.html

despite all negativity that one can read/hear these days in the media about quants, there is one thing for sure: quants are here to stay. because it is not quants who failed, correct? it was risk management / compliance / regulation or simple ethics and stupidity. in the aftermath of dot.com internet became an almost forbidden word. same is happening now to quants. nevertheless quants can and will provide a valid value-adding service to the world of financial intermediation, aka banks and co.

ksvanhorn wrote

My thanks to everyone who has responded; I appreciate your help.  I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this -- just exploring possibilities, mainly.  Yes, everyone is laying off and hiring is down everywhere these days; dice.com job listings are down 45% from a year ago.  I did find one company, though, that seems to be aggressively hiring software developers with a background in functional programming to work closely with their quants.

I have two final questions, if you don't mind.  First, is there a good quick survey of the field, something that maps out the important ideas, topics, and problems?

Second, is QF only useful for large enterprises, or could some of this stuff be of use to individual investors and decision makers for small/medium businesses?  Two issues lead me to ask this: 1) transaction costs, which I assume are going to be a lot more significant for a smaller player, and 2) in my initial reading I've encountered an assumption that interest rates for borrowing and lending are (nearly) the same, which only holds for large enterprises.