Quant investing
Investing is often seen as a blend of art and science, but the past decade has seen rapid growth in strategies that try to exclude the former entirely, instead seeking sources of return that are a provable feature of a market. These scientific investors are generally poorly served by mainstream finance publications.
Our aim is to cover, in plain English, the ideas and trends that matter. That means articles on research – into new sources of premia and shifting market behaviours, for example – as well as products and strategy. We also report on the related topics of data science, and trends in the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Technical content can be found in our ‘Cutting Edge’ section, where we publish practitioner-focused, peer-reviewed papers.
Don’t fret about elevated skew, vol experts say
Extreme relative cost of tail risk hedging is driven by flows more than fear
This quant firm cut 90% of its compute costs. Here’s how
Quantbot Technologies uses ‘smart data routing’ to stop runaway spending on data and computing
Quants split on who wins in the alt-data gold rush
Scale helps in handling new data, but alpha may be found in niche strategies
How algos are helping inflation-wary investors
Buy-siders look to machine learning for clues on the effect of rising prices on portfolios
Quants turn to machine learning to unlock private data
Replication could allow financial firms to use – and monetise – data that was previously off-limits
Market’s mystery jumps might be predictable after all
Endogenous volatility has a tell-tale pattern, quants find
Hedge funds not doing enough to fix mispricings, study finds
Passive investing has blunted market efficiency, but hedge funds are failing to capitalise
Investment flow tracking is next ‘frontier’ for alpha
Risk Live: Flows impact asset prices more than widely believed and may be more predictable – quants
Not so green machine? Questioning commodities’ credentials
As ESG investors eye commodities, issues around measurement and management are unearthed
Quant fund aims to tame bitcoin, and 39 other digital assets
Ex-Morgan Stanley, Winton vets reimagine institutional risk management for volatile crypto markets
Acadian builds ‘green screen’ to auto-filter ESG phoneys
$110 billion quant investor creates automated system to spot greenwashers
Fake data can help backtesters, up to a point
Synthetic data made with machine learning will struggle to capture the caprice of financial markets
In fake data, quants see a fix for backtesting
Traditionally quants have learnt to pick data apart. Soon they might spend more time making it up
Is short vol taking the long count?
Short volatility players try to box clever after strategy’s Covid rout
Jarrow and co find a better way to spot stock market bubbles
Quant team’s options-based approach avoids pitfalls of historical data dependence
Investor crowds have blunted nowcasting returns, quants say
Buy-siders see shrunken returns in predicting near-term earnings
Going it alone: Lombard Odier steers clear of investing crowd
Research head Tabachnik says strategies like intraday momentum are victims of their own popularity
Inelastic markets: how index funds fuelled the meme stock frenzy
Retail traders can dictate prices in markets dominated by passive investors
Rough volatility’s steampunk vision of future finance
Some of the trickiest puzzles in finance could be solved by blending old and new technologies
Amundi puts a Darwinian spin on bond portfolio rebalancing
‘Genetic’ algorithm picks bonds to buy or sell from quadrillions of possible combinations
The volatility paradigm that’s stirring up options pricing
‘Rough volatility’ models promise better pricing and hedging of options. But will they catch on?
Factor woes prove need for better timing – QuantZ’s Sharma
Investors should switch between factors as alphas change, says quant
As machines disrupt investing, people still have a role to play
Despite AI’s growth, investing still needs human adaptability and judgement, writes Schroders’ Lim
Seismology models sound out safe ground for DG Partners
Quake technology helps quant firm time entry and exit points – and buck trend-following trend