Researcher

"First, I would characterize the money management business as a game based on the duality of money and information. If you have information you can make money, and if you have money you can buy information. It looks very simple, but finding the equilibrium between the two is complicated.

A researcher, or quant, deals with the information side of this duality. Finding signals to predict market movements (on the average) is definitely the major objective of the researcher, and it defines his or her day-to-day efforts. This comes in many flavors and has no precise definition, making the activity challenging and interesting. Finding the right raw data and applying the most suitable algorithms to detect the faintest indicators and then aggregating these into a more robust predictor requires a lot of tests, measurements and simulations. Even then, research yields many failures. Not all ideas turn out to be viable, and when they are not, the search has to start from scratch again—trying new data and new algorithms or just changing the sequence of operations. After a lot of trial and a fair amount of error, the researcher is rewarded for all his or her hard work with a good signal: the information captured is stronger than the amount of noise. This will be the basis for future decision-making processes used by traders to manage the investment process.

In both cases—good signal or bad signal—there is a coffee at the end."