On March 11th, our CEO, Paul White, participated in a fireside chat at the Quant Strats conference with Budga Bhattacharya, Head of Systematic Research at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. They reflected on their shared experiences at Merrill and discussed their approaches to leading quant investment teams, each focusing on different strategies. The conversation also explored how cloud computing has significantly expanded the use of machine learning and AI, as well as the emerging frontiers for quant teams in the industry. It was an insightful discussion that highlighted the evolving role of technology in quantitative investing and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead.
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On February 7th, our CIO, Ashar Mahboob, participated in the CMU MSCF Finance Advisory Board Meeting, contributing to the program’s growth and expanding resources for prospective students.
His dedication to the board was recognized, particularly for the integration of Quantbot mentors and the Code Willing Platform, both of which have significantly enhanced classroom experiences and Datathon competitions.
A key discussion point was the impact of the CodeWilling platform and Data Store on student learning. The platform is seamlessly integrated into coursework, offering an engaging experience, while the Data Store provides invaluable real-world data, equipping students with essential tools for success.
Additionally, the conversation highlighted the need for expanding data availability. Professor Chad Schaffer, a strong advocate for the CodeWilling platform, emphasized the importance of increasing datasets within the CMU Data Store to further enrich student learning.
Ashar’s participation underscores our commitment to fostering innovation in finance education, ensuring students have access to cutting-edge tools and industry-relevant resources.
We’re excited to see how this program continues to evolve, bringing even more opportunities for students to engage with real-world data, industry mentors, and innovative technology.
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On January 22nd, Paul White, our CEO and Co-founder, took the stage in an unusually chilly Miami to discuss emerging trends in alternative data for 2025. The panel engaged in a lively debate on using data for macroeconomic analysis and the growing role of LLMs and AI within buy-side investment firms.
The key takeaway? That’s easy: we all need more data. However, a crucial undertone emerged- the trading community requires easier access to trial data and a more streamlined process for acquiring proven datasets. This is both an industry and cultural challenge that delays time to market, negatively impacting both buy-side firms and data vendors.
Quantbot refers to this challenge as “R.O.D” Return on Data. If it takes six months or more to obtain trial data, we often see a negative impact on its value, reducing the likelihood of purchasing it for long-term use.
Despite these industry hurdles, Quantbot values events like this as great opportunities to connect with peers, discover new providers, and engage with existing ones. Alternative data means different things to different firms, but our stance remains firm: everyone will need to consume significantly more datasets to stay competitive, whether they are alternative or traditional.
This growing demand will require firms to ingest, process, cleanse, and map far larger volumes of data. The big question is which companies will handle this challenge without massively increasing bottom-line costs.
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Last Saturday, Quantbot was a proud sponsor of MSCF’s 2024 Trading Competition, which was hosted by CMU’s MSCF Women in Quant Finance and Smart Women Securities. The one-day competition at Carnegie Mellon University brought together over 150 talented students from their MSCF program as well as CMU’s undergraduate programs to showcase their quantitative and trading skills. Inspired by the Rotman Trading Competition in Toronto, the event expanded access to market simulation games and offered exclusive networking opportunities with the sponsors, including Quantbot.
As sponsors, Quantbot researchers and representatives were able to network throughout the day-long competition. We had a chance to meet with students across both Masters and Undergrad programs and observe firsthand the dedication and hard work the MSCF Program Office puts into their students. As always we are very appreciative of the chance to participate in MSCF events, and we look forward to sponsoring again in future!
Quantbot table of merch is ready for networking
Zihao, Quantbot researcher, introduces Quantbot to the competition participants
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On August 19th, Quantbot was featured in an article by Carnegie Mellon University. The spotlight was on our participation in a datathon event that happened in April and its impact on the students. At this event, our employees got the opportunity to collaborate with current CMU students.
The Carnegie Mellon article highlighted our team's dedication and ingenuity throughout the event as well as highlighted our sister company, Codewilling. It was a whirlwind of brainstorming, coding, and strategizing, culminating in a presentation. The experience showcased our commitment to leveraging data for impactful solutions and our collaborative spirit.
Looking ahead, we’re incredibly excited about the prospect of continuing our partnership with Carnegie Mellon and working with their students. Their reputation for excellence and innovation aligns perfectly with our own values, and we’re eager to explore more opportunities in the future.
A huge thank you to Carnegie Mellon for the feature and for the opportunity to collaborate on this event. Quantbot can’t wait for future experiences and successes in the future!
As August, and summer, slowly comes to a close our interns will inevitably depart for new academic years or adventures ahead. While most of our interns are still around, we threw a casual pizza and build-your-own-sundae night. It was great to see our interns, strangers to us and each other a mere three months ago, comfortably mingle with their teams and Quantbot employees. As interns complete their projects we hope they can take the experience and accomplishments from this summer into their future successful careers.
A big thank you to all our amazing interns this year 👏
You can’t be in NYC without getting some NY style pizza!
Our incredible admin Lily being Queen of the Ice Cream
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It’s always a surprise to see the businesses that can fit in a NYC skyscraper. In a nondescript office building in the middle of a nondescript Midtown block with barely any signage, there happens to be a top-of-art squash facility 5 floors in the air. Who knew? Thankfully Quantbot did, and that’s where we had our latest intern outing. Interns faced company employees, and each other, to see who’s squashing was the best. Some went all out, while others ate and drank where squash happened to be playing. Either way it was fun!
The group getting the low down on squash
Squash!
More squash!
…and Tequila!
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This week our summer interns had the opportunity to go on a walking history and food tour of Lower Manhattan. Starting at the African Burial Ground National Monument, we then walked through Foley Square to get to Chinatown, where we stopped for our first food stop, fried dumplings.
Starting the tour in front of the African Burial Ground
Crossing over Canal Street, we walked through Little Italy, and after a sit down pizza break, we continued the tour toward the Bowery and the Lower East Side, where we tasted knishes from a Jewish bakery that’s over 100 years old. In each neighborhood we learned about the lives of African, Irish, Chinese, Italian and Jewish immigrants in NYC, their trials and triumphs moving to a new home and how they in turn shaped the city and the country.
Walking through Chinatown on our way to Little Italy
Finishing off our tour at a German beer garden, we hope the interns got a chance to see and appreciate some of the many iconic neighborhoods New York has to offer. At the very least they certainly got plenty to eat!
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On Friday April 19, Quantbot was thrilled to participate in Schonfeld’s Early Engagement Summit PhD Datathon. Using Code Willing’s dynamic data processing and modeling platform, PhDs from around the country worked in competing groups to find and model alpha signals from pre-determined datasets. This event gave PhD candidates, whose disciplines ranged from Mathematics and Statistics to Economics, the opportunity to test quantitative methods on real financial data, and to encourage their future engagement in the Quant space.
Ashar welcomes PhD candidates before the Schonfeld Datathon
Quantbot employee, Greg, mentors his team through the Schonfeld Datathon
The winning Schonfeld Datathon team
Since everything comes better in pairs, the very next day Quantbot sponsored a separate Datathon at Carnegie Mellon, also powered by Code Willing’s platform. Participating students came from either CMU’s Computational Finance Master's program (MSCF) or their undergraduate Math program. It was a victory for MSCF since a group of their students took home the top prize, but the 2nd-place undergraduates were equally competitive. After introducing the students to each competition, Ashar Mahoob, Quantbot’s CIO, handed out the prizes on both days to the winning teams. We were thrilled to foster an interest in Quant Finance in all the students, from PhD to undergrad, and we hope they will consider it as a viable career option. We are excited to repeat our success in future!
Quantbot mentor, Rui, celebrates with her winning team at the CMU Datathon
The official victory photo of the CMU Datathon-winning team
Some thoughts from the Quantbot mentors:
Mentoring cwiq-team-central was extremely rewarding. They are a bright and enthusiastic group of students who worked together quite well and sought my guidance regularly. I think the most important lessons I hope the team took away are how rich the field of alpha research is in terms of the breadth of both datasets and the machine learning techniques that can be applied, and how powerful Quantbot’s platform is for quickly developing new ideas and evaluating their performance. – Greg Sternberg
It was a rewarding experience mentoring the winning team, cwiq-team-code. They were a group of motivated young professionals who were highly collaborative and eager to learn. I was amazed by the abundance of brilliant ideas they tested in such a short time. The Quantbot platform proved indispensable in handling these computationally heavy and data-intensive tasks. I hope this victory will inspire them to take on even more interesting and critical challenges that impact global markets – Rui Xiong, Datathon winning team mentor
And an afterword from our CIO, Ashar:
Quantbot Hackathon 2024 provided CMU's Masters and Undergrad students a first-hand opportunity to work on a real-life alpha research project, under tight time and budget constraints, using real world datasets. I wish I had had an opportunity to participate in such a project when I was completing the MSCF program at CMU years ago. The students had a fun day of learning and competing. Additionally, all the mentors were very impressed by how well the students coordinated the research process and were able to come up with out-of-sample model performance that was in-line with observed performance in-sample.
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On April 11th, members from Quantbot attended the annual Joy of Sake event at the Metropolitan Pavilion. Members got the opportunity to try traditional and new types of sake along with some amazing food from local NYC restaurants. They all had a great time at the event and can't wait to attend next year.
