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The article from a year ago, summarizing Millenium's history and culture, was a fascinating read as well. It certainly sounds like a place packed with geniuses,

by whack 9y ago

The article from a year ago, summarizing Millenium's history and culture, was a fascinating read as well. It certainly sounds like a place packed with geniuses, but I can't help but notice that it also sounds eerily similar to LTCM. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how-renaissance-s-medallion-fund-became-finance-s-blackest-box https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how-renai... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Genius_Failed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Genius_Failed

maxxxxx 9y ago
Considering how well-connected they probably are I bet they can augment their genius with some insider knowledge from time to time. Some years ago I knew some Wall Street guys and they all pretty much said that the successful traders have information that's not available to the rest. Some get greedy and get caught but the others are just a little more subtle.
- jraines 9y ago
  Impossible to know as an outsider, but it's interesting to me that Simons tried pretty hard to isolate Renaissance from Wall Street & other hedge funds. He hired people out of academia, saddled them with an extremely onerous non-compete agreement, and was leery of Wall St. traders because he figured if they left their current fund, they'd leave him, too, once they learned the secret sauce. And he put the headquarters in Long Island, away from the loci of Greenwich and Wall St.
jraines 9y ago
I think the main points to consider would be: how much leverage do they use, and how quickly can they get out of their positions? On the latter, we know it's not comparable to LTCM because a long-held position for Rennaisance is like 8 seconds (so I heard). On the former, I don't know. But LTCM had to use huge leverage to achieve their returns because their bets were ones with very small profit margins but that they were extremely confident in.

by whack 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago

Considering how well-connected they probably are I bet they can augment their genius with some insider knowledge from time to time. Some years ago I knew some Wall Street guys and they all pretty much said that the successful traders have information that's not available to the rest. Some get greedy and get caught but the others are just a little more subtle.

jraines 9y ago
Impossible to know as an outsider, but it's interesting to me that Simons tried pretty hard to isolate Renaissance from Wall Street & other hedge funds. He hired people out of academia, saddled them with an extremely onerous non-compete agreement, and was leery of Wall St. traders because he figured if they left their current fund, they'd leave him, too, once they learned the secret sauce. And he put the headquarters in Long Island, away from the loci of Greenwich and Wall St.

jraines 9y ago

I think the main points to consider would be: how much leverage do they use, and how quickly can they get out of their positions? On the latter, we know it's not comparable to LTCM because a long-held position for Rennaisance is like 8 seconds (so I heard). On the former, I don't know. But LTCM had to use huge leverage to achieve their returns because their bets were ones with very small profit margins but that they were extremely confident in.