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Ed Thorp’s Princeton/Newport Partners was the first great quant hedge fund.

smabie 6y ago
Yeah, came hear to post this. Recently read his autobiography "A Man For All Markets." Simply an incredible and creative man. From beating blackjack to roulette, to discovering Black Scholes before Black and Sholes. PNP changed the game like no other. Really sad Giuliani and his thugs took him down. Thorpe is epitome of the best of humanity: creative, fearless, and tenacious. His life story was really inspiring to me. The book comes highly recommended.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  > Thorpe is epitome of the best of humanity: creative, fearless, and tenacious. I guess we see what we want to see. There are a lot of little red flags littered throughout the book. One thing that rankled me was his assertion that he independently discovered Black-Scholes before Merton/Black/Scholes and offered as evidence a chart that post-dated the original paper. There's a lot of stuff like that in the book. Don't get me wrong, this is a person with many admirable characteristics. Just don't drink the Kool-Aid.
bitxbit 6y ago
Highly recommend Poundstone’s Fortune’s Formula. Claude Shannon and Ed Thorp. This is the book (along with A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street by Lo and MacKinlay) that got me interested in finance.
admin_account 6y ago
Jim Simons/Renaissance were the first great quant hedge fund. For the last 30 years their annualized returns, after fees, is 39%.
- hchz 6y ago
  The medallion fund began at Axcom under Elwyn Berlekamp and RenTech bought it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axcom_Trading_Advisors&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axcom_Trading_Adv...
  - auntienomen 6y ago
    Rather more precisely, Simons hired Ax to pursue a dream he'd first had with Baum in the 70s, using math to predict markets. Ax had some success, but the Medallion Fund didn't take off until after he left. Berlekamp gets a little credit, but wasn't really there long enough to have major impact. If you want to know who did the real work, figure out who Simons paid the most.
    - objektif 6y ago
      Who did he pay the most?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- smabie 6y ago
  And before fees, like 80-100%. But PNP came before RenTec and Medallion.
lpage 6y ago
Ed Thorp's "Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One" is one of the best books ever written about quant trading...despite not being about quant trading.
- hchz 6y ago
  The guy whose math provided the nucleus of RenTech and the guy who invented the game of life wrote this: https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Ways-Your-Mathematical-Plays/dp/1568811306 https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Ways-Your-Mathematical-Plays/... Vol. 4 begins with the study of the solitaire game that is on every Cracker Barrel table.

Yeah, came hear to post this. Recently read his autobiography "A Man For All Markets." Simply an incredible and creative man. From beating blackjack to roulette, to discovering Black Scholes before Black and Sholes. PNP changed the game like no other. Really sad Giuliani and his thugs took him down. Thorpe is epitome of the best of humanity: creative, fearless, and tenacious. His life story was really inspiring to me. The book comes highly recommended.

rmrfstar 6y ago
> Thorpe is epitome of the best of humanity: creative, fearless, and tenacious. I guess we see what we want to see. There are a lot of little red flags littered throughout the book. One thing that rankled me was his assertion that he independently discovered Black-Scholes before Merton/Black/Scholes and offered as evidence a chart that post-dated the original paper. There's a lot of stuff like that in the book. Don't get me wrong, this is a person with many admirable characteristics. Just don't drink the Kool-Aid.

bitxbit 6y ago

Highly recommend Poundstone’s Fortune’s Formula. Claude Shannon and Ed Thorp. This is the book (along with A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street by Lo and MacKinlay) that got me interested in finance.

admin_account 6y ago

Jim Simons/Renaissance were the first great quant hedge fund. For the last 30 years their annualized returns, after fees, is 39%.

hchz 6y ago
The medallion fund began at Axcom under Elwyn Berlekamp and RenTech bought it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axcom_Trading_Advisors&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axcom_Trading_Adv...
- auntienomen 6y ago
  Rather more precisely, Simons hired Ax to pursue a dream he'd first had with Baum in the 70s, using math to predict markets. Ax had some success, but the Medallion Fund didn't take off until after he left. Berlekamp gets a little credit, but wasn't really there long enough to have major impact. If you want to know who did the real work, figure out who Simons paid the most.
  - objektif 6y ago
    Who did he pay the most?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
smabie 6y ago
And before fees, like 80-100%. But PNP came before RenTec and Medallion.

lpage 6y ago

Ed Thorp's "Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One" is one of the best books ever written about quant trading...despite not being about quant trading.

hchz 6y ago
The guy whose math provided the nucleus of RenTech and the guy who invented the game of life wrote this: https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Ways-Your-Mathematical-Plays/dp/1568811306 https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Ways-Your-Mathematical-Plays/... Vol. 4 begins with the study of the solitaire game that is on every Cracker Barrel table.