Aren't all quants that work as speculators (eg math PhDs at hedge funds and prop trading firms) trying to do exactly this? I would be really surprised if they'v

Aren't all quants that work as speculators (eg math PhDs at hedge funds and prop trading firms) trying to do exactly this? I would be really surprised if they've found anything novel. Thousands of really smart people have been looking at this exact same data for a long time.