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I came to know of this guy though Jim Simons. He once "leaked" the idea that Jim Simon's trading success came from his use of ideas called "gauge theory" and "

by max_ 1y ago

I came to know of this guy though Jim Simons. He once "leaked" the idea that Jim Simon's trading success came from his use of ideas called "gauge theory" and "fibre bundles". I forgot the exact timestamp, but you will have to watch the entire interview to find that segment — https://youtu.be/zVWlapujbfo https://youtu.be/zVWlapujbfo

xqcgrek2 1y ago
It's a trivial statement since many equities are correlated on a multidimensional manifold of characteristics. Jim Simons was just early and now rentech is nothing special.
- Mistletoe 1y ago
  This reads like “Newton or Einstein were just early”. That’s the whole thing, being the first person to do it.
  - xqcgrek2 1y ago
    Whether something is implemented on Jan 1 or Jan 15 is irrelevant to the grand scheme of things
    - Mistletoe 1y ago
      If you only live your lifetime from Jan 1 to Jan 15, it matters a great deal.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- specialp 1y ago
  Rentec is still world renowned after pioneering the quant business 40+ years ago. I don't think the rested on their laurels with some easy thing that they just stumbled on early
Tazerenix 1y ago
Simons himself completely disspells this idea in his interview on Numberphile.
- nextos 1y ago
  AFAIK, one of the early hires at RenTech was Leonard Baum, famous for the Baum–Welch Algorithm. RenTech is quite secretive, but this supports the rumors that simple graphical models for time series were behind some of their trading strategies.
  - gsf_emergency_4 1y ago
    Two other data points for this are Brown and Mercer (who became ideologically opposed co-CEOs) https://old.reddit.com/r/algotrading/comments/k299vp/were_brown_and_mercer_the_reason_for_rentechs/ https://old.reddit.com/r/algotrading/comments/k299vp/were_br... "Speech recognition" in those days meant Markov too
bifftastic 1y ago
There is a theory connecting gauge theory and finance: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9710148 https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9710148 https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Finance-Modelling-Non-Equilibrium-Frontiers/dp/0471877387 https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Finance-Modelling-Non-Equilib... I don't think it's a crackpot theory. The basic idea is that the gauge group is the group of rescalings of the units of money, and arbitrage appears as curvature in the gauge field, i.e. you end up with a net change when you parallel-transport money around a loop in the (discrete) space of assets and time.

by max_ 1y ago

xqcgrek2 1y ago

It's a trivial statement since many equities are correlated on a multidimensional manifold of characteristics. Jim Simons was just early and now rentech is nothing special.

Mistletoe 1y ago
This reads like “Newton or Einstein were just early”. That’s the whole thing, being the first person to do it.
- xqcgrek2 1y ago
  Whether something is implemented on Jan 1 or Jan 15 is irrelevant to the grand scheme of things
  - Mistletoe 1y ago
    If you only live your lifetime from Jan 1 to Jan 15, it matters a great deal.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
specialp 1y ago
Rentec is still world renowned after pioneering the quant business 40+ years ago. I don't think the rested on their laurels with some easy thing that they just stumbled on early

Tazerenix 1y ago

Simons himself completely disspells this idea in his interview on Numberphile.

nextos 1y ago
AFAIK, one of the early hires at RenTech was Leonard Baum, famous for the Baum–Welch Algorithm. RenTech is quite secretive, but this supports the rumors that simple graphical models for time series were behind some of their trading strategies.
- gsf_emergency_4 1y ago
  Two other data points for this are Brown and Mercer (who became ideologically opposed co-CEOs) https://old.reddit.com/r/algotrading/comments/k299vp/were_brown_and_mercer_the_reason_for_rentechs/ https://old.reddit.com/r/algotrading/comments/k299vp/were_br... "Speech recognition" in those days meant Markov too

bifftastic 1y ago

There is a theory connecting gauge theory and finance: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9710148 https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9710148 https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Finance-Modelling-Non-Equilibrium-Frontiers/dp/0471877387 https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Finance-Modelling-Non-Equilib... I don't think it's a crackpot theory. The basic idea is that the gauge group is the group of rescalings of the units of money, and arbitrage appears as curvature in the gauge field, i.e. you end up with a net change when you parallel-transport money around a loop in the (discrete) space of assets and time.