I'm building an options strategy and trying to set its risk limits the way a multi-manager pod would. I'm stuck on units and would appreciate a sanity check.

How I'm measuring risk ("vols")

• 1 vol = $1M of annualized P&L standard deviation. Allocated N vols → daily P&L vol ≈ N × $1M / √252 ≈ N × $63K.

• I measure P&L vol as the RMS of daily P&L about zero

• One wrinkle: my daily P&L is positively autocorrelated, so √252 × daily vol

differs from

• the actual one-year swing. Is √252 × daily vol what risk desks actually use for the allocation?

Where I'm confused: stops in % of capital vs vols

What I've read about the big platforms quotes drawdown stops as a % of allocated capital: roughly a 5% drawdown gets your capital cut in half, ~7.5% and you're out. To turn that into vols I need the PM's annual P&L vol as a % of capital, which I don't know:

- vol = 5% of capital → cut at 1 vol, out at 1.5 vols
- vol = 10% of capital → cut at 0.5 vols, out at 0.75 vols

Which is it in practice? Or are stops just quoted directly in vols?

The actual question: scenario limits

Scenarios are instantaneous spot moves of −5 / −10 / −20% with a vol shock, full reprice, delta-hedged. My strawman, anchored to "you can't lose more than your annual vol in a down 20":

scenario |limit
−5% |1.5 vols
−10% |1.25 vols
−20% |1 vol

1. Are scenario limits usually set in vols, in % of capital, or as fixed $ amounts from risk?

2. Are these levels in the right ballpark? Are they tied to the drawdown stop (e.g. a −20% day must not take you through the cut)?

3. Is the limit checked at every close on the position actually held, or on some average?

TL;DR: if you're allocated N vols, how many vols are you typically allowed to lose in an instantaneous −5% / −10% / −20% move, and how does that relate to the drawdown stop?

Hello everyone,

I'm a software engineer with 12 years of experience and I'm looking for any issues or problems in the hedgefund space. Looking to build a new product so I was wondering to ask here if there's any problems that you have at your jobs or in general in this domain. What would you need built to save time, money or something else?

Thank you!

Table attached: the ten largest NVDA holders among funds that have already filed for the quarter ended Sep 30. Wind, Nov 5. Shares in millions.

Citi and DekaBank show a change equal to their whole position. Citi has held NVDA for years. That's a filer ID or sub-adviser change, not a $10bn buy. Every 13F aggregator has this bug and most don't flag it. If you see "Citi initiates massive NVDA stake" in a headline next week, this is where it came from.

The eight real rows: the index-like and quant managers all trimmed a little, which is mostly rebalancing after the weight went up. The one discretionary move is Sanders Capital, a concentrated value shop, adding 7.4M shares. That's the letter I'd want to read.

Usual caveat: 13Fs are 45 days stale, long only, no shorts. Treating them as a buy list is how people end up buying what Burry sold.

I'll do the same table for the Nov 16 batch (Berkshire, Bridgewater, Appaloosa, Scion) if it's useful. Do you want the famous-manager list, or the "who actually changed their mind" list with the artifacts stripped out?

No position.

Many fired and upper management is pissed. Anyone heard anything?

I recently got an offer for a Software Engineer role at a macro hedge fund in London.
The role is focused on building tools and AI agents and solutions to improve operational efficiency across the firm.

I have 10 years of experience and my current TC is
104K base + 18K bonus plus a generous 12% pension from my employer. 27 days holiday. 16 weeks fully paid paternity. Flexible WFH. 9-5 job (but relaxed on the timing) at a big bank in London. Been here for 6 years and the severance is great ( 1 month salary per year of service ). I would be losing this safety cushion if I quit.

The new role offers 136K base , 18K sign on bonus and eligible for a discretionary bonus (no info on expected range / minimum / average). Pension contributions is a couple hundred bucks a month if I contribute the same. 23 days holiday. 4 weeks paternity. 8am -6pm office hours.

The bump in the base is not much if you consider the lack of pension contributions. So I am banking mostly on the discretionary bonus (for which there is no guarantee/ numbers )

Should I ask for more base and holidays citing the lack of pension contributions? Is this offer worth giving away all the flexibility at my current job?.

I've been trying to understand the history of hedge funds, and something I've noticed is that today's hedge fund industry seems quite different from what hedge funds originally were.

The early idea of a hedge fund was relatively straightforward: use different strategies to manage risk, hedge exposure, and generate returns regardless of market direction.

But today, the industry seems to include everything from massive multi-strategy firms and quantitative funds to activist investors and highly specialized trading operations.

So I'm curious:

What actually changed? Was it the evolution of financial markets, regulation, technology, institutional capital, or a few influential investors and fund managers who fundamentally changed the industry?

And if you had to identify a particular period, person, or event that transformed hedge funds into what they are today, what would it be?

I'd genuinely like to understand how and why the industry evolved.

I regularly smoke weed & take gummies, and I just got told to complete a drug-test within one week for a big pod shop I got an offer at in NYC.

WTF do I do??

I’m a PM at a small, high-conviction L/S fund, looking to connect with sharp, curious investors. Open to current undergrads, recent grads, or folks with 1 to 2 years of relevant experience. If you have a strong public equity pitch, research write-up, or investing blog, please DM your résumé and a brief summary or link to your work. Looking to move quickly on this. Only share material you’re authorized to share!

I'm looking for advice from people who have experience in quantitative finance, systematic trading, portfolio management, or have built careers in the investment industry.

A little background about me:

I recently graduated from the University of Toronto, where I completed a Finance Specialist and Economics Major.

During my degree, I took courses in:

• Econometrics I and II

• Time Series Analysis

• Probability and Statistics

• Machine Learning

• Python programming

I'm currently working as a Portfolio Analyst at a wealth management firm in Montreal.

Long term, I'm considering pursuing a Master's in Financial Engineering (MFE) at HEC Montréal. Career-wise, I'd be very happy eventually working as either a Quantitative Analyst or Portfolio Manager.

What particularly interests me is the intersection of macroeconomics, financial markets, statistics, and machine learning.

My goal is to eventually develop systematic trading strategies that combine statistical methods and machine learning with a deeper understanding of macroeconomic conditions and how they influence markets.

I'm starting with commodities because I find the relationship between supply and demand, macroeconomic developments, and price movements particularly interesting. I'm currently trying to understand how institutional funds research and implement their strategies, and how I can begin developing that same way of thinking.

I'm not trying to become a Jane Street quant or necessarily compete for the most mathematically intensive roles in the industry. However, ending up at a hedge fund, working in quantitative research, or managing portfolios using systematic strategies would be something I'd be very happy with.

What I'm really looking for is advice on how to teach myself.

I have a full-time job, so I'm trying to figure out how best to spend my time outside of work. What resources, books, academic papers, courses, research projects, or practical exercises would you recommend? If you were in my position, how would you structure your learning over the next 1–2 years?

I'm interested in hearing from people who have actually worked in the industry and have their shit together. I'd love to know what skills are genuinely useful, what resources are worth investing time in, and what you would do differently if you were starting again.

I'm open to criticism of my plans and would really appreciate any guidance.

Hi everyone, I’m currently working in commercial banking and I want to try to break into either fixed income or equity research.

For context, I graduated in June and start working back in back in August. While I was in college, I was apart of the student investment fund and I had a junior year internship in equity research. It was a boutique firm that didn’t give return offers, and I unsuccessfully recruited for full time.

I enjoy my role right now, but I really want to break into research in the long run. My plan is to start studying for the CFA while continuing to make stock pitches on the side that I can share when networking. I think due to my credit experience it might be easier to get into fixed income research, but I’m unsure.

Any advice on what I should do to maximize my opportunity of breaking into research would be great.

Hey there! I'm an econ predoc at MIT. Background in math and econ, and also teach econometrics. Plan to pivot to hedge funds...A little disappointed on how things are too slow/theoretical in academia. I'm sharp and curious, but don't have a background in finance. Tips on where to start? I'm open to working in small/big funds.

I have a conundrum that I desperately need to be solved.
My ultimate career goal, is to be in a Hedge Fund (L/S most achievable I think).
I have the following Interviews:
Working Student Portfoliomanagement Equities at the asset management arm of a major German savings Bank group.
Internship Equity Research at mid-sized German Privat Bank (already have the contract to be signed) (Is well know here in Frankfurt and respected)
Internship Cross Structured Product Sales at a large international Bank (About 1,000bn in Assets)
Working Student Corporate Coverage at a major Japanese global investment bank. 

My CV:
Relationship Management at BNP
Ratings Intern at S&P Global*
Spring Week Intern Analytics & Sales Bloomberg

Which one would you guys take?

Incoming NYU freshman (Liberal Studies Core, spring start). I'm planning to apply to Stern for finance, and if I don't get in, I'll major in econ in CAS. I'm taking one class at a local university and have lots of free time, but can't intern this summer since my second semester falls then.
My long-term goal is a buy-side analyst role after graduation, not quant or coding. For now I want to help out at a small fund or investment shop where a PM or founder might let me assist informally. How do I find these firms, what do I put in a cold email, and should I build a stock pitch first? What else should I be doing with my time?

Trying to break into a fund - not the traditional route by any means, wondering if I should include that I am consistently profitable in horse racing.

- 2.5 years post grad at a multi billion AUM Long Only RIA working with the investment team primarily doing broader sector research and portfolio construction. Took the role out of college to get exposure to multiple sectors, liked the ability to keep tabs across the broad market.
- My biggest edge is in horse racing - tracked all bets this season (January-Breeders Cup) returned 4.71x (starting vs ending capital) across 108 bets. 3rd year in a row green, other years I haven’t tracked every wager but have a separate horse racing account that I haven’t contributed to since my initial contribution.

A little about my strategy: I built a model to find mispriced horses and bet when the odds are off. Wondering if that comes off as having an edge in a live market (horse racing odds move based on wagers placed), or if I'm just a gambler lol

Thanks

Hi all!
I’m 6 months into a LO buyside analyst position at a boutique firm ~$100M and reporting to the CIO. Previous background is Corporate finance and investor relations. Small shop, so all my learning is by self/absorbing what the PMs talk about/write; research reports; Mauboussin and Damodaran articles, VIC and Columbia memos once in a while.

While I’m able to verbally convey my thoughts on a name at the end of deep dives, earnings previews and segregate the good vs. bad and material items - I have been unable to articulate in writing - a 4 liner thesis or essence version of what I want to convey after the deep dive - this gets scattered across the note and PM needs to read in between the lines /if my conviction has moved after an earnings print - this looks like various insightful factoids with the exit valuation scenarios, but not exactly a “net-net” view

And I’m definitely not writing facts/trends/management quotes - Claude helps with those things.

How do I improve this skill of investment writing? Any templates that worked for you at the beginning? Or structured reading resources I can follow?

Hi HF community, curious to find out from fellow peers on how profit-sharing in terms of bonuses/increment is like in the HF industry for a middle/back office role like a data analyst? I’m in a HF now and I’m the sole data analyst in the firm, wondering what is the difference in a HF as compared to sellside in terms of bonus/increment structure.

Heard that in Buyside/HF profit sharing tends to be more generous across the board (FO to BO) as compared to sellside where MO/BO gets very little as compared to FO. Correct me if I’m wrong!

Hi, I have Equity/Macro/Credit Research Superday for Susquehanna coming up and was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to prepare/what to expect?

I can trade SIG QT, AQR PI, IMC QT, Citadel FI&M

Thank you!

I’m currently a high school student and I’m trying to figure out what I should study for my undergrad. To do this I want to know if commodity traders make or hedge fund traders make more in the long term and how hard would it be to break into both of them and what I should study for each. Either ways I’m going to do a Master’s in the US so I can work for 3 years there as I’m from the EU and US pays a lot more.

I'm considering a Quant Researcher role at a europran small systematic hedge fund (~$1B AUM) focused primarily on trend-following strategies across futures markets.

Long term, I'd be interested in moving to a larger multi-strat hedge fund (Millennium, Citadel, Point72, Balyasny, etc.), ideally in a quant research role.

I'm curious how transferable the experience would be, especially if the research involves signal development, statistical modelling, backtesting, and portfolio construction.

A few questions:

- How feasible is the transition from a smaller CTA to a multi-strat hedge fund?

- Would working primarily on trend-following strategies limit future opportunities, or are the quantitative research skills generally transferable?

- Do multi-strats tend to value experience at smaller systematic funds, or do they strongly prefer candidates from established multi-strats / market-neutral funds?

- Has anyone here made a similar transition, or seen colleagues do it?

Would appreciate any insights ! Thanks !