From gym owner to finance quant and everything in between

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone,

I don’t post often, but I’ve been wanting to do a short write up on how helpful Nick’s course was for me and to help anyone who may be looking to change fields and get into Finance (capital F, proper Finance).

In 2019 I decided I wanted to change careers.  I did a massive amount of research on trading and how to learn, and decided on  Nick’s mentorship program.  It was not cheap and cost about 2/3 as much as my MS degree, which comparatively was very cheap due to a great in-state university system here.  You truly do get what you pay for, though, and Nick was the best and most Socratic teacher that I have ever had.  *Not to mention he is a nice bloke.*

I participated in TSLA’s massive run in 2020 [using Amibroker] and then subsequently MRNA’s run in 2021 [had made the jump to RealTest].  I couldn’t believe that the hard work and countless hours of study, phone calls with Nick, and painful mistake as I learned to code were paying off.  It was surreal.

I taught myself Python (I’m still a beginner, frankly) and tried to get a job in the industry.

It doesn’t work that way.

Nobody gives two shits about any of your trading systems based on EOD data.  Nobody.  NOBODY in the industry worth their salt cares one bit.   [Scammy companies were keen to act like they cared.]

At some point at the end of the six months with Nick’s mentorship I stumbled on Marsten Parker’s interview in the AlphaMind podcast.  I was doing enough Python to already loathe Amibroker, so I made the jump.  To new people in Nick’s course: do not switch over while you still have mentor access to NIck!  Make the most of that time!

Regardless, that didn’t help me get a job.

In 2021 I went back to school for a MS in Mathematical Finance.  I was full time, so I graduated in a year.  My program was centered on the Black-Scholes-Merton PDE, SDE, and the resulting model.  The math, stochastic calculus, was absurdly hard.  The econometrics was hard.  The advanced derivatives was hard. The algorithms and data structures was hard.  There were no easy classes.

Learning how and why multiple uncorrelated trading systems provide outsized returns in out of sample data, and being able to explain and articulate the fine points to an interviewer panel, however, has been a great boon to my job related dialogue.  Most of that I have learned from RT, but I do sprinkle in the academic lexicon to sweeten the ears.  Covariance matrices, GARCH models, multivariate betas: you name it, I can talk about it.

If you want to work at a hedge fund:
Don’t go for Mathematical Finance, Computational Finance, or frankly, anything with Finance.  Computer Science is the entire name of the game for those firms.

If you don’t want to chase alpha for a job because you do it as a hobby (me):
Learn Python.  Learn how to build a trading system with positive expectancy and expectational certainty.  Trade your own systems with your own money and learn the psychology required.  I’m obviously bias, but I loved this path and I love my degree.

I’ve got a job at a large place now.  Quantitative Services Professional.  One thing is for damn sure, I owe Nick a nice dinner whenever I make it to Australia.

I can’t quite articulate the importance of a correct trader mindset; in some pursuits it is more important to be decisive than to be right.  Trading is such an endeavor.

Good luck to anyone out there who is new to all of this and looking for some inspiration.  May your slippage be low and your profits be high!  I don’t frequent this forum but you can ping me at [email protected] if you’d like. 

I’d be remiss also if I didn’t publicly thank Julian and Trent for being my buddies through this process.  I’ve done quite a bit of venting to them about some of the ridiculous things I had to learn at school and they either didn’t seem bothered or truly weren’t.  I owe both of them a nice dinner, too.

[BenOsborn]

Really appreciate the post Seth.  I have really enjoyed the mentorship and want to dive further into coding and system design myself.

[Nick Radge]

awww…some bro-love – it’s a great story and I’m glad we’ve been involved. Looking forward to the new chapters ahead.

I’d say Trish and I will be State-side sooner rather than later. We were thinking October, but not so sure. I have a very good friend in Charlotte, so we’re due to see him and will certainly make time for that dinner

[Anonymous]

Bring your oly shoes… We’ve got a 4x National Champ and USA Weightlifting head coach that owns the gym, an Olympian (Caine Wilkes, 9th ever Amarican to Clean and Jerk 500+lbs), and a few other people with serious coaching accolades.

Next 1000 trades.

[TimothyStrickland]

Thanks for the write-up Seth. I couldn’t agree more on how much the course can change a person’s life. I have a sort of similar story to yours. I have just finished going down the path of becoming a quant by getting an MFE. However, I am almost finished with my Computer Science degree, and have been in the tech industry for over 20+ years now. The Quant industry didn’t seem to care that much about me getting an MS degree, but was more interested in how good I was as a Computer Scientist. It was eye opening. They wanted me to basically do the same thing at a hedge fund that I was doing at my current job just applying it to finance and adding a LOT more stress. I ended up realizing it wasn’t for me. Nick’s course basically got me into coding and I have since almost tripled my salary per year at my job as a Senior Software Engineer. The course has paid for it self many, many times over. I still use Amibroker for my EOD trading but working on my knowledge of python to write strategies based on tick data. Keep us posted on how things are going!
 

[TimothyStrickland]

Seth, I am curious, did you have to sign a non-compete? Are you still able to trade your own account or is that out now? That was one of the biggest factors why I decided not to pursue it.

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