<story><title>A New Breed of Trader on Wall Street: Coders with a Ph.D</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/business/dealbook/a-new-breed-of-trader-on-wall-street-coders-with-a-phd.html?src=busln</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ska</author><text>Lot&amp;#x27;s of &amp;quot;nothing new&amp;quot; comments here, but I think that may be missing the point.&lt;p&gt;Wall Street has been hiring physics &amp;amp; math graduates for a good  while now, but typically as quants, not traders. Those were (are?) hugely different positions, in terms of responsibility and dollars realized.&lt;p&gt;Not my area, so I may just be missing something too. But when I had acquaintances going into this sort of things, they weren&amp;#x27;t getting anywhere near a trading desk. At least, not for a while.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MathsOX</author><text>Well the line between traders and quants has always been blurry to the point of no differential at Jane Street, D.E Shaw, and Citadel since inception. Traders have always had quant background, but have focused on more execution-oriented analysis whereas quants are a bit more idea-oriented.&lt;p&gt;Any sell-side investment bank still has clear lines between traders and quants. In fact, while they blurred more pre-2007 I&amp;#x27;d argue they&amp;#x27;ve become more clearly defined.&lt;p&gt;Source: work at a prominent investment bank.</text></comment>
<story><title>A New Breed of Trader on Wall Street: Coders with a Ph.D</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/business/dealbook/a-new-breed-of-trader-on-wall-street-coders-with-a-phd.html?src=busln</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ska</author><text>Lot&amp;#x27;s of &amp;quot;nothing new&amp;quot; comments here, but I think that may be missing the point.&lt;p&gt;Wall Street has been hiring physics &amp;amp; math graduates for a good  while now, but typically as quants, not traders. Those were (are?) hugely different positions, in terms of responsibility and dollars realized.&lt;p&gt;Not my area, so I may just be missing something too. But when I had acquaintances going into this sort of things, they weren&amp;#x27;t getting anywhere near a trading desk. At least, not for a while.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kasey_junk</author><text>The line between trader and quant in electronic trading scenarios is pretty vague and has been for some time.</text></comment>