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AFJ Garner
Roundtable Knight
Joined: 25 Apr 2003
Posts: 1277
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 Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 1:27 am Post subject: Jim Simons |
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Excuse me for posting the full article - if I had posted the URL readers would have had to fiddle around with obtaining a password. Note what Simons says about the erosion of Trend Following. Note also the time he says it took him to learn to trade.
| Quote: | NEW YORK (HedgeWorld.com)—Jim Simons, the legendary mathematician and hedge fund manager who runs Renaissance Technologies Corp., may use black boxes on his trading floors, but as a person he is open and forthcoming: a mixture of humility, common sense and pragmatism.
At the International Association of Financial Engineers annual conference, this year titled "From Quant to Riches," and held in New York on Monday [May 21], Mr. Simons gave a speech in which he offered self-effacing insights about himself and his investment style.
Mr. Simons is probably the most successful hedge fund manager of all time. His $26 billion hedge fund has yielded returns exceeding 30% for more than a decade. He also brought home $1.5 billion last year, according to Trader Magazine, tops among his peers in compensation. And yet, he remains modest and attributes a lot of his successful career to luck.
"There is no real substitute for common sense except for good luck, which is a perfect substitute for everything," Mr. Simons said at the conference. "I had luck as a mathematician. I became very famous but I had very little to do with it."
Mr. Simons' success may be the result of several factors. One is certainly the rare ability to be at the same time a top trader and a high-end mathematician. In some instances, Mr. Simons the mathematician almost appears to be a different person than Mr. Simons the trader. And yet, the man is all of that. Who would have thought, for instance that Mr. Simons viewed himself as a speculator? But he does. "Speculation comes in and destroys trends. I am a speculator. It accelerates the trend. It gets you closer to the truth faster," he said.
One interesting revelation was that the champion of statistical arbitrage and computer-generated trading started as a directional trader. The master of quantitative finance started with his business partner as a commodity trader. Both made wild bets and in 1974 the two launched their fund with $600,000. In seven months, they had grown in size by a factor of 10. Mr. Simons' partner "never made any money as a commodity trader after that for the rest of his life," said Mr. Simons.
In the 1970s, Mr. Simons made a lot of his fortune with sugar. In his speech, he said he bought sugar at 20 cents per pound. The commodity went up to 60 cents per pound in a short time.
Then came a time when the directional trader slowly moved toward models. But the evolution did not happen overnight. During that transition time, Mr. Simons hired a partner, Lenny Baum, to write models for him. Mr. Baum concentrated on writing currency models, and it worked out well. But after some time, Mr. Baum grew tired and bored of it, said Mr. Simons. At some point, Mr. Baum decided to buy the British pound. "The pound went through the roof. Lenny never looked at a model again," said Mr. Simons.
During the first two years after the two partners gave up modeling altogether, they multiplied their capital by a factor of 12.
Mr. Simons credited both luck and common sense in explaining his success. In an anecdote, he explained how he came to sell his gold during a gold rally. "My broker said his wife had sold his [gold] cuff. I told my broker to sell my gold position. He didn't want to but I told him: ‘I'm the boss.' Gold was up the next day, but the following day, it was the end of the gold rally. I was lucky. But that was also common sense."
Two of Mr. Simons' other interesting personality traits, ones that are necessary to be a master trader, are his adaptability and flexibility.
Mr. Simons took his currency model and applied it to commodities. At the end of the 1980s, he switched styles. "We decided that systematic trading was best. Fundamental trading gave me ulcers."
Mr. Simons also needed traders. But he felt that he did not know how to pick a good trader. "Science, I understood. I decided to just focus on making models."
That's when the Medallion Fund started in 1988 with $25 million. It's worth noting that during these early years Mr. Simons did not completely settle for quantitative finance.
Mr. Simons, who does not suffer from an inflated ego, said that even at that time, he had a lot to learn. "It took us six years to learn how to trade stocks," he said. But the learning paid off. Five years after Medallion launched, the fund was closed to new investors. And by the end of 2002, Medallion had almost $7 billion under management. Judging that it was too much, Mr. Simons in 2005 returned all the money to investors.
This marked another milestone, at which point Mr. Simons again reinvented himself. "We understood the limitations of very high-speed trading techniques. We looked at other factors besides intraday fluctuations," he said. From high-frequency trading, Mr. Simons evolved to a system that focused on the long end of the frequency spectrum. In addition, his new systems integrated elements of fundamental analysis, such as balance sheets or income statements.
His new research began at the start of 2004 and in July of 2005, Renaissance launched its Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF).
The launch was newsworthy due to its phenomenal size. "We targeted $100 billion. It attracted a great deal of attention, which I intended to do," Mr. Simons said. "The $100 billion was a template for research. This fund can only charge low fees. In order to make it worthwhile, you have to make it very big, otherwise, it doesn't make sense."
Renaissance has charged incentive fees of up to 44% for some of its products in the past. RIEF charges a 1% management fee and 10% for performance with high water mark, according to a marketing document obtained by HedgeWorld.
So far, the fund is growing at a steady pace and has reached $26 billion.
Mr. Simons said that "trend-following is not such a good model. It's simply eroded." Things change and being able to adjust is what made Mr. Simons so successful. "Statistic predictor signals erode over the next several years; it can be five years or 10 years. You have to keep coming up with new things because the market is against us. If you don't keep getting better, you're going to do worse." Mr. Simons said that his models change weekly.
Mr. Simons talked about Renaissance's little-known fund of funds, arguing as a good contrarian that "past performance is to some degree indicative of what it's going to be in the future." He then rephrased his statement to make it acceptable to the Securities and Exchange Commission: "Past performance is certainly not a guarantee, but somewhat, it's likely correlated," he said.
Mr. Simons said that Renaissance comprises 300 people. Here again, the myth of secrecy collapsed. "Our atmosphere is 100% open," he said. "It's the best way to do science. There's a weekly meeting with everybody."
As is widely known, Mr. Simons works with scientists, not traders. "We use a lot of mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, computer scientists. We haven't hired out of Wall Street at all."
In 2004, Mr. Simons, along with a group of mathematicians and business people, founded Math for America to improve math education in U.S. public schools. The organization is behind a new bill called America Competes—a bill to expand basic research and development and promote math and science education—which Mr. Simons said he hopes will get passed.
So what's in Mr. Simons' black box? He won't say of course. But if there is a secret, it's a pretty simple one "It's 100% automated. It's as automated as it can be. The computer does its thing. It generates its trade, and the trade gets executed. No one sticks its head to the door, and says: ‘Jeez! You should buy IBM!' We couldn't model that."
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Angelo
Roundtable Fellow
Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 89
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 3:30 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for posting, very interesting indeed.
For me, the odd part was about his models changing weekly.
Markets do change, but on a weekly basis?
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ladadriver
Senior Member
Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Posts: 25
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 6:55 am Post subject: |
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It seems to me Jim Simmons is very good at playing the Media to his advantage. I think the image/reputation he has built up is almost as impressive as the returns he continues to generate.
While I, in my limited capacity, see trend following returns eroding over time, I believe trend following is a cyclical game. I wonder if Simmons is encouraging people, partially at least, to look away from trend following.
Who knows.
Weekly model changes? Or something like weekly portfolio allocation rebalances? Analogue position building functions? The myth and room for interpretation are almost certainly more exciting than the fact.
Back to Trend Following in a broader sense, if/when Merrill Lynch pull their money from JWH it'll be interesting to see the effects...
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Honeycomb
Full Member
Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 16
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| Angelo wrote: | For me, the odd part was about his models changing weekly.
Markets do change, but on a weekly basis? |
He could be referring to adaptive systems, rolling optimizations, etc. If your entry criteria has the term ATR in it, then isn't your system changing by the week? A simple example, but still.
Also, I believe Renaissance does a lot of high-frequency stuff. If your average holding period is 2 seconds, one week could be an entire bear market (though I suspect microstructure techniques are less susceptible to different types of markets).
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danZman
Roundtable Knight
Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 105
Location: Newport Beach,CA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Angelo wrote: | Thanks for posting, very interesting indeed.
For me, the odd part was about his models changing weekly.
Markets do change, but on a weekly basis? |
My guess is that since he's basically marketing his fund, he wants people to know that he's willing and able to change the systems in use. He's probably trying to snatch up a lot of clients from other hedge funds that haven't done so well (due to many trend following systems underperformance).
D
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nodoodahs
Roundtable Knight
Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 179
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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Also a possibility -
Instead of making material changes, one could instead make essentially meaningless changes on a frequent basis.
* if parameters for one variable between 25 and 35 are robust, use a different one each month
* do the same for other variables or filters that have robust ranges of parameter
* if the model relies on 6-8 strongly predictive filters, with filters number 9-15 moderately useful to "at least not harmful," then spend a few weeks with different filters added or subtracted.
Why?
It keeps others from deconstructing your real system (which is 6-8 rules and some optimized parameters), and
It's great marketing.
----Another possibility,
He's doing a huge walk-forward test, and every week he adds that week's data to the machine, maybe subtracts the earliest week, does another backtest, and reoptimizes the factor selection. Just because it "changes the model" doesn't mean it "changes the model" if you know what I mean.
_________________
One minute you’re up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don’t go to college and they’ve repossessed your Bentley. |
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drm7
Senior Member
Joined: 20 Apr 2003
Posts: 46
Location: Richmond, VA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:08 am Post subject: Jim Simons |
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I thought this little piece from a recent FT article shows that Mr. Simons may not be as bearish on trendfollowing as the earlier article implies.
| Quote: | | One recent example is the launch of a medium-term trend following fund by Renaissance Technologies, the Long Island, New York-based hedge fund that is one of the world’s most respected. It has raised $5bn in five months, and has more PhDs than any other hedge fund – plus Jim Simons, a maths professor, as its founder. |
The full article (which is an excellent commentary on the current state of trendfollowing strategies) is at the following link (registration required.)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed14eb00-d4d7-11dc-9af1-0000779fd2ac.html
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Chelonia
Roundtable Knight
Joined: 30 Apr 2007
Posts: 194
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:30 am Post subject: |
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| Leading indicators can be used for all markets. For example; when a commodity index breaks out to the upside you put your long/neutral commodity system to work, when it breaks out to the downside you put your short/neutral commodity system to work, when a stock index breaks out to the upside you put your long/neutral stock program to work and vice versa. A leading indicator must be the basis for which system you allocate money to. Yes you will have lagging months sometimes and also false breakouts but in general following this strategy pays off. There is no 1 system solution. You must be flexible, versatile, and put some discretion in it to make it work long term. You don't need to be a mathemacian to understand this.
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rhc
Roundtable Fellow
Joined: 18 Nov 2008
Posts: 71
Location: Oz
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:23 am Post subject: |
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Well said ‘adamant’
Your comments certainly provide food for thought about whether any edge that is currently being enjoyed will prove to be fleeting one or one with a long life or even subject to long up/down cycles. Does anyone really know? Can this be predicted or modelled?
How does one know when a system has ‘broken’ and the “Principal of Ever-changing Cycles” has taken effect.
Here, imho, is a very good article that deals with the above phenomenon
http://www.speculative-investor.com/new/article170505.html
Excerpt;
“The principle of ever-changing cycles doesn't just apply to individual stocks or groups of stocks, it applies to investment and trading methods. If you want to know what is not going to work during the current cycle, look at what worked extremely well during the last cycle”
AND
“In summary, what worked during the last cycle is not going to work this cycle. Furthermore, what is currently working won't work indefinitely - it will only work until enough people discover it. At that point, the principle of ever-changing cycles will come into effect.”
*************************
Speaking of fleeting edges & ever changing cycles, I am reminded of the various volatility type breakout systems that were all the rage back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I recall systems such as VBS, TradeFinder, Dollar trader etc which were all based on the idea of trading in the direction of an expansion in volatility, each with there own little twist. All were simple ideas based on an observable & logical market phenomenon which at the time worked very well. Of course when all and sundry started using these methods, the edge simply disappeared (or perhaps dissipated would be a better choice of words).
So yes, a mathematical edge is always an advantage . . . until it ceases to exist.
For illustrative purposes, here is an equity curve of a simple VBS type system where entry is an ATR multiple added to the opening price of the day & entry is only taken in the direction of a trend filter. An ATR trailing stop is also used to lock in profits & control losses (as sometimes pure volatility systems don’t give you an opposite signal to exit)
Obviously this curve is for a specific set of parameters for a very specific set of system rules on a specific portfolio of 24 diversified futures and as such shouldn’t be taken as being a vote for or against volatility type systems.
The point I’m trying to make, in a rather ‘round about & long winded way, is that what looked like a pretty good method up until the mid 80’s and perhaps into the early 90’s went downhill quite dramatically after that.
The “Principal of Ever-changing Cycles” at work??
I will, however, add that according to my testing, pure Trendfollowing systems (i.e. moving averages/bands, higher high breakouts etc) have stood the test of time . . . . so far!!
Will they continue to do so? Again, who can know
Any comments?
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adamant
Roundtable Fellow
Joined: 24 Aug 2008
Posts: 96
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:32 am Post subject: |
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| Good article. I'll copy it to the "article" thread as well.
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alp
Roundtable Knight
Joined: 27 Aug 2007
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| rhc wrote: | I will, however, add that according to my testing, pure Trendfollowing systems (i.e. moving averages/bands, higher high breakouts etc) have stood the test of time . . . . so far!!
Will they continue to do so? Again, who can know
Any comments? |
The markets are unfathomable, just like the human emotions. So we may resonably expect that sometimes they will trend, sometimes they won't.
Even though pure trend following systems have a sound premise behind them, the task of optimization, being a very imprecise method with little predictive value, can introduce a lot of flaws in the process.
I mean, the optimal parameters for your trend following system in the next 10 or 20 years might be a set of parameters which never occurred in the past.
So, the real issue is: how to improve the "predictive" results of your backtesting, or at least, make them more "correlated" to future results? Or how to handle market changes that ultimately determine which parameters will work best for a given period? Coming up with an "adaptive system" is at all possible?
Or instead the trader will have to be flexible enough to cope with changes? How? Or instead, as even a broken clock is right twice a day, the trader would better stick with his "broken clock"?
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alp
Roundtable Knight
Joined: 27 Aug 2007
Posts: 244
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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With regard to the mathematicians, it looks like they quickly learn the laws of marketing as well.
Their task as successful hedge fund managers is to make people believe they have something special, the key to the secret misteries nobody else has.
So, I believe that their interviews are just bullshit, directed to investors.
Willian Eckhardt told his audience in a lecture that he was "judiciously avoiding breakouts". Compare such statement with this excerpt (from Market Wizards if I am not mistaken):
| Quote: | | " . . . if you make a bad trade and you have money management, you are really not in much trouble. However, if you miss a good trade there is nowhere to turn. If you miss good trades with any regularity you're finished. For example, let's say the market moves rapidly through your buying zone and you miss it, you miss your buy signal and instead wait for a retracement to maybe buy cheaper. But, the market just keeps going higher and higher and never retraces. Now what do you do? There's a great temptation to reason that now it's too high to buy. If you buy it now you'll have an initiation price that's too high? No, the initiation price simply won't have the kind of significance you suppose it will have after the trade is made. You can't miss these trades. Trading systems force discipline to make sure these trades are not missed." |
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