Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant

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Didier Lopes studied control systems and electrical engineering in Europe before moving to the United States to build OpenBB, a next-generation financial research workspace.

Frustrated by how fragmented data, analysis, and decision-making tools were across finance and other industries, Didier set out to create a professional-grade platform where teams can bring their data, analytics, and AI into one unified environment.

Before founding OpenBB, he worked on cutting-edge technologies ranging from self-driving cars to wearable fitness devices, following a deep curiosity for complex systems and real-world impact.

In this episode, we talk about building in the age of AI, navigating life as a founder in the U.S., and the nuances of time-series modeling in financial markets.

OpenBB Examples:
https://openbb.co/solutions

OpenBB Product:
https://pro.openbb.co/

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/didier-lopes/

High Growth Handbook (book recommendation - affiliate link):
https://amzn.to/4aAvbfS
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Jeffrey Rosenberg, CFA, Managing Director is a senior portfolio manager within BlackRock Systematic. He leads active and factor investments for mutual funds, institutional portfolios and ETFs within BlackRock’s Systematic Fixed Income (“SFI”) portfolio management team. In this role he serves as a member of the SFI Investment and Executive Committees and as a senior portfolio manager for several investment products including the BlackRock Systematic Multi-Strategy Fund (BIMBX), the iShares Systematic Alternatives Active ETF (IALT) and the iShares Managed Futures Active ETF (ISMF).

We talked about systematic portfolio managers compared to discretionary portfolio managers, his career and education from finance and math into computational finance at Carnegie Mellon, the changes in the market from banks to hedge funds being driven by the global financial crisis, and some book recommendations.

BlackRock Systematic Investing: https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/investment-ideas/systematic-investing
BlackRock’s Q1 Fixed Income Outlook:
https://www.blackrock.com/us/financial-professionals/literature/market-commentary/fixed-income-market-outlook.pdf
Jeffrey Roseberg:
https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/biographies/jeffrey-rosenberg
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Michael Jordan Pilgreen was a poetry and art major but as covid hit and the commercial art industry changed he looked for a new path. He considered financial planning but ended up learning finance and technology to become an engineer on Wall Street in the fixed income market. Now he is a co-founder of Enduring Markets which is a capital markets publication covering a range of interesting topics.

I got the privilege to advise Michael about 5 years ago during his journey on what quant finance was. Today I got to learn more in depth about fixed income from him.

Michael Jordan Pilgreen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-jordan-pilgreen-7a3099108/details/experience/

Enduring Markets
https://www.enduringmarkets.org
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Interested in what quantum computing is? Ramis Movassagh explains the basics of quantum, some applications to finance, why it is a hard problem to solve, and ways to learn more about it.

Ramis is an applied mathematician and a theoretical physicist who researches quantum computation and information theory, and quantum cryptography and complexity. He does an amazing job at laying out some of the basic ideas of quantum mechanics.

Ramis' Links:

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramis-movassagh-33465717/

Website and Blog:
https://ramismovassagh.wordpress.com/
https://ramismovassagh.wordpress.com/blog

X handle:
@Ramis_Movassagh

Quantum supremacy paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02131-2

PDF for those behind the paywall:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02131-2.epdf?sharing_token=oYgyql7M-nUPNwLJ4F2Q_tRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0M5gli-apQIlZ1xThgS5KRp3t28rkad24bSeQ-gRMhmOaNP232U_FZZQjPrseDCTdXIRryTWL339snJllwZAjuD5PMkLKij96GMA_OniVnTz5JjaARH0qW5OV-AKwZr4VI%3D

Press coverage:
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-difficulty-simulating-random-quantum-circuits.html

https://communities.springernature.com/posts/the-quest-for-quantum-primacy

Quantum Merkle Trees:
https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2024-06-18-1380/

IBM's "Basics of Quantum Information":
https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/learning/en/courses/basics-of-quantum-information

John Preskill from CalTech:
https://www.preskill.caltech.edu/

MIT "Quantum Computing":
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-435j-quantum-computation-fall-2003/
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Diving into pure math, quantitative finance, and solving business problems with AI and LLMs. Cheikh Fall is a co-founder of Sabr Research and an MIT grad who is looking to solve many business problems with the advancements in AI. We discuss potential issues with AI, what hedge funds look for in quant researchers, and how to prepare as a student for AI.

Cheik Fall
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fallcheik/

Sabr Research
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sabr-research/

Dimitri Bianco
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitri-bianco/

My favorite coffee which supports the creation of these podcasts
https://volcanicacoffee.pxf.io/yq6Qj3
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