November 12th, 2020, 4:43 pm
There is actually pretty good money to be made for quants in traditional asset management, but details of the skill set matter. Clearly less focus on traditional (or, for that matter, modern) derivatives pricing and more on data analysis. More focus on making directional calls (which is hard), less on basis point precision in relative value estimates. At least in the fixed income world you have to deal with the fact that most bonds trade by appointment, if that. Insurance companies typically have some pretty smart people around, they are just smart about totally different things, or sometimes the same things from a totally different perspective. But not usually an easy environment to adapt to for a sell side quant. On the other hand, most hedge funds are simply too small, and the regulatory requirements and the role of consultants and other gatekeepers for institutional money keep on making scale more important in that space.