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Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 8th, 2018, 11:54 am
by Panzer
Hello everyone! I'm searching for info about the job market in those 2 countries. I'm interested in HFT, prop trading/market making and commodity trading.

Any thoughts or advice?

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 8th, 2018, 12:25 pm
by bearish
Keeping on asking the same question in different forums is not typically a winning strategy around here. 

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 8th, 2018, 2:56 pm
by tags
Hallo Panzer.
If you actually already ask this question and didn't get any answers/replies, this may be your question is not specific enough.
"Any thoughts or advice?" is actually quite broad., isn't it?
Maybe you can try again  being more specific.
Good luck!

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 8th, 2018, 7:46 pm
by Panzer
Well, im 19, im form Greece, im studying CS, i love everything about markets and i want to do a Master in Financial Engineering or AI/ML abroad (specifically in those 2 countries i mentioned). I know Netherlands has some very interesting prop trading/market making firms in Amsterdam and some commodity trading shops in Rotterdam (as far as i know). Switzerland on the other hand has a lot of Hedge Funds (i dont know if there are any Quant HFs though) in Zurich and Geneva and some big commodity trading firms in Geneva.

I know its a bit early to ask something like that but i just want to gather some info...

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 8th, 2018, 9:43 pm
by tags
Maybe I can speak for GVA.

You'll find ABCD in the GVA area.You will also find some major oil physical trading houses. Option pricing and derivatives stuff there has been in routine mode for years. "Traditional" quants there feel quite unsecure, as they option business is not growing and they now feel threatened by the fast-pace growing machine learning field. Still, big trading houses have generally been late to start looking at machine learning. They have created datascience team to look to market research, automated trading (but no HFT), and also stuff like market compliance.
In GVA you will also find HFs. You will find some equity and commodities HFs. It is quite difficult to know them. They are ahead of big trading houses as far as machine learning is concerned. Some are quite opened to new ideas, happy to hear from candidates bringing alternative angles to make money.

note: above from my own experience, obviously biased. "machine learning" is used in the broad sense (Venn diagram, maestro!)

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 9th, 2018, 8:33 pm
by Panzer
WOW, thank you so much for the reply!!!
Unfortunately i have some more questions:

1. Can i get away only with english in the GVA area or i will have a problem? I havent used french for years, should i refresh them?
2. What about the german speaking part? Is the trading happening there bigger than in Geneva?
3. How is the job market (for prospective quants) for non swiss people? Will i be able to find an internship at least in a quantitative field? I have heard that Switzerland has strict immigration laws even for EU citizens. Is that true?
4. What are the best skills that a guy like me should have in order to succeed in this highly competitive sector? Programming, Data Science, Statistics? Also, what are the best unis in CH, should i choose depending on region or reputation?

I would really like to hear your opinion. Sorry for all those questions... Probably the last ones...

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: July 9th, 2018, 10:25 pm
by tags
1. English is fine. Or maybe you landed in the wrong company.

2. German part would be Zurich. Big banks and more equities/fixed income-oriented. There are many more jobs there than in GVA.

3. For EU citizens with specialized skills, it is no big deal. Some paperwork + 60CHF + a couple of weeks to wait

4. Paul, Dominique and other can surely provide you with better insights on the skills quantitative finance jobs (lato sensu) will require, looking ahead (you mentioned you are quite young). In the meantime, maybe you can create a portfolio as datascientists say and showcase on github, kaggle, read PWOQF, Daniel Duffy's books and implement (code) as much as you can, etc... Practice makes it perfect, anyways. EPFL is often cited as a good university. Still, Swiss universities are not the best around.

Re: Netherlands or Switzerland for a prospective Quant/Trader?

Posted: August 9th, 2018, 4:29 pm
by Panzer
Thanks once again for the reply!!!

So, as far as i know Pictet and other banks have some big in house Hedge Funds and they do things in quant space. Like you said, big Commodity houses are hiring quants for stuff like risk and research, but most of trading is physical. Also Zug is considered a "crypto hub" and a lot HFs are based there (a fairly small ecosystem atm, because relocation was tough for managers).

Im not saying Switzerland is as big as London but im sure there are some opportunities. CH unis are very good too. Espeacially ETH and EPFL.
Any more info would be greatly appreciated!!!