Wondering if anyone has any views and/or info on the principal strategies group at Goldman or the process driven trading group at Morgan Stanley?

I've met one of the heads of goldmans prop trading before... he's a tad.... well.... wierd.

Right. Trying to get a flavor as to general roles within the groups and, to any simplistic extent possible, the types of things they may be doing/pursuing. Along the lines of:Are most/all of the functions based upon programming and data mining, or are the roles more varied to cover a fuller spectrum of skills...Do they interact with other areas of the respective firms to research any degree of variety with respect to ideas or implementations concerning potential strategies...Is there a bias (or conceptual mandate) centered upon certain areas/markets/instruments (i.e. stat arb, views regarding pricing of specific instruments, general market trends, etc.)...They seem (obviously no surprise) to be fairly publicity adverse (little to zero reference on the respective websites, etc.).

Can somebody describe what those groups do (with examples) and what skills are relevant for them?

They make big bets, trend following usually (at least they try) on straight markets, spreads and many other trades (relative value, fx, etc... ) Sometimes they trade vol, correlation etc. Sometimes they get caught in liquidity traps.

wrt Goldman - there are several relatively autonomous prop trading groups - with a most notable divide being between Fixed Income and Equities. They each have different mandates and operate under different risk constraints. So you have to be a bit more specific when talking about embedded prop groups at large banks. Up until recently, the fixed income prop groups had a far greater appetite for risk.... allegedly of course!

That's kinda what I was getting at. I know of the existence of something specifically defined as the Principal Strategies Group at GS - I believe within the equites department. Not sure where PDT at MS is. So I wasn't/am not sure about where exactly the groups are, what they are doing, or if others exist within the same firms. I know of course that a number of firms have varying degrees of small groups and/or individual traders doing prop, many times somewhat to very aligned with specific desks. But I'm curious about the larger, more segregated and seperately defined groups.

There is PSG. But I'm not sure if autonomous is the right word. Perhaps more of an interlocking pyramid in terms of management and risk structure. wrt Morgan Stanley, I get your point, definitely, it is something like an embedded mirror.

What about the size of revenues/profits that the prop trading groups are generating for the firm? Any ideas about the size of capital they are using?