Non quant traders soon extinct? Why are they still recruited then?

Tettro · December 26th, 2011, 4:49 pm

Hello folks.The title pretty much sums it up.I have read and heard many times that the non algorithmic trader is a dying breed.If this is true, why do banks' Sales and Trading recruiting schemes still focus on the non quant traders?You dont need any programming skills to land a S&T Internship at a BB, and from what I know most of the traders on those desks will know only a little VBA at best. Is this just a question of time?

katastrofa · December 26th, 2011, 6:51 pm

There are still many corporates who want to trade a swap or a cap.

quantmeh · December 27th, 2011, 4:10 pm

"quant" will be attached to all jobs, that's how the non-quant will disappear.

legacy · December 30th, 2011, 3:56 am

@Tettro: at BB most traders do not need 'quant' skills, this is primarily because many asset classes are not liquid or regulated enough to be automated. On the other hand, the most vanilla desks, Equity, FX spot, Futures, (and perhaps CDS, swap and vanilla options soon) etc would require 'quantitative' traders, aside from prop desks.

DominicConnor · December 30th, 2011, 4:54 pm

QuantMeh is right, the prefix quant- will soon disappear because for many trading roles it will be the default, and thus you won't need to explicitly say it.Of course sales- is another prefix and I don't think I'm being contentious when I say that quant skill and sales skills do not correlate as well as we'd like.

zzttzz · December 31st, 2011, 7:44 am

Are you sure you are not confusing actual QT's with regular sales type people ?The latter don't require any real finance/ quant skills, you just have to be able to sell well.