Quant

On Wall Street, a quant is an expert in quantitative finance. The term has been popularized in the title to the book, “My Life as a Quant”, by Emanuel Derman. Derman epitomizes the quant. He trained in theoretical physics at Columbia then went on to work as a quant on Wall Street. Derman is best known as one of the namesakes in the landmark US treasury yield curve model, the Black-Derman-Toy model. Collaborator Fischer Black of Black Sholes option pricing model fame is certainly a quant, too. Not every quant is so famous as these two, but every quant is expected to know some advanced mathematics. Typical quant areas of expertise include stochastic calculus and time series analysis. The term quant has a connotation of computer programming excellence, too, since the numerical methods for pricing securities must be programmed into efficient algorithms for computers to perform real time valuation.