What’s The Weekly Q&A

The Weekly Q&A is simply a post in which I collect and respond to questions that have been asked to me this week. You can ask me whatever question you want (obviously in the domain of this website). I will do my best to try and respond in a complete and exhaustive manner.

What’s the difference between Data Science and Quantitative Finance?

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This is a nice question. Although the “paths” are fairly overlapping, with same programming languages, similar deliverables, and similar daily tasks are too, the main difference is in the industry.

Quantitative/Computational Finance focuses solely on the financial industry, whereas Data Science is a comprehensive field spanning across various sectors: healthcare, marketing, manufacturing…

The mathematics involved differ only for certain research purposes, for example, quant finance would delve more in deep into stochastic calculus, financial modeling and high frequency algorithm building; while data science effectively uses a lot more statistics, probability, data mining etc.

You study Computational Finance, what’s stopping you from developing a Crypto Trading Bot?

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Who says I didn’t?

Jokes aside, the process of algorithmic trading is tedious, very detail oriented and with a domain knowledge that requires that the developer actually knows what he’s doing. I develop and have developed some trading bots, just never put them online at work, simply for fun and backtesting purposes.

Automating trading is a path that is really rewarding and fulfilling, but you’ll always feel like you’re “missing out” on something. There is no pure market equation, there is no “sure thing”. Only uncertainty, probability and risk management exist.

You have an idea about what a trading bot should do to beat the market? Let’s talk! I will code it for you following your guidelines using my backtesting software and I will be happy to show you through code what I mean.

How do you balance everything?

LinkedIn DM

I will explore more in depth my systematic thinking and how I deem my mind as an OS in the posts of “The Machine”, a category that I’ve planned to add along with the others.

As of now, I can say that everything has its time slot. Given that I have lots and lots of tasks everyday, juggling between everything and getting some sleep it’s definitely difficult. I keep track by writing, by hand. Every day I try to write some more, tasks/notes/observations, everything is written for me. Since I hate wasting paper, my iPad is my trusted partner. Goodnotes is the cooling block to my brain CPU to keep it free and efficient. I don’t aim to be productive for fun, I need to be productive by optimizing for output, for money, for skill compounding.

I’m not going to lie to you, it’s messy sometimes. I can’t always balance everything perfectly. I get tired like everyone, and to wind down I try to avoid scrolling on my phone – rather – I read or I play videogames, but when I need to actually open the pressure valve, I rely on exercise, being it going in the gym or combat.

Why did you start? Since when are you interested in this sector?

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When I was growing up, like elementary school-grade, I loved school. I loved going, learning, I was curious, my favourite subject was maths.

Then, like for almost everyone, the system failed me. I started hating waking up and going to school because there was no enthusiasm in learning, I didn’t have that feeling of awe I had. I lost passion and drive, mainly because, and I don’t say this lightly, 99% of teachers SHOULD NOT teach.

I’m not talking about University Professors, I’m talking about high-school, middle-school teachers. If you don’t love what you do, you can’t expect to be respected and can’t pretend to be listened to.

As of now, I gathered more experience, I have lots of knowledge, still working on it, but I found again that sense of curiosity around everything, so I can confidently say that in my past, I had some teachers that should have a conversation with themselves in front of a mirror. You’re not frustrated because your students don’t listen to you. You’re frustrated because you lost the passion.

Circling back to the question, I started being passionate about economics and finance late during high-school, before COVID hit. I was learning about trading, and like everyone, I was drawn to the idea that “I could be making money from this”. Then during the pandemic I had the time to read, study more, and it grew in me.

Why specifically finance? Well, there’s no going around it, for money. It is the perfect blend between numbers, mathematics in general and money. I don’t seek riches, I seek wealth. I want stability, and I want to be able to provide.

What’s one underrated way to make cash on the side when in Uni?

Reddit DM/LinkedIn DM (the question has been adapted to accommodate two different requests)

I wish I could write a lot about this, but the truth is only one: working.

Conclusion

This was the first, really “rough” version of what I would like to do with posts in this category. You can write to me on LinkedIn, Reddit, Instagram, e-mail, whatever you want. There’s also the comment section in EACH post! It’s free, I don’t ask for information and you won’t subscribe to anything. I know how annoying newsletters can be.

That’s it for this week, see you when Monday feels illegal again.