For me, I am about to dump my portfolio aside, make it a low yield cash cow, and instead move on to other Alpha generating strategies.
The traditional fundamentals and portfolio management is just plain slow and boring, and hmm… its time i bring up my VB6 / Java and the days of day trading algos… all into Automated Day trading.
Well let’s just say I figure out this myself, after going through tons of head hunters, recruitment and job portals about jobs they are hiring, and second guessing how they make up for the department. In order to build a department of High frequency statistical arbitrage trading, we would probably need these people with these skill sets:
Quants:
2-3 Quantitative Analysts, with skill sets involving options pricing, markets futures calculation, and forex triangle arb and probably a commodity stat arb. They will need to work on using the right formulas with the right markets, and the expected output.
Software Engineers:
3-4 Java and C++. Java provides the web front ends while the C++ algo does the high frequency stuff because the language allows fast execution. Probably some very intelligent developers who wrote algos more than payrolls or database info systems. These guys need to work very closely with the quants, as well as the traders.
Traders:
Depends.. Traders who know the markets well, and know a specific market or securities well, with proven strategies. People with real trading experience provides the team, the algo, the markets sentiments, and analysis, and other events that may drive prices.
IT – Infrastructure:
This team includes networking and communications gurus from the IT industry. With good experience on linking up almost any devices, they also need to know how to allow high bandwidth, networking devices which allows high throughput of speed, ensure uptime.
Fund / Portolio / Risk management:
This is your typical guy(s) who does the most important job of managing the money. Without good management, no matter how good a strategy is, risks are still involve.
So this shall be what I think about creating one such fund. Call it a hedge fund with a stat arb strategy. Any banks or startups could build it, provided with the right tools and people.