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 Salary of Quant Trader (Strategist) in High-Frequency Trading Firms in India Trading firms in India typically scale very well generating more and more revenue keeping less number of employees. Since their staff size is low, they can afford to pay them higher. Almost all the HFTs pay higher because there is a lot of competition among them. I graduated from IIT Bombay in 2020 after completing my B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering. Top companies of India come for campus placements and for internships. I will be sharing the CTC info of a few of these trading firms. This data is based on the placements and hiring for the year 2020 for IIT Bombay.  If you want to know about the salary of other profiles at these firms, please mention it in the comments. If you would like to know more about the pay structure in these firms, please read this post . Salary of Quant Trader in Tower Research LLC The overall CTC/salary is 57 Lakhs per annum in India. The break up of the CTC is- 35 lakhs

 Experience of working from home for a HFT firm As you guys know I have been working as a Quant Trader in a HFT in India since 2020. But due to the coronavirus pandemic, I have been working from home from the start and even now. I am not even sure when things will relax and when will they call their employees back at the office. In this post I will be sharing the experience that I had working from home and how does that affect the work for a HFT. Setting up Systems Working as a quant trader involves monitoring various things at once during trading and analysis and hence there is a higher requirement for real estate in screens. Generally, multiple large screen monitors are used by a trader. To set up this at the homes for each of the traders was a big task. Of course, they sent all the monitors and systems at home but we had to set it up on our own which was a pain. Also, it takes up large space so it might be a little problematic for those who have space issues in their home office. Co

  Ways to develop the most productive desk setup Today I will be sharing some of the ways in which you can set up your work desk to increase your productivity. Yes, you heard it right, the desk setup definitely makes an impact on your productivity and hence we shall make full use of it to help us increase our productivity instead of hampering it. Get rid of the non-essential items We generally tend to keep a lot of things on our desk thinking that we might need that particular item at some point in time but we find it taking unnecessary large space and it doesn't get used as frequently. So, one of the first things we can do to clean our desk is to keep only the essential items on the table/desk so that we are always occupied by what's necessary. Things that are essential may include - Your laptop, computer, keyboard, mouse Water bottle Table lamp Pens in a pen stand A tiny plant (have been considered an element to boost productivity) Things that you should get rid of from your

 Balance your life with your job Job is an essential part of life as it provides the means to your daily requirements. It is very important as it decides what kind of life you are living, what your status is in your society, and what you do to provide value to the world. Having said all that, the job is not your life. Each and everyone must have a healthy work-life balance and enjoy life and perform well in your job. I am listing a few elements in my daily life that help me live my life to the best and do my job happily. The addition of these elements in your life will change it gradually to a much better state of living. Separating work from life One of the most crucial parts of balancing and living your life happily is to separate your work from life. In today's world of computers and online working, it easy to mix up your life with work. This results in your work being in short stretches of time and taking up your whole day leaving you busy for the entire day and not having a lo

 Day in the life of a Quant Trader in HFT (India) In the post, I am going to describe a day in my life (on a workday). I am currently working as a Quant Trader in a High-Frequency Trading Firm in India. The work of other Quant Traders in other companies is also on the same lines as mine. I have done my B Tech from IIT Bombay in Computer Science and Engineering department. I joined this HFT after college and continuing to work there currently. (If you want to know about the pay structure and CTC of a Quant Trader and other roles in a HFT in India, visit  https://prolivify.blogspot.com/2021/07/pay-structure-ctc-in-high-frequency.html ) Day Start I am currently trading in Indian markets whose timings are 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM. This means I have to wake up early and finish my morning routine and breakfast before starting work since I won't be getting time for anything else once the market starts.  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are operating virtually in work from home mode and that&

 This post will try to give an idea about the pay structure / package / CTC of an employee in a High Frequency Trading Firm (HFT) in India. The overall CTC of HFTs easily exceeds the CTC of software firms in india (Google India, Microsoft India, Adobe India etc) The major roles that these companies hire for and their corresponding pay structure is given below- Quant Trader / Quant Researcher / Strategist -  This is the highest paying role in an HFT. Their role comprises of making strategies for the market and actually executing these in the market to make money. Their work is very hectic and their performance affects the company directlly and on a major scale. Their pay structure / CTC usually comprises of the following components - Base -   This is the base pay for the role. This number divided by 12 months is what the trader actually gets each month as the base salary. This comprises of about 60-70 percent of the CTC for a fresher and around 10-20 percent of the CTC as the seniority

 What is high frequency trading? High - frequency trading , also known as  HFT , is a method of  trading  that uses powerful computer programs to transact a large number of orders in fractions of a second. ... Typically, the  traders  with the fastest execution speeds are more profitable than  traders with  slower execution speeds. If you're an average human being, your eyes take around   400 milliseconds  to blink once. High-frequency trading is a kind of market activity that moves in less than   one millisecond  to spot and take advantage of an opportunity to buy or sell. It happens through trading algorithms, programs that determine how to trade based on fast-moving market data. The kind of profit opportunities that high-frequency trading looks for aren't the things most investors ever think about. They're not betting that technology companies will see their profits grow more quickly than expected, for example, or that a recession is coming. Instead, they're looking

  HFT strategy profitability depends on two factors: latency and competition (i.e. the number of robots taking advantage of the same alpha). If you are lucky to be the only one who uses the alpha you do not have to care much about the latency. If there is at least one more robot on this alpha you only make money (or make more money) if you are faster. The more competitors you have the more important the latency factor. Mathematically this functional connection can be expressed as follows: latency*concurrence= const Trading infrastructure considerably affects the trading results because it is there the latency provided. The latency is made up of the following parameters: a) Market data propagation time from the data source to the server running the trading platform and the strategy. Delay in the channels matters if the market data is sourced from other exchanges. b) The time that elapses between data packet delivery to the network adapter and data delivery to the application. The netw

 One of the most crucial books before starting your journey in options trading is this particular book by Sheldon Natenberg. If you are working as a quant trader or quant researcher, you may be required to go through this book in order to understand the pricing and other relevant details about options. This is a very good book in case you are a beginner and want to understand the basics of options, futures and how they are priced and how can you exploit any mispricing in the market to your advantage. It talks about black scholes model which is a crucial method for option pricing that various quant firms rely upon. The book explains the basics of futures, calls and puts and gradually moves up to other interesting things that can be built by using various combinations of calls and puts. Even someone who is going through all these concepts for the first time will find it easy to understand. It then explains the basic Greeks which are used for risk management of the options profile.

The greatest demand in the HFT space is for Quantitative Developers. These developers have strong programming skills and strong quantitative skills. A degree in Financial Engineering is helpful but degrees in CS, Economics, Math, Physics and Statistics will also be strongly considered. There are a few key areas of evaluation. 1. How you program: Are you strong in developing efficient real-time, multi-threaded, OO Code. Take note that you will get questions on Algorithms, design and how efficient your code is. 2. How do you think: The focus here is often to present problems that you should not be familiar with to better understand how you think. Are you logical in your approach, do you focus on the right aspects of the problems. Are you creative or linear in your solution. 3. How do you communicate: The evaluation on communication skills are the most subjective part of the meeting. You must ask good questions. If you are spewing out too much information with out asking questions then yo

    This is one of the most common doubts people studying in the premier institutes have when the placement season approaches. Apart from the obvious difference in the work, there is a difference in their pay as well as a difference in the work timings and flexibility. About Me I have done my B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay. I too faced a similar dilemma and chose to finally go with doing a job in an HFT. Work culture The work in HFTs is hectic if we compare it to software companies but it’s interesting too. It’s a fast-paced industry and you are required to work quickly on things that the company wants to be done in order to reach its goals. You are required to give a lot of time to some ongoing problem that the team faces in trading which might be hampering live trading. And once the team finds a solution, it is brought into production rapidly. Comparing this with the work in a typical software firm, you are generally assigned some tasks with their correspo

Brief introduction I am a B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay. I wanted to explore and work in an HFT so I did my research about the HFT firms in India. I have hereby compiled a list of top HFT firms in India. I have also written a post that explains the pay structure and CTC of the HFTs in India .  Top HFT Firms in India Tower Research (Gurgaon) Quadeye (Gurgaon) Graviton Research (Gurgaon) APT Portfolio  (Delhi) Worldquant LLC (Mumbai) Mathysis (Gurgaon) Alphagrep (Gurgaon) Goldman Sachs (Bangalore/Mumbai) Two Roads Tech (Bangalore) Morgan Stanley (Mumbai) Dolat Group (Mumbai) Estee Advisors (Gurgaon) Edelweiss (Mumbai) Open Futures (Delhi) iRageCapital (Mumbai) Only the first 8 of the above list control the major market share. HFTs in India have not been for a long time but they are expanding fast which is giving new opportunities to build companies in this segment. There is little competition if we compare it to US , UK and other major exchanges around the wo

If you are thinking of working in an HFT, there are a few things that you should know about. The pay might seem to be very good especially if you are a fresher but you will soon realise that it comes at the cost of your time. If you are planning to join a HFT or are already working in one, you will find this post really helpful. Usual Work Timing / Schedule This might depend upon the specific role. I have already written a post which talks about the various roles in a HFT and their pay structure. In general for a trader the schedule looks like this. The trader in most cases has to run his strategy in the live market himself/herself. This means that he has to be active and focussed for the entire duration of the market for which the strategy is written. Apart from the market hours, now the trader is required to work on his existing strategies as well as some other strategies in the pipeline or other features. This generally means that the trader might have to easily work for 10-12 hours