Graduated from the Master of Quantitative Finance at University of Waterloo (MQF)
Enjoy playing table tennis and biking; Skiing and skating rookie; Prefer watching other people skating/skiing and falling; Amateur Nintendo Switch player. (My hobbies come and go)
Why Canada
Born and bred in a big city in China, I am so used to living in this place that sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a place where there are not many people but still diverse enough. However, when deciding which grad school offer to accept, I hesitated for a while since I was inspired by the welcome video of the MSCF program at CMU, which said, ’You’re in! In for the challenges. In for the possibilities...’
'In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothin' you can't do,’ Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sings in the song ‘Empire State of Mind’
The song started to play in my head when I was watching this welcome video. But soon I realized that deep down in my heart, I have been seeking something else. All over NYC are dreams and sixpence, but some people look up at the moon, and here we are standing in the lunar light...
A Serious Version of My Journey to Becoming a Quant - If I were you, I would skip this part :)
Driven by my keen passion for quantitative disciplines, I chose Pure Mathematics (mostly, and with some exposures to Applied Mathematics) as my major. Abstract Algebra, Partial Differential Equations, Stochastic Processes... The list goes on and on, definitely a perfect way to train myself think about highly abstract concepts and frameworks without losing any of my hair. Later on, I sought opportunities to apply my course-learned knowledge to real-world practice.
I first joined a quantitative hedge fund where I researched multi-factor stock selection strategies. I also paid close attention to utilizing some numerical tricks, such as using non-linear functions to transform factors to reduce the correlation of return time series between my strategy’s and thousands of others’ in the fund's library. Besides, I once suggested assessing the performance of stock price forecast and re-estimating the cost of short selling. The fund manager highly valued my ideas and assigned a team to improve the back-testing framework.
Later, I was selected to work at the Sales and Trading Department at CICC, a leading investment bank in China. I not only conducted quantitative work including automated data processing and modeling but also explained models in plain language to team members. From raw data to modeling to the presentation, I had the opportunity to develop a holistic view of the business.
Afterward, I joined the Derivatives Department at Shanghai Futures Exchange, where I performed wrangling and visualization on real trading data of options, and forecast volatility and its distribution. Besides, I independently worked on the project of index design and implementation.
These experiences made me more determined to further my study in quantitative finance, so I joined the MQF prgram at UW. During my study there, I interned at the Porfolio Construction Group at OPTrust where I worked on several quantitative reseach projects in the investment field and also assisted with the analysis crutial to the total fund investment planning.
Right now I am a quant rotational associate at TD.