UCLA Anderson MFE Success Guide

Prepared by Prof. Jason C. Hsu (hsu@rallc.com)

Last updated Apr 5, 2010.

*This document will be frequently updated. Please check back with me from time to time or check the
class website for a more updated version.

Newsletter and Data sites

SSRN: http://www.ssrn.com/

This is where you will find most of the latest research white papers--both industry and academic. Often
time, some very classic papers which are published and well cited will have the original drafts listed here
as well. This will include drafts of published article as well as working papers that are not yet submitted.
Don't try to reinvent the wheel, always try to research what the literature already knows before you
start your research.

FRED: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/

This is the St. Louis Fed website and contains very good data on treasuries.

John Moudlin Newsletter: http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/gateway.asp

John Moudlin writes a thoughtful and easy to read newsletter (the best part is that it is free). It does a
good job synthesizing what other smart financial gurus are saying. Subscribe to this newsletter and read
it regularly. You will sound more informed when you interview. BTW, not everything he says is true.
Always read what the gurus say with some suspicion. But I can assure you that the quality if very high.

PIMCO Market Commentary: http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/ContentArchive/Default.htm

Try to read what Bill Gross is saying. He speaks in riddles and can write a lot to say very little. But still
he is the Bond King. You should be familiar with his view as his views have insights and are influential in
the marketplace.

GMO Market Commentary: https://www.gmo.com/America/Research/

This is considered to be one of the best macro/broad asset class commentaries available.

Michael Pettis’s Commentary on the China and related issues: http://mpettis.com/

This is one of the best read out there for people who want to learn more about international
macroeconomics. Everything is put in the context of China, which makes for a practical read and
illustrates the concepts really well. One of my all time favorite econ sites.
HedgeFundResearch.com: https://www.hedgefundresearch.com/index.php?fuse=indices-
new&1270451894

They gather self-reported performance information from different hedge funds and compile that into an
index. This gives you some idea as to how the various hedge fund strategies are doing. The index,
unfortunately, is not survivorship free, but that’s not the point. I point you to the page on the “Strategy
Classification”. Click and explore this page so you are well informed on the various major hedge fund
strategies.

Career Opportunities and Professional Network sites

Professional Networks and Industry Publications:

Linked-in, Professional Networking Online Community: http://www.linkedin.com/

Sign up for an account and start exploring finance groups on Linked-in. You will see groups dedicated to
quant finance, high frequency trading, etc. Many of those professional groups will have job postings as
well. At the very least, you will get a sense of what people are talking about and the industry trends.

BTW, please join the Anderson MFE Linked-in group. Please get linked up with Teri and Sandra and
myself. Please connect with other Anderson MFE students. The MFE Alumni network can help you
enormously.

International Association of Financial Engineers: http://www.iafe.org/html/resources.php

Sign up for membership. They do a number of social and network events (mostly in the New York area)
and these events are well worth your time to attend.

This website and generally this association is MFE student friendly. I point you to the page which
contains good resources for students. Including “Resume Tips” and recommended readings which
would help you with interviewing!

Hedge Fund Industry Journal: http://www.thehedgefundjournal.com/index.php

Hedge Fund Review: http://www.hedgefundsreview.com/

The above websites are mostly free and they contain a lot of hedge fund company names!

Firms who (might) hire MFEs

*This list is by no mean comprehensive. It lists some of the quality employers that I do or have done
business with. Hopefully, this list represents a good starting point for you guys. I created some different
categories to help you brainstorm possibilities. Be creative! Google! Look outside of the US (US is no
longer the highest paying country for finance jobs; and given our tax rates, we are actually not attractive
at all)!
**I wish that there was a website which lists all of the money managers and hedge fund managers.
Unfortunately there isn’t. So you got to be creative in your search. Googling is an art. I supply a few
useful search words that might help you brainstorm. “best bond managers P&I”, “Sovereign Weath
Funds”, “best endowment funds”, “hedge fund conference”, “best global macro managers”, “best forex
currency overlay managers”

***Note that almost all fixed income shops have some equity funds and vice versa, so the classification
below is very inexact. And these days, just about everyone has a side hedge fund business. I put firms
in the areas where they have shown good reputations in.

****Finally, many shops have recently adopted quant practices. I include them in the mix of quant
managers. Clearly firms, like Mellon Capital, do quant asset allocation product and a lot of other
traditional investments as well. So again, don’t take my classifications too literally.

Fixed Income:
PIMCO (home of Bill Gross and the most respected name in fixed income; they are not quant, but they
do have a strong quantitative analytics team managed by Vineer Bhansali, who is our board member):
http://www2.pimco.com/MBA/

Western Assets (still a respected name; largely ex-PIMCO; they didn’t fare well after the sub-
prime/credit crisis): http://www.westernasset.com/US/en/careers/

Armored Wolf (started by ex-PIMCO TIPS/Bond Guru, John Brynjolfsson):

http://www.armoredwolf.com/

Hotchkis and Wiley Capital Management (have both value equity and high yield/distress bond
management; a few ex-PIMCO bond managers run the fixed income group there):
http://www.hwcm.com/findex.html

NISA Investment Advisors (has one of the recently best performing bond fund; a 50B+ shop, runs a lot
of nuclear decommission funds): http://www.nisanet.com/

Hoisington Investment Mgmt (a small bond boutique with solid recent performance):
http://www.hoisingtonmgt.com/

Jennison Associates (two of their bond funds won recognitions last year):
http://www.jennison.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=0&OriginalTabId=125

Hillswick Asset Management (really small boutique with a few macro based fixed income funds):
https://www.hillswickasset.com/default.asp?P=844245

Intrepid Capital (has a really strong high yield bond product):

http://www.intrepidcapital.net/Default.aspx?PID=7

Wells Capital (SF firm, better known for their bond products): https://www.wellscap.com/products.html
Equities (traditional):
Alliance Bernstein (The blue chip name in value equity investing; starting to have some quant focus):
http://www.alliancebernstein.com/careers/

Allianz Global Invesor (bought a number of equity boutiques in the late 90s):
http://allianz.myvurv.com/main/careerportal/default.cfm?szUniqueCareerPortalID=e420f58a-bb2e-
4233-8a88-9bb817e910da&szIsJobBoard=0

Capital Group (LA Firm; widely reputed to be the firm with the best culture—amazing training program):
http://capgroup.com/careers/

TCW (Another LA Firm; they have been in the news a lot more recently, though not necessarily for good
things): https://www.tcw.com/About_TCW/Our_People/Investment_Management.aspx

Pyramis Global Advisors [Fidelity Institutional Asset Mgmt] (they don’t have quant funds, but they do
have a large and substantial risk management area): http://www.pyramis.com/

Charles Schwab Investment Management (SF based with retail emphasis):

http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investment_products/managed_accounts/csim

AXA Rosenberg (quant fundamental based as opposed to quant factor factor based):
http://www.axarosenberg.com/

Schroders (a bluechip UK name that’s gaining momentum with its quant funds):
http://www.schroders.com/global/home/

Franklin Templeton (one of the most respected fundamental stock picking shop):
https://www.franklintempleton.com/retail/app/navigation/views/sec_landingPage.jsf?title=careers

Legg Mason Capital (home of the fantastic Bill Miller, who beat the market for something like 12 years
running and then giving back all of the alpha during the GFC; but still a well respected shop with a solid
investment practice and philosophy): http://www.lmcm.com/

Legg Mason Affiliated Firms (a nice webpage that takes you to all LM affiliated managers):
http://www.leggmason.com/about/our_investment_firms/

MFS (their invented the first mutual fund):

https://www.mfs.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/c0/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3j_QKNAf3MPIwN342B
nAyMXE39j01BjQ8tQU_2CbEdFAPlROuQ!/

Invesco (owns a portfolio of different money managers including Quant Active ETF provider
PowerShares [who runs QQQQ and various Fundamental Index ETFs]: http://www.invesco.com/

Lazard Asset Management (value oriented shop; they just hired away the SSgA quant team about 2
years ago): http://www.lazardnet.com/lam/global/index.html
Nuveen (most famous for its closed-end fund business; Nuveen now owns a portfolio of asset managers
like Legg Mason, including Hyde Park): http://www.nuveen.com/Home/Default.aspx

AXA Investment Manager (they also own a portfolio of affiliated managers, so scan through the
different managers on their homepage): http://www.axa-im.com/

Wilmington Trust (they gave birth to Vanguard; ironically they are one of the oldest active equity shops):
https://www.wilmingtontrust.com/wtcom/index.jsp?section=InvsSvcs&fileid=1146062540610

Quant Equity and other Equity Boutiques:

Analytic Investors (LA quant boutique well known for equity options strategies, minimum variance
portfolios and 130/30 investing): http://www.aninvestor.com/careers/index.aspx

Research Affiliates (based in Newport Beach; founded by asset allocation guru, Rob Arnott; now best
known for its suite of quant indexes, called Fundamental Indexes):
http://www.rallc.com/about/employment.htm

Panagora (well know equity boutique, previously run by asset allocation guru Rob Arnott; now run by
Eric Sorenson): https://www.panagora.com/

Windham Caplital (run by well known quant Guru, Mark Kritzman):

http://www.windhamcapital.com/careers

ClariVest (a very successful quant value boutique that spun out of Nicholas-Applegate):
http://www.clarivest.com/home.html

First Quadrant (well known quant asset allocation shop, previously run by asset allocation guru Rob
Arnott): http://www.firstquadrant.com/

LSV (probably the best known deep value quant/behavioral manager): http://www.lsvasset.com/

Intech (started by a Princeton math professor, later bought by Janus; primary strategy based on trading
against mean-reversion):
https://ww3.intechjanus.com/Janus/Intech/intech?command=staticIntechHomePage

Thaler & Fuller Asset Management (started by two well known behavioral academics):
http://www.fullerthaler.com/

Jacobs Levy Asset Management (Jeresy firm, run by well known equity quant, Bruce Jacobs):
http://www.jacobslevy.com/

O’Shaughnessy Asset Management (Stamford, Conn firm with a good reputation and a well identified
founder, Jim O’Shaughnessy; smallish shop with 5B under advisory/mgmt):
http://www.osam.com/about.php
Mondrian Investments (not quant; a really good name in emerging market equities and global fixed
income): http://www.mondrian.com/background.php

Quant Asset Management (not all pure quant)

AQR (Cliff Asness’s shop; runs the gamut of the factors tilts): http://www.aqr.com/RecruitingHome.htm

GSAM (the gold standard in quant investing; got beat up a little bit during the GFC; has seen some
unprecedented turnover at the most senior rank):
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/gsam/audience_selector/index.html

UBS Global Asset Management (Gary Brinson’s Legacy): http://www.ubs.com/1/e/globalam.html

Mellon Capital: http://www.mcm.com/core/about_us/careers/careers.html

Bridgewater (famous for their All Weather asset allocation product): http://www.bwater.com/

GMO (Jeremy Grantham, a well respected global macro Guru): http://www.gmo.com/America/

IPM (a boutique based out of Sweden which has won awards for its currency overlay strategies and its
quant global macro GTAA strategies): http://www.ipm.se/

Index/Enhanced Indexing:
DFA (advised by Fama and French; the best known name in the value and small cap space): http://jobs-
dimensional.icims.com/jobs/intro

BGI (now part of BlackRock and the biggest asset manager in the world; but the merger means there are
consolidations of positions; they are best known for their academic like research environment; home of
Grinold and Kahn and many other academics):
http://www2.blackrock.com/global/home/Careers/index.htm

SSgA (the second largest asset manager in the world behind BlackRock):
http://www.ssga.com/about_ssga/job_opportunities.html

Northern Trust (mostly US; low cost index implementation):

http://www.northerntrust.com/pws/jsp/display2.jsp?TYPE=careers&XML=pages/ntcareers/1203710604
745_626.xml

Vanguard (Jack Bogle): https://careers.vanguard.com/vgcareers/home/index.shtml

Parametric (tax optimized index management): http://www.parametricportfolio.com/

Legal and General (this low cost leader in indexing in UK):

http://www.legalandgeneral.com/investments/

Hedge Funds:
*I wish that I was more in touch with the hedge fund industry and would be able to help you guys more
with jobs in this area. As far as I know, most of the hedge fund jobs are through networking as hedge
funds don’t really advertise or market publicly (by law), so they mostly operate through networks.

Platinum Grove (Myron Scholes and other Ex-LTCM guys): http://www.pgamlp.com/index.html

Oaktree Capital (mostly fundamental, but a well respected name in the hedge fund space; founder is an
Anderson Alum and the firm has hired many Anderson MBAs before):
http://www.oaktreecapital.com/strategies/

Oak Hill Capital Partners (mostly P/E investing for family offices; the new CIO is Mark Anson, who got
his Ph.D. in finance, so he might make the firm more quant oriented):
http://www.oakhillcapital.com/other_oak_hill_partnerships/index.html

Citadel (one of the UCLA MFE board members run Citadel Securities, while not on the asset mgmt side,
this is still a good contact): http://www.citadelgroup.com/

HFR Asset Management (I think they do what we call “hedge fund replication strategies”, which is
essentially replicating hedge fund strategies with exotic quant factors):
https://portal.hfr.com/msPortal/ShowBinary/BEA%20Repository/hfr/home_pages/Careers/careers.html

Courage Capital (smallish hedge fund shop; there are a lot of them, but it is just hard to find out where
they are and what they do): http://www.couragecap.com/careers.php

Dalton Investments (a hedge fund in the LA area, which is branching out to China):
http://www.daltoninvestments.com/about/about.html

Ivory Capital (a fundamental long-short hedge fund in LA): http://www.ivorycapital.com/

Atrium Investments (a former UCLA Anderson professor is a partner there; it is in Portugal, however):
http://www.atrium.pt/

Vega Asset Management (one of the largest Hedge Fund in Europe):

http://www.vegaassetmanagement.org/

Telesis Capital (employ short term (high frequency) quant trading strategies and managers in multi-
advisor/strategy portfolios): http://www.telesiscapital.com/

Fund of Hedge Funds:

PAAMCO (one of the few FoF in So. Cal; Philippe Jorion is a senior executive there):
http://www.paamco.com/pages/contact/

GOTTEX: https://www.gottexfunds.com/

Dorchester Capital (one of the smaller FoF, but is located in LA; mostly fundamental/qualitative):
http://www.dorchestercapital.com/Default.asp
Guggenheim Partners (they have a huge family office focus, creates solution packages and products for
HWN clients; offers a lot of managed account services; has a huge fund of hedge fund practice) :
http://www.guggenheimpartners.com/about-us.aspx

WR Group (well known FoF but with greater emphasis on platform and systems for facilitation):
http://www.wrgroupholdings.com/

Investment Banking, Custodial Services and Related:

*I-banking is such a large area. You should focus on their structure products, delta-1, derivatives and
fixed income trading areas.

Macquarie Bank (one of the fastest growing i-bank; huge presence in Asia; very respected quant
research team): http://www.macquarie.com/us/about_macquarie/index2.htm

Nomura Securities (the biggest Japanese i-bank; they bought a significant portion of Lehman):
http://www.nomuraholdings.com/careers/

Credit-Suisse: https://www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/

JP Morgan: http://careers.jpmorgan.com/student/jpmorgan/careers

Goldman Sachs: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/careers/

UBS: http://www.ubs.com/1/e/career_candidates/flash.html

HSBC: http://www.hsbcnet.com/ibcareers

Barclays Capital: http://www.barcap.com/Talent+&+Careers

BNP Pariba: http://www.careers.bnpparibas.com/

Soc Gen: http://www.sgcib.com/

Deutsche Bank: http://www.db.com/careers/index_e.html

Morgan Stanley: http://www.morganstanley.com/

Bank of America Merrill Lynch: http://careers.bankofamerica.com/overview/overview.asp

Citigroup: http://www.citigroup.com/citi/homepage/

*Asset servicing means custody, settlement, brokering/trading, lending; doesn’t sound too glamorous,
but it was an enormously lucrative area during the hedge fund hay day. I think there are good
opportunities on the risk management side associated with lending (leverage provision) and also on the
systems development side. Note that just about all i-banks have an asset servicing function. The few I
list below are banks which are not on the i-banking list.
BNY Mellon (a premier asset servicing bank; strong risk management practice):
http://www.bnymellon.com/careers/

Pershing: http://www.pershing.com/careers/index.html

Major Pension Plans with Large Investment Staff:

*The big state pension plans and large endowment plans often run billions of dollars in house as well as
manage external managers who run billions of dollars for the pension plan. A portfolio manager or
researcher could be responsible for running/researching internal equity/bond strategies or researching
and monitoring hedge funds and FoF managers. SWFs are larger and more sophisticated versions of the
sophisticated state pension plans. I list some of the foreign public funds which are very American ex-pat
friendly.

CalPERS (one of the the largest, most well staffed and most visible public pension funds in North
America; runs a lot of assets/strategies internally):
http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/career/home.xml

CalSTRS (a sister organization to CalPERS, but a bit more risk averse):

http://www.calstrs.com/About%20CalSTRS/jobs.aspx

Ontario Teachers (once considered the most sophisticated and intelligent public pension fund in the
world; many ex-Ontario Teachers investment professionals have gone on to become CIOs at other
pension funds): http://www.otpp.com/wps/wcm/connect/otpp_en/Home/Investments/

Caisse de Depote (the Ontario Teachers counterpart in Quebec):

http://www.lacaisse.com/en/Pages/Accueil.aspx

Harvard Endowment (30~40B in asset size; heavily invested in hedge funds, Emerging markets, P/E’s;
PIMCO’s current co-CIO Mohamed El-Erian ran the place for two years prior to the GFC):
http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/working-at-hmc/index.html

Yale Endowment (probably the most famous endowment fund in the world, led by the famous David
Swanson, who started the practice of allocating heavily to alternative asset classes):
http://www.yale.edu/investments/recruiting_2009.html

Stanford Endowment: http://www.stanfordmanage.org/

Columbia Endowment: http://finance.columbia.edu/investments.html

MIT Endowment: http://www.mitimco.org/

Caltech Endowment: http://treasurer.caltech.edu/staff.htm

ADIA (Just about everyone who actual works here are European and American ex-pats; wonderful pay
and great tax treatise; and you are only 1.5 hours from the Dubai; BTW, they also run about 800B in
assets): http://www.adia.ae/En/Gn/careers.aspx

ADIC (similar to ADIA, but just smaller):

http://www.adcouncil.ae/Careers/JobOpenings/tabid/79/Default.aspx

CIC (roughly 300B, but increasing very quickly; runs some of the Chinese foreign reserve money; has
recruited many top fixed income and PE talents from the US, including a MD from PIMCO):
http://www.china-inv.cn/cicen/careers/careers.html

ICD (the Dubai SWF, which is actually quite small compared to other ME SWF; but Dubai is a very livable
ME state): http://www.icd.gov.ae/

Future Fund (The Aussie SWF set up not too long ago; assets may be close to 100B now; Australia is one
of the most financially savvy markets): http://www.futurefund.gov.au/

GIC (The Singaporean SWF reportedly running about 400B; very ex-pat friendly and pays US
compensation): http://www.gic.com.sg/

ABP (The Dutch National Pension, widely considered the most sophisticated public fund in Europe):
http://www.abp.nl/abp/abp/english/about_abp/investments/

NBIM (the asset management arm of the Norwegian central bank; they recently completed a study
concluding that they should invest in quant factor tilted equity strategies): http://www.norges-
bank.no/default____25991.aspx

AP2 (and other AP funds are the national reserve funds of Sweden; they are also considered to be the
more sophisticated public funds in Europe): http://www.ap2.se/en/

Commodities and Currency:

FX Concept: http://www.fx-concepts.com/index.php

Pareto Partners: http://www.paretopartners.com/

EMC Capital: http://www.emccta.com/?gclid=CKWqhbuH7KACFSkYagoduQa9Fw

Capricorn: http://www.capricornfx.com/

Investment Consultants
(note that many Pension Plan CIOs and executive officers were previous investment consultants):

*Please make sure that you apply to the investment consulting and investment management career
areas at the following consulting firms!
Callan Associates (one of the biggest in the U.S.; no global footprint; less quant than others):
http://www.callan.com/about/careers/

Towers Watson (formerly Watson Wyatt; probably the biggest global consultant after the merger; best
known for their Think Ahead Group, which research complex investment challenges/ideas):
http://www.towerswatson.com/careers/

Mercer (UK based; they are one of the two dominant global consultants; wins half of all awards for
investment consulting excellence): http://www.mercer.com/servicestopic.htm?topicId=140200013

Wilshire Associates (conveniently headquartered in Santa Monica; their famous founder, Tito paid 20m
to ride the space shuttle into orbit): https://wilshire.silkroad.com/

Ennis Knupp (one of the more respected names in the U.S.; founder/CEO, Dick Ennis just completed his
term as the Editor of the prestigious FAJ): http://www.ennisknupp.com/Careers/tabid/130/Default.aspx

Russell Investment Consulting (one of the few U.S. consulting firm with a strong global foot print; has
an enormously successful multi-manager practice (meaning large AUM), with mixed investment results):
http://www.russell.com/Institutional/investment_solutions/consulting.asp

Cambridge Associates (a favorite with the endowments and foundations; was early and aggressive with
recommending hedge funds): https://www.cambridgeassociates.com/

NEPC: http://www.nepc.com/

SEI (this consulting firm actually runs assets): http://www.seic.com/enUS/about/958.htm

Analytics Software/Data Provider/Portfolio Software:

Markit (the fastest growing index calculation provider; they are the first choice for people who want
custom index calculation; hires incredibly smart people with solid programming skill to solve hard index
related problems): http://www.markit.com/en/careers/careers-homepage.page?

Thomson Reuters (they bought a bunch of risk analytics and finance data integration service providers;
have huge demand for financial developers to further integrate their products):
http://careers.thomsonreuters.com/

Bloomberg (starting to try to catch up with MSCI Barra; throwing money at more advanced portfolio and
risk modeling analytics): http://about.bloomberg.com/careers.html

MSCI Barra (has research center in SF; does fantastic risk model research and analytics):
http://www.mscibarra.com/about/careers_at_msci_barra.html

FTSE (while not mainstream like MSCI Index, FTSE is better known for its custom index calculation
capabilities/business and more recently for their quant index development):
http://www.ftse.com/About_Us/Careers/index.jsp
S&P (a major equity data provider): http://www.standardandpoors.com/about-sp/careers/en/us

Northfield (one of the better known risk factor/model and portfolio optimization providers):
http://www.northinfo.com/

Capital IQ/Clarifi (the merged entity of two of the premier backtesting expert systems):
http://www.clarifi.com/

Quantal (provides one of the most sophisticated and intelligent risk modeling software; founded by a
group of well known Berkeley and Stanford finance professors): http://www.quantal.com/

FactSet (one of the very best Financial Data/Analytics Integration Platform): http://www.factset.com/

Trade Execution/Securities Dealing/Market making:

*Note that in addition to the market making specialist firms listed below, most i-banks will also act as
market makers and have a market making team.

LaBranche (market making specialist firm): http://www.labfs.com/

Susquehanna (market making firm): http://www.sig.com/

*Note that in addition to the specialist brokerage/liquidity provision firms listed below, most i-banks will
also have a brokerage/trading team.

Instinet: http://www.instinet.com/index.jsp

Liquidnet: http://www.liquidnet.com/

BNY ConvergEX: http://www.bnybrokerage.com/

Rosenblatt Securities: http://rblt.com/

*Financial servicing systems/platforms are big business and lucrative business. Yes, you do a lot of
programming work, but that’s true for most i-banking/quant jobs as well.

ITG (one of the best known names in trading solutions): http://www.itg.com/

Charles Rivers (portfolio management solutions): http://98.131.146.113/products/ims.php

SunGard (portfolio management solutions): http://www.sungard.com/financialsystems.aspx

Advent (portfolio management solutions): http://www.advent.com/

Exchanges:
*The various exchanges actually all hire quantitative researchers.
NYSE Euronext: https://sjobs.brassring.com/EN/asp/tg/cim_advsearch.asp?partnerid=333&siteid=90

NASDAQ: http://careers.nasdaq.com/

CBOE: http://www.cboe.com/

CME: http://www.cmegroup.com/

LME: http://www.lme.com/

London Stock Exchange: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/home/homepage.htm