The Man Who Solved the Market

Jim Simmons is not your regular trader with a computer screen and a bunch of offices. He’s the man armed with physicists, mathematicians as opposed to finance pros.It’s a terrific book on many counts and I wish to notify a few hereJim Simmons was a genius mathematician who thought he could crack the market by identifying patterns and developed a system.The system was not build in a day, It took multi decades with people armed with knowledge and perseverance to develop that system.As like any entrepreneur, Jim faced his set our adversity, challenges and setbacks which is a lesson that no matter who you are you have to go through such challenges.Another stunning lesson, Success rate of Renaissance was 50.7 % which means of the 100 trades they do they succeed only in 50.7 of them, despite which they were able to make a stunning CAGR of 66 % for 3 decades approx. Warren Buffett’s rate of return is around 23 % yet the time invested was higher in Buffett’s case. 3 lessons here 1. Your performance in business or trading or anything is driven by tails.2. Compounding is the secret to wealth.3. Mistakes are inevitable but make sure those mistakes doesn’t break you. You should be successful even with a 30 % success rate.Why I liked the book - As an investor I’ve learned there’s no 1 way to nirvana. Try and adapt to what suits you. But over arching theme is all major principles work for everyone. Like compounding, hard-work, Tail events , Rationality etc.

The book provides a detailed history of how Jim Simons started the Quant revolution and build Renaissance to what it is today. An eye opener was the number of different people other than Jim who contributed to building the company into what it has become. If you're looking for the intricate details of what algorithms and strategies are employed then you're not going to find that here.

Gives you a very good insight on how things work & you can get an idea about thing or two if you read carefully

It's a life changing story to know,author's storytelling skills are marvelous, i read the whole book in like 2 days, non stop, it totally changed my view towards the market.Must read for programmers interested in money :)

The author Zuckerman has really taken great efforts to bring Renaissance secretive trading into limelight. Even though the book never mentions anything about the quant strategies but the entire vision with which Jim Simons along with his team did the quant revolution.

I read the book expecting much more about Jim Simons and the manner in which he spearheaded the mathematical approach to financial markets. The book definitely throws light on various aspects of Simon’s multi-dimensional life. However, I was disappointed with the extreme thrust on financial jargon which doesn’t render the book an easy read and one meant for all readers. People specialising in financial markets though may find it of some help. The discussions sometimes appear to be superficial and are just meant to increase the number of pages than to shed some real light on the subject. Readers would only get a passing reference to the larger contributions of Simons to the society as the same hasn’t been so enthusiastically portrayed by the author, akin to the interest shown by him while discussing the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the role Bob Mercer and his daughter played in the successful campaign. The book doesn’t stand up to its claim on the cover page and hasn’t done justice to Simons’ life and his achievements and the way Simons became a trailblazer in the financial world. At some points the content is pathetically pedantic and beats around the bush while describing people and events. The endeavour to write this book is nonetheless appreciable on a difficult subject as discussed in the book. I was definitely anticipating a lot more than delivered by the book.

Detailed yet precise, a rare quality.

Engaging , simple and a must read for stock market lovers

Excelente libro sobre la anécdota de como los fisicos dominaron wall street, necesario leer para replantearnos nuestro papel en el mercado

Além da envergadura da biografia de Simons, que todos que tiveram algum contato com, seja através da imprensa ou por seus números de performance estrondosos, conheciam ou ao menos imaginavam, não podemos deixar de nos surpreender positivamente com a qualidade do material como um todo, demandou muito esforço e pesquisa , algo realmente surpreendente. Ainda nessa linha, observações feitas em relação a qualidade do livro tornam-se indissociáveis com a qualidade do escritor, digno de um campeão de literatura. Por outro lado, se vc espera encontrar no livro um guia para ganhar dinheiro, uma espécie de tutorial, esqueça, vc está no filme errado; mas se for para dar uma luz de qual caminho deva seguir, aí sim , vc encontrou o lado certo.

highly readable book

More details than I was expecting, an entertaining page turner that shows Simons was only human. Arguably his biggest talent was in selling the vision and building an incredible team around him.

De forma sucinta: Adorei o livro.O Jim Simmons gerou 64% de compounded annual growth rate em 34 anos. Basicamente 1 € para 30 MILHÕES (ignorando management fees mas ainda assim os retornos deles são absurdos e ninguém se aproxima deles).Gostei muito de saber mais sobre a história desse senhor, sobre o crescimento da Rennaissance e sobre o impacto dessa empresa e dos seus funcionários no mundo (exemplo: Trump e Brexit só aconteceram devido à influência de um deles).Vale a pena ler, mesmo para quem não está interessado em quantitative trading.