Event review of the “Quantopian event series” hosted by the Swiss Finance + Technology Association, Quantopian and the University of Zurich.

General

The Swiss Finance + Technology Association welcomed Quantopian, a Boston-based Fintech platform, to a highly successful event series in May 2017 held in Zurich. Over three days our members and guests were able to gain a deeper understanding about how technology is changing the world of investing.

May 18th: Basic Statistical Arbitrage: Understanding the Math Behind Pairs Trading

We kicked off the series on May 18th, with more than fifty people attending the event. The introduction event: “Basic Statistical Arbitrage: Understanding the Math behind pairs” took place at the University of Zurich. Students and professors from several Swiss Universities, quants, as well as financial professionals listened to the presentation.

“The basic introduction to algo-trading was very informative when it comes to statistical arbitrage and respective tools. Mr. Mackenzie introduced us quite interestingly to the world of Quantopian and informed us about all the possibilities one has on their website before diving into the technicalities. All in all, it was an enjoyable event, which encouraged to delve deeper into the matter.” – Victoria Luisa Keller, ETH Student

May 19th: Professional lunch with Delaney MacKenzie

On May 19th, we welcomed guests to a business lunch next to the Limmat. Delaney MacKenzie, Director of Academia at Quantopian, gave a talk on how subconscious biases affect investment decisions and why algorithms can help to avoid them. Mr. Mackenzie answered many questions from the audience, which was mainly composed by a number of high-profile professionals of the Zurich area.

“Quantopian, a Boston-based Fintech focusing on open-source Quantitative Finance solutions platform, has ramped up already an impressive 130.000 users and presented their philosophy and business model at this exclusive event of the Swiss Finance + Technology Association” – Dr. Daniel Diemers, PwC Partner/Vice President at Strategy&

May 20th: Quantopian Workshop Zurich – An Introduction to Algorithmic Trading

On May 20th, the core event of the Quantopian series took place. The introduction to Algorithmic Trading was a great opportunity for both students and professionals to learn more about algo-trading. With the direct supervision of Delaney Mackenzie, the participants went into a deep learning process, which combined theory and practice.

“Quantopian believes talent is uniformly distributed around the globe. Zurich is a big center of education and an attractor of that talent, so we’re excited to build our presence in the city.” – Delaney Mackenzie, Quantopian, Director of Academia

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The Swiss Finance + Technology Association was honoured to host Quantopian in their first visit to Europe and Switzerland. We thank Delaney MacKenzie for his trip and the time he offered. We were able to open an interesting door into Algo-Trading and we hope that our members can benefit from this type of investment strategy that seems to offer great results.

If you want to learn more about the information presented during the events, we strongly recommend you to visit Quantopian’s website, where you can find everything online for free!

Quotes

“I was very happy to see a high level of interest in quantitative finance and algorithmic trading in Zurich. I got lots of great questions at all our events and hope to see growth in quant finance and FinTech in general in Zurich.” – Delaney Mackenzie, Quantopian, Director of Academia

“Quantopian has become the knowledge center for parties interested in quant finance (students, researchers, academia, finance professionals) and has established Quantcon, the signature educational event in algo trading. We believe that these presentations will help to demonstrate the Swiss finance eco system the links between changes in financial services industry and education. We saw great response from Swiss quant academic, professionals and student community for organizing this event and hope for the continued dialogue.” – Ekaterina Sirotyuk, Investment Manager, Credit Suisse Investment Products and Services

“Another Great Meetup within our ‘Democratizing Wall Street’ series — Quantopian has developed a very interesting and disruptive business model around quantitative finance and it was great to hear their story directly from Delaney MacKenzie.” – Dr. Daniel Diemers, PwC Partner/Vice President at Strategy&/Board Member of the Swiss Finance + Technology Association

“It was my great pleasure to attend the Quantopian event in Zurich. I was really impressed by the preparation of Delaney and the capacity he had to easily connect different kind of statistical measures in cross-areas. I would strongly suggest attending this kind of meetings.” – Vincenzo Riflesso, Leonteq, Director, Risk Specialist