Vital Stats
HOMETOWN: Prince George, British Columbia
Master's Program:New York University (Courant Institute), Master of Science of Mathematics in Finance
Undergraduate Degree:Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario
Honors: Graduated with Distinction for an A- average.
Internships: Summer 2008 I interned with Susquehanna International Group in Dublin. I worked on the commodities desk and was involved with creating models for energy prices.
Mentor: Professor Giuseppe Campolieti, one of my undergraduate professors, who has done work with Professor Peter Carr, who teaches at NYU.
Work Experience: After earning two undergraduate degrees--one in business and one in math—and working in a quantitative position at UBS, Taylor decided to further enhance his quantitative skill set and enrolled in NYU's program.
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- Qualifications and Background
- Aspirations
- Beyond the Numbers
Advanced Trading: Why did you choose to pursue a master's degree in finance, and why did you choose New York University's program?
Taylor: I worked in a quantitative position at UBS, but I knew I needed to further enhance my quantitative skill set to make a step forward, so I looked at math finance programs. In my undergraduate studies, I took a few math finance courses, so it kind of got me thinking about it prior to leaving there. The reason I chose NYU, for one, is the location -- the proximity to the financial capital of the world. This was one university that was not only really well regarded but was also in a prime location. And the faculty just seems to be the best out there -- they're so interconnected to the Street. Not only do they put out really good research, they have strong ties with financial companies.
AT: What is your math background? Do you have any prior programming experience?
Taylor: I earned two degrees in undergrad -- a business degree and a math degree. So that's my math background. In terms of programming, I learned some programming through a couple of university courses. We did some C programming, VBA (Visual Basic Applications) and then MATLAB. In my positions at UBS I was heavily involved with systems design and programming, so I picked it up on the job.
AT: What classes are you taking that will be essential to helping you be more prepared for a job on Wall Street?
Taylor: Probably the time series and stat arb course that I'm taking right now. The master's project that we're working on is going to be quite useful. We're working with Adjunct Professor Robert Almgren (cofounder of Quantitative Brokers) on optimal execution-type things. So we're working on a real-world problem, and it's likely that if we do it well, it will be implemented at his brokerage.
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AT: How would you rate your knowledge of the business of financial services, on a scale of 1 to 10?
Taylor: I would say probably an 8 or 9. I worked for a couple of years at UBS, which gave me some good insight. And being here and attending some seminars and just reading a lot about what's going on in the news has really helped.
AT: Discuss your training in statistics and your ability to analyze data.
Taylor: My training started in undergraduate. I took a few different stats courses -- probability theory and time series analysis. I'm also doing a CFA, and I passed the Level 3 exam. And I did a bit of statistical material there, especially in Level 1 in terms of normal distributions, expectancy and so on. And now in the M.S.M.F. program, there are a number of courses with some level of data analysis.
We're required to use programs for a lot of our assignments to create simulations of data series or fit data series to a particular model and look at how well that data series fits using confidence estimators, for example. Data analysis is one of the most emphasized or most important skills in the program, and not necessarily just the abstract concepts of option-pricing theory.
I'd say also that through the master's program, we learned different programming languages for analyzing data. And through my work experiences, I worked a ton with databases. All those things combined -- practical work experience, CFAs, undergrad and then the master's program -- have come together to give me a lot of experience.
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AT: Why did you choose to pursue a career on Wall Street?
Taylor: When I did my undergrad I did business and math, and I noticed that with math there wasn't really in itself that many uses for it. You could be a professor or you could do research in math. To actually use something — to directly go into a career and use math and make money and be successful — quantitative finance seemed to be the ticket. I thought it was the best possible way to utilize the skills that I have in a business setting.
Finance is a bit of a special profession as well. If you are trading or in the investment-banking world, it's a very challenging, very dynamic career, and I don't think you can get that at a lot of other places. That was another big factor for me, being someone who seeks out challenges and new things — it was definitely something that pulled me toward this area.
AT: In what type of role would you like to start?
Taylor: When I left my job at UBS to go back to school, I thought I wanted to be a trader straight up. I spent the summer on a commodities desk; I really got good insight into what being a trader is like. And there are aspects that I liked. You always have to pay attention to what's going on and be with it, read the news and so on. But at the same time, you've got to separate yourself from the market a little bit and think of everything in terms of probability and what's my expected payout from this trade or that trade, like a game of poker. While I like playing poker and I like trading, I don't know if I want to do that all the time. .... I'd like a position where I can sit back and think about things a little bit longer and try and be more creative. Right now I'm debating as to whether I want to be a trader or if I want to be in a position where I'm developing strategies, maybe on the buy side.
AT: What do you see yourself doing in two years? In 10 years?
Taylor: It's not so important to me that I do any specific thing so much as being really good at what I'm doing. In the next couple of years I'd like to be in a position where I'm learning a lot. It's more important to be in a position where, first of all, you're learning and, second of all, you are meeting people, bouncing ideas off of people, making connections.
In the next 10 years, just being in a position where I'm successful — that's enough for me. If I could choose between the two things, I would think it would be more important for me to be really good than to just be in charge. I think ideally you'd want to have both things. But in this world where there is so much talent, it's hard to ask for both.
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AT: Do you have a preference — buy side or sell side?
Taylor: I was more geared toward the sell side at first, but now I'm kind of coming back to the buy side — in either trading or asset management, such as quantitative strategies. Working at a software company or in risk management would not interest me at all.
AT: Name three firms you'd like to work for.
Taylor: I'd really like to go to Goldman Sachs, that's one for sure. A lot of the big banks I would like to go to, such as Morgan Stanley or JPMorgan. There's also buy-side divisions of investment banks that are still actively recruiting.
AT: What three questions would you ask a prospective employer?
Taylor: What is most important to me is understanding my function as an employee, including what skills are going to be needed for me to contribute. I'd want to understand the environment, including how the position interacts with other people. A job might be good on paper, but maybe the company is going to shove you in a corner and make you do data analysis all the time, and there's not going to be too much interaction or teamwork. I would want to know about the main objective of the group and what the objective may be specifically for the open position. What are the expectations of the position's contributions?
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AT: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Taylor: I frequent the gym — work out, run. I go out with my friends, socialize, go to the park. I do a lot of traveling — I've probably been on 15 or 20 plane rides this year so far. I like to see new cultures, dine out, which kind of goes hand in hand with traveling because you go somewhere and you try the food. Sometimes you're really surprised. I was in Hungary this summer; the food was outstanding, but I find that no one talks about Hungarian cuisine. And did I say photography?
AT: Name one thing you did this summer for fun.
Taylor: I went surfing off the west coast of Ireland. It was a really cool experience, I'd never been surfing before, and I never thought Ireland would be the place to do it — the climate is not that good. You get bundled in a wet suit, and you just get out there and the waves are great.
AT: Describe one of your personal goals beyond a career on Wall Street.
Taylor: I have a travel goal — I want to visit all seven continents. I've been to a few already. I've got a couple of friends who all want to do this. We travel together and we kind of aim for one trip a year.
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AT: Is there anything else you feel is important that you would like to mention?
Taylor: With the crisis that's going on in the financial markets, there's so much risk out there, and there's potential for the entire landscape of the industry to be transformed, if it hasn't been transformed already. With the big investment banks gone and more banks failing and the buyout package passed by Congress, my career in the industry and what we're going to school for is going to be different. My expectations are almost changing every day.
If I had been in this program two years ago, I would have expected to come out and make a $40,000 signing bonus plus a $100,000 base salary plus a good annual bonus. Now it's not really clear that those things will be available. I may have to look outside finance for future income needs.
This industry is very risk-intensive, and even if I'm in a specialized degree — there's been 100 percent internship employment at my school — it's still important to look beyond our current education for future sources of income and employment. Now it's more evident than ever that there are risks in the market and day-to-day life. Even if I get a job, which is very likely, there is still a potential that a bank could fail and I'm out on the street. What am I going to do then? To be in this industry you have to prepare yourself for such risks and not just concentrate on your job.
AT: Do you trade at all? Have you ever built any algorithmic models for trading?
Taylor: I haven't really traded, per se, on my own personal view in the market. I've sent out orders (at UBS), but I certainly haven't been involved with anything algorithmic in practice. At Susquehanna I built a pricing model -- it was a tool that was used in trading by the traders, but usually summer interns don't get the chance to pull the trigger on anything.
Right now I'm working on a group master's project with Robert Almgren — we're developing an algorithmic way of trading financial futures. But it's more looking for arbitrage or coming up with optimal bid/ask. ... When I think of algorithmic trading, I think of trying to minimize market impact or executing trades in quantities and frequencies in such a way that it gives you the best possible price, where this is more looking at tick-by-tick data and identifying the best price.
AT: Choose one word to describe yourself.
Taylor: Motivated.
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