Nick Patterson was one smart dude. Math genius, stats wiz and perhaps the top code breaker for the British government for many years. But even he couldn’t figure out how his new employer was minting so much money. Patterson joined up with hedge fund manager Jim Simons and his “math dream team” in 1993. Simons was a renowned mathematician who plucked top academic talent from leading universities in setting up one of the world’s first major “quant” funds. “Quant” is of course slang for “quantitative.” These guys developed math models and built computer programs that profited from clues delivered by price action alone.… Read more