Some good advice for quantitative traders from Mr. Paul Wilmott

Here is some good advice for trading model builders and quants…

In my view the main reason why quantitative finance is in a mess is because of complexity and obscurity. Quants are making their models increasingly complicated, in the belief that they are making improvements. This is not the case. More often than not each ‘improvement’ is a step backwards. If this were a proper hard science then there would be a reason for trying to perfect models. But finance is not a hard science, one in which you can conduct experiments for which the results are repeatable. Finance, thanks to it being underpinned by human beings and their wonderfully irrational behaviour, is forever changing. It is therefore much better to focus your attention on making the models robust and transparent rather than ever more intricate.

Source :Paul Wilmott’s blog

The idea is to keep it simple…