Jim Simons’s flagship medallion fund generated a return of 66% returns continuously from the past 30 years.He died recently at the age of 86
In the world of Quant finance, certain names stand out like shining beacons of success whose story has been told for ages, and one such name was Jim Simons. Jim Simons is a figure of legendary status; his name is taken with great respect among investors and mathematicians alike. His story is one of brilliance, innovation, and unparalleled success in the realm of quantitative investing.
The legendary investor and his wife, Marilyn Simons, have donated Billions of dollars to hundreds of philanthropic causes, particularly those supporting math and science research and education. In 1994, they established the Simons foundation, which supports scientists worldwide in advancing the research on science and Mathematics. Let’s look at his early life, his contribution to math, and his legendary fund.
The Early Life Of Jim Harris Simons
Source: Simons as a Student. From The Man Who Solved the Market, by G. Zuckerman
James Harris Simons, known as Jim, was born on April 25, 1938, in Newton, Massachusetts. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958 and earned his Ph.D in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley at the age of 23. His thesis on differential geometry at the university paved the way for his career in finance.
Before achieving Legendary status on Wall Street, he was a code-breaker for the National Security Agency, applying his mathematical expertise to decipher encrypted enemy communications during the Vietnam War. He spent some time teaching at Harvard and MIT before taking the Job at NSA. He was a code breaker at the NSA and a great scholar. After the war, he returned to Stony Brook University as the chair of the Mathematics Department. Meanwhile, in 1976, Simons received the American Mathematical Society’s Oswald Veblen Prize in differential Geometry research that would prove to be influential to string theory and other areas of physics.
In 1982, he founded Renaissance Technologies, which employed mathematical models and algorithms to predict market movement. He was also questioned for tax evasion by US authorities, and his firm settled it for $7 Billion.
The Chern–Simons Form and Minimal Submanifolds in Riemannian Geometry
Source: Chern Simons form in active and passive symmetry
Jim Simons has contributed significantly to the field of Mathematics. Talking about all his contributions is out of the scope of the article. Let’s talk about the two theories that have gained him major attention in the field of academia.
Chern-Simons form is named after mathematicians Shiing-Shen Chern and James Harris Simons. It is a mathematical construct that plays a fundamental role in theoretical physics, particularly in the field of topological quantum field theory. The goal of the theory was to provide a topological field theoretic description of physical phenomena, particularly the excitation of the quantum hall system such as Anyons. In a nutshell, this theory was used to study the essence of the shapes of manifolds in condensed matter physics, and it is also very useful for finding gravitational properties in quantum field theory.
Source: stonybrook.edu
One of his other significant works includes his work on minimal submanifolds in Riemannian geometry. This paper delved into studying surfaces or higher dimensional objects that are as small as possible in the larger space. It was helpful in understanding the behavior of surfaces in space-time with general relativity.
The Renaissance Man’s Renaissance
Source: rentec.com
In an interview with CNBC in 2016, Jim Simons said, “I have no opinion on any stocks; the computer has its opinion, and we follow it.” In 1982, the legendary investor founded Renaissance Technologies. The firm’s early years were not that easy, as per the book by Greg Zuckerman, ”The Man Who Solved The Market.” Through the 1980s, the firm struggled to make any money despite the best mathematicians working with him. Following this, Simons had Elwyn Berlekamp, a prominent game theorist at that time. He designed the firm’s trading system from the ground up, and it worked. In 1990, the firm was able to make 66% of the return after the net fees.
Renaissance Technologies is registered with SEC, NFA, and CFTC. The team medallion fund consists of 90 Ph.D. members, including mathematicians, physics, computer scientists, and other related fields. Their research database collects 40 Terabytes of data daily with 150 gigabits per second of global connectivity. One of the prominent features of this medallion fund is that it rarely loses any money, even if the whole market corrects.
A Genius Whose Work Transcends Through Time
Source:Hedgefollow.com
Jim Simons was an academician, investor, and a great philanthropist. He and his firm have certainly left a mark in the financial world. One of the other amazing things about the firm was that its returns were almost always negative with the market(=-0.41). In one of the interviews, Simons revealed that he used to go to trading floors and collect data manually about everything, such as “How many cars are there in a particular airport or Walmart shop, or what color types of pants were worn mostly that day?” His academic work has contributed significantly to quantum gravitational fields and string theories. He died at the age of 86, whose cause was not revealed by the firm. One of the famous quotes of the investor about his trading algorithm was, “The system is always leaking, and we keep having to add water to keep it ahead of the game.” The world lost a legend on 10th May 2024 whose work will be remembered forever.
