Quantitative Portfolio Management Panel and Joint Networking Event (October 12, 2018)

On a Friday evening alums from the NYU Courant’s Mathematics in Finance and Columbia’s Financial Engineering programs got together for a joint event on quantitative portfolio management. The event featured well-known market practioners and portfolio managers, including Ian Adelson, David Angel, Attakrit Asvanunt, Kelsey Letang, and Gordon Ritter (see their bios below).

Moderated by Joseph Cerniglia, the panel discussion cover topics such as alpha research practices, portfolio management techniques, managing people and leadership. The large audience provided a lot of insightful and interesting questions.

Ian Adelson, Director of Research, Exile Capital Management
Mr. Adelson is the Director of Research at Exile Capital Management. Previously, he was a principal at Atlas Merchant Capital from 2014 to 2016, and an investment analyst at Kingdon Capital Management from 2008 to 2013. Before that, Mr. Adelson was a trader on the credit proprietary trading desk at Societe Generale from 2007 to 2008. Mr. Adelson holds a M.S. in Mathematics in Finance from NYU Courant, a M.A. from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, and a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Emory University. Mr. Adelson has passed all three exams in the Chartered Financial Analyst program.

David Angel, Principal, 683 Capital Partners
Mr. Angel is a Principal for 683 Capital Partners, a long-biased hedge fund that targets dislocations and special situations across industries, geographies, and capital structures. Previously, he was a portfolio manager for Geode Capital, a fund founded by Fidelity, where he oversaw the portfolio of derivative investments. David’s investment experience began more than a decade ago, and includes spending four years as an associate in equity volatility strategies at Goldman Sachs. He has earned an M.S. from NYU Courant in the Mathematics in Finance, an M.S. from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Attakrit Asvanunt, Senior Vice President, Two Sigma
Mr. Asvanunt is a Senior Vice President at Two Sigma Investments, where he is responsible for expanding the firm’s trading capabilities into the credit and fixed income markets. Prior to Two Sigma, Attakrit was a senior researcher and a portfolio manager at AQR Capital Management, where he oversaw research and managed credit strategies across multiple funds. Before that, he was a quantitative researcher at Barclays and Lehman Brothers. Attakrit earned a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and an M.Eng. in Financial Engineering from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Columbia University.

Kelsey Letang, Researcher, GSA Capital Partners
Ms. Letang is a Researcher for GSA Capital Partners, a global quantitative investment manager, where she focuses on fundamentally-motivated, systematic long-short equity signals. Previously, she worked for SG Americas on the high yield credit desk (formerly credit arbitrage proprietary trading). She has a M.S. in Mathematics in Finance from NYU Courant, an HBSc in Mathematics and its Application to Finance from the University of Toronto, and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Gordon Ritter, Adjunct Professor NYU Courant, Rutgers and Baruch College  
Gordon Ritter completed his Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Harvard University in 2007, where his published work ranged across the fields of quantum computation, quantum field theory, differential geometry and abstract algebra. Prior to Harvard he earned his Bachelor’s degree with honours in mathematics from the University of Chicago. Prof. Ritter is currently a Professor at NYU, Rutgers, and the award-winning Baruch MFE program, where his research interests are focused on portfolio optimization and statistical machine learning. Prof. Ritter is also a leader in the quantitative trading industry. He is preparing to launch his own company which will manage money for institutional clients by means of high-Sharpe pure alpha systematic trading strategies. He has ten years’ experience doing this; most recently he built a successful trading system from scratch at GSA Capital, a firm which won the Equity Market Neutral & Quantitative Strategies category at the Eurohedge awards four times. Prior to GSA, Gordon was a Vice President of Highbridge Capital and a core member of the firm’s statistical arbitrage group, which although less than 20 people, was responsible for billions in profit and trillions of dollars of trades across equities, futures and options with low correlation to traditional asset classes.