Your Guide to the Many Flavors of Quant Investing

Quantitative finance has become a buzzword of modern investing, though it’s been around for decades. Thanks in no small part to the success and allure of firms like Renaissance Technologies LLC, quant hedge fund assets have more than doubled over the past eight years, growing to $967 billion by June 2018, according to Hedge Fund Research. All quant strategies use technology and formulas to automate the investment process, rather than rely on an investor’s savvy or a trader’s skills. The resemblance ends there. Some strategies look for a tiny edge that can be exploited in a day; others scour global trends for investments that last for years. Here’s a sampling, from most to least patient.