December 1, 2019
The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
Gregory Zuckerman
The Man Who Solved the Market, holiday reading for River Road associates, tells the remarkable story of former math professor Jim Simons and the secretive investment firm he built, Renaissance Technologies. With an annualized return of +39% (after fees) over the past 30 years, and not a single year of negative returns, Renaissance’s Medallion Fund is arguably the most successful investment fund in history. The book describes how Simons assembled a team of brilliant, and often quirky, mathematicians and computer programmers to identify complex patterns in the market. We especially enjoyed the author’s insights about the many challenges Renaissance faced in developing its algorithms and Simon’s perseverance.