Quantitative Finance Events in 2024

Despite being one of the most secretive industries in the world, quantitative finance comes to light in the various conferences, competitions, and events held throughout the year. These events bring quants from all over the world to work together on challenging problems and disseminate learnings and knowledge to one another. Not only are such events great for learning, but they also pose special opportunities to network with industry leaders who can help you accelerate your career.

In this article, we cover a handful of the most prominent quant conferences, competitions, and events taking place in 2024. Attending any of these events will give you a significant edge in career opportunities that may otherwise be flooded with competition.

Trading Competitions

4/8 - IMC Prosperity - a global trading competition in which you and your team will use your python skills to create a trading strategy to out-trade your competition on a virtual market. Winners will receive rewards from a $50,000 prize pool.

TBD - Optiver Ready Trader Go - a student coding competition that dives into the world of algorithmic trading. Build a trading algo in Optiver's simulated market exchange and have a chance to win large cash prizes.

Now - Citadel Terminal AI Competition - an AI programming game in which players code algorithms to compete head-to-head, tower-defense style. Winners get access to job opportunities with Citadel and large cash prizes.

4/2 - Citadel Datathon - a global competition in which participants work in teams to solve a financial puzzle in a large complex dataset. Winners get fast-tracked to employment opportunities with Citadel.

TBD - Cornell Trading Competition - compete in your choice of an options, crypto, or equities trading challenge and get the opportunity to win up to $9,000 in cash prizes. The Cornell Trading Competition will be live in Fall 2024.

TBD - Cubist Hackathon - an event held in NYC where students compete to build models from publicly available datasets from NYC's Open Data Project. Winner's get exclusive employment opportunities with Cubist Systematic Strategies.

8/28 - Duke FinTech Trading Competition - a 3-month long event in which student traders from around the world create paper trading accounts and compete in a bracket system for the #1 overall spot. Winners will get recognized by the event's sponsors, including the quantitative finance hedge fund called Schonfeld.

4/13 - University of Washington - Husky Hold'Em - a competition in which teams code autonomous pokerbots that face off in a strategic clash of algorithms and chance. Players compete for a chance to win from a $3,000 prize pool.

1/30 - Rotman International Trading Competition - an annual event that brings teams of students and their faculty advisors for a unique 3-day simulated market challenge. This event is sponsored by the Bank of Montreal (BMO).

TBD - CME Group Crypto Classic - go head to head against fellow traders in a cryptocurrency futures and options tading challenge. Top three traders at the end of the challenge will win cash prizes.

4/12-13 UChicago Trading Competition - a competition for undergraduate students in which they compete in simulated trading, connect with each other, and network with sponsor firms and employers. This is one of the oldest, and most-respected trading competitions in the U.S.

Early Career Programs

AQR Early Engagement Day - an extraordinary opportunity for first and second year undergraduates to learn from AQR professionals, including senior leadership. You'll also gain an inside track into AQR's summer internship program.

Bridgewater Investment Immersion Program - a three-day in-person event designed to give students exposure to Bridgewater's unique culture and systematic approach to understanding how the world works.

Discover Citadel - a two-day event that will allow you to discover Citadel's culture and opportunities in Quantitative Research and Trading.

Flow Traders E-House Day - join Flow Traders for an interactive, virtual opportunity to learn about ETFs and Flow's core business strategy from a Trader and Recruiter at the firm.

Jane Street AMP - a five-week summer program for recent high school graduates interested in math and computer science. There is no cost to attend AMP and all living costs will be covered by Jane Street. Jane Street also hires teaching assistants to help out with this program.

Jane Street FTTP - an opportunity for first-year undergraduates to learn more about Jane Street's innovative trading and technology models through a series of classes and team-based mock trading simulation games.

Optiver Insight Days - comprehensive, multi-day events hosted at Optiver's Amsterdam office in which you'll get the opportunity to network with Traders, Researchers and Engineers at the firm.

Five Rings Winternship - a 4-week long program that includes immersion in hands-on projects, classroom instruction, in-house built strategy games, and mock trading. You'll also be apart of a series of trading talks and activities in NY.

Virtu Financial Women's Winternship - a hands-on curriculum on a wide array of topics, including trading, market structure, data analytics and visualization, and regression modeling.

Closing Remarks

Thanks for reading this article. If you enjoyed it, feel free to check out more of our content on our quant blog. Also, if you’re looking for job openings in quantitative finance check out OpenQuant for the best quant jobs.