Recent news has said that Stanley Drunkenmiller, owner of Duquesne Capital management, is considering buying a majority stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Stanley Druckenmiller and the Steelers)

I’ve known of Stanley for a while, and have tried to gain them as a client, mainly because they’re in Pittsburgh and I always like trying to help my hometown, but from what I understand they are mainly a fundamental shop.

About Stan: (From Wikipedia)

Stanley Druckenmiller formerly managed money for George Soros, and now dedicates himself to work full time at Duquesne Capital which he founded in 1981. He is married to Dreyfus Corporation (a Mellon Financial Corporation subsidiary) manager Fiona Biggs, niece of former Morgan Stanley global investment strategist Barton Biggs. In 1985, he became a consultant to Dreyfus and lived in New York City two days each week. He moved there full-time when he was named head of the Dreyfus Fund. He was hired by George Soros in 1988 to replace Victor Niederhoffer at Quantum Fund. With an estimated current net worth of around $3.5 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 91st-richest person in America. He left Soros in 2000 after taking large losses in technology stocks. Since then he concentrated full time on Duquesne Capital, which has had a very successful track record. He is profiled in the book The New Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager.

Druckenmiller is also chairman of the board of the renowned Harlem Children’s Zone, a multi-faceted, community-based project that, according to their website available here *[1], “is a pioneering, non-profit, community-based organization that works to enhance the quality of life for the children and families in some of New York City’s most devastated neighborhoods.” Harlem Children’s Zone was founded by Druckenmiller’s college friend and fellow Bowdoin College alum Geoffrey Canada. Stanley & Fiona are also principal sponsors of the New York City AIDS walk.

• Quantitative Analyst (NYC, HF) – 2 years experience, Vol Arb and Equity Derivatives, programming Matlab, Excel/VBA, SQL. Experience with C++ is a plus.

• Quantitative Analyst, Fixed Income (undisclosed) - 5-7 years experience.
  

• Equities PM (NYC or London, Bank) – VP/Dir level, Midcap/Small cap a plus, if in Europe they could build a team.

• Quantitative Analyst (NYC and London, Bank) – Equities, 2-3 exp years in a strats (pref equities), C++ and Java.

• Software Developer (West Coast, Prop Firm) – Extremely strong, primarily a Java shop but will consider extremely strong developers in C++/C#.

• Quantitative Trader (Chicago, Prop Firm) – Long Short Equities, monitor and provide execution, 2-3 experience in development (Java preferred), CS or Quantitative degree.

• Jr. Quant (CT, HF) – Jr. developer with skills to become a quant. developing research systems, back-testing and connectivity, nice to have a supercomputing background.

• Jr. Energy Trader (NYC, HF)

• Assistant / Execution trader (NYC, HF)

• Quantitative Analyst, Energy (CT, HF) – FTR a plus

• Developers (NYC, Bank) – C++ devs for high frequency desk, extremely strong, no finance exp needed.

As usual we have several PM (Quant Trader and Trader) roles open and a few relationships that look selectively on an opportunistic basis. Due to the confidentiality of these roles and our clients, these will not be posted.

For more information I can be reached at mmoye (at) smithhanley or via phone at 212-915-0522.

Here Come the Quants (via: LiveMint.com, Wall Street Journal)

“These seem to be good days for program trading in India.The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) announced on Thursday that it would allow large institutional investors to buy and sell stocks directly, without any manual intervention by their brokers.” (Read More >>>)

Via Guardian.Co.UK

1. John Paulson, New York, Paulson & Co. $3bn

2. Phil Falcone, New York, Harbinger Capital Partners. $1.5bn-2bn

3. Jim Simons, New York, Renaissance Technologies. $1.5bn-$2bn

4. Steve Cohen, Connecticut, SAC Capital Advisors. $1bn-$1.5bn

5. Ken Griffin, Chicago, Citadel Investment Group. $1bn-$1.5bn

6. Chris Hohn, London, The Children’s Investment Fund. $800m-$900m

7. Noam Gottesman, London, GLG Partners. $700m-$800m

8. Alan Howard, London, Brevan Howard Asset Management. $700m-$800m

9. Pierre Lagrange, London, GLG Partners. $700m-$800m

10. Paul Tudor Jones, Connecticut, Tudor Investment. $600m-$700m

————–

Interesting fact, we cover quite a bit of this list.  - Matt (mmoye smithhanley com)

It’s official, my family and I have decided to move back to Pittsburgh for the next couple years and bought a house in the area. I will continue to stay with Smith Hanley Associates, and besides my location nothing really will change in my job except instead of sitting next to one of my colleagues at my desk and working remotely to NY and London, I’ll sit in Pittsburgh. We contemplated and almost did move to NY or CT this year, but decided to push our plans back until it made more sense for our family.

Besides this making sense for family reasons, in many ways this will be more convenient for travel and my hours. My office will be approximately 15 minutes from the Pittsburgh International Airport (O’Hare Delays!), and I’ll be back on Eastern Time. Although most of the time I stay in hotels, my trips to both Chicago and NY will continue to be easy because of family in both locations.

Lastly, 35 years of Steeler tickets in our family! I already know one the candidates I placed, a former CMU alum, is a big Steeler fan, but any others feel free to let me know if you head back to the area for a game.

It’s been some time since I posted anything besides News, so before we head into this year’s bonus season I thought it made sense to briefly post. It’s been a very busy fall, and I don’t expect a slow down soon.

Last week I traveled to London to visit one of our retained clients, and next week I’ll be in NYC for both our company party and to meet with a couple candidates that recently started at new opportunities through us.

As with any year, everyone will be waiting diligently for the announcement of their large gift under the Christmas tree (bonus), but for some books that are tied to netting of their whole fund or asset class at banks, the expectations are up in the air. This being said, there is a certain buzz at a few other funds and desks that took advantage of the market.

Lastly, if you’re considering a move this upcoming January – March, it makes sense to get on our radar now so we can adequately map out where you’d like to look.

Cheers,
Matt
mmoye (at) smithhanley.com

PS: On a side note, Virgin Atlantic is pretty awesome, and I will definitely be flying with them again.

Simons at Renaissance Cracks Code, Doubling Assets

Although my trip to NY last week was scheduled to the hour with appointments and meetings, it didn’t help that this was through the beginning of the volatile market we’ve seen lately, and finally I was fortunate enough to be stuck in the subway for a couple hours Wednesday morning at 6:30 AM.

All in all, it was a great trip and I really shouldn’t be complaining, but it’s amazing how drained I was, and the recovery time needed for my inbox at the home office. As usual I stayed connected via a small laptop and my blackberry, but it never seems to makeup for the time at breakfast, lunch, and dinners or travel.

I always said I’d map out a trip with pictures, but after a couple snaps at the beginning, I was in too much of a rush to dig it out of my bag. Maybe I’ll try to do so the trip to NY the week of September 3^rd, or trip to London September 26^th….

I will be in NY the week of the 6^th. Outside of my meetings already scheduled, please feel free to reach me to meet up. My schedule is pretty tight, but I’m always up for meeting for coffee or drinks. I’ll also be in London near the end of August but have not confirmed the dates yet. Depending if I have time, I may map out the trip with few quick pictures while in NY or London.

Btw, who wants to invite me to Doostang.com? 

Source: CNNMoney “Citigroup Inc. is in advanced talks to buy Automated Trading Desk, an electronic trading firm, for about $700 million, in a further push by the banking giant into the trading of stocks by computerized programs rather than by people, according to a media report Tuesday.”

…”it handled about 6% of the trading volume in major U.S. stock markets last year, sometimes accounting for 200 million of shares traded per day”