The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

Gregory Zuckerman

Nov 2019 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Will Damron

About this audiobook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

The perfect gift for the avid reader on your list: the unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm--and made $23 billion doing it.

Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars.

Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world.

As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit.

The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.

*Includes a PDF of Appendices 1 and 2 with charts

Ratings and reviews

Excellent research into Jim Simmons' pioneering quantitative trading achievements. A real page turner for anyone interested in trading. Could have been called "Reminisces of a Quant Operator." Somewhat weak and shallow and left of center on national politics and the intrinsic value of capitalism, replete with false dichotomies and strawman fallacies. Maybe just pandering a bit to prospective movie producers. Otherwise very engaging.

It's fact based and indepth as much as possible, from purely outside in, would be a good foundation for anyone to start, a nevertheless mission impossible task ...a fun read truly!

If you want to learn more about quant investment as a whole, this is a good introduction. An in-depth take of Jim Simons and his fund Renaissance Technologies. Gripping and intellectual enough for a single sitting.

About the author

Gregory Zuckerman is the author of The Greatest Trade Ever and The Frackers, and is a Special Writer at the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal, Zuckerman writes about financial firms, personalities and trades, as well as hedge funds and other investing and business topics. He's a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Zuckerman also appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and radio stations around the globe.