By 2014, WorldQuant had officially launched the WorldQuant Challenge, with around 30,000 people taking part by May 2016. The year-round competition allowed contestants to use WorldQuant's WebSim platform, an online "financial market simulation tool", to create their own algorithms, or "Alphas", in an effort to predict behavior in the stock market.[13] The challenge resulted in 7,000 active users on the WebSim platform by March 2017, with 450 of those users hired as part-time research consultants[7] through WorldQuant's Research Consultant program.[13]
By April 2015, WorldQuant had 400 employees responsible for managing $4 billion of Millennium's funds, equating to approximately 15% of Millennium's total AUM. WorldQuant's business model continued to rely on data analysis to predict stock market behavior, with researchers analyzing "thousands of data sets to create so-called trading signals." Explains the Wall Street Journal, "A separate team focused on portfolio construction and management sorts through and combines [the trading signals], turning them into models. Many such models, which [are] continuously adjusted, [make] up a fund."[9] By May 2016, WorldQuant had 18 offices with 450 professionals working as researchers, portfolio managers, and technologists.[13]
In February 2017 WorldQuant announced the launch of WorldQuant Accelerator, an independent portfolio manager platform to compete with other open source trading platforms, mainly Numerai, Crunchdao, QuantConnect & Quantopian.[11] At the time of its launch the new platform had 15 independent teams,[8] with plans outlined to double that number over the next two years. The new platform allowed WorldQuant's independent portfolio managers to access WorldQuant technology such as back-testing technologies and impact modeling.[11] The platform also allowed managers to retain the rights to their algorithms, a detail that Bloomberg said was "rare in the industry" and "could help WorldQuant compete for the top minds."[8] The platform is no longer active.
By April 2017, WorldQuant managed more than $5 billion[5] for Millennium Management.[10] Although WorldQuant has never published performance numbers publicly, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2017 that the firm had "never had a down year."[5]
In 2022 WorldQuant initiated Global Alphathon, an international competition where quants build and submit alphas using WorldQuant’s BRAIN platform.[19]
By April 2017 WorldQuant had more than 500 employees, as well as 450 paid research consultants. 125 full-time employees were[5] "PhDs scouring everywhere for recurring patterns that might boost returns,"[7] working as researchers or in other positions.[5] The year prior, WorldQuant had settled out of court on a breach of contract suit concerning a former head of its data strategies.[10][18] By November 2018, the company had 700 employees.[20]
In May 2020, Gary Chropuvka was appointed as president by WorldQuant.[21]
According to Bloomberg on March 16, 2017, "WorldQuant claims to look at thousands of new information sources a year, no matter how exotic. From those, it's built a library of 4 million 'alphas', or pieces of predictive code that tell the computer to buy or sell. Some may be simple, others may be attempts to take advantage of market anomalies. Portfolio managers then construct strategies by using the alphas as building blocks, depending on which the current market environment favors, swapping out ones that may have lost their edge."[7]
By April 2017 the company had analyzed new data sets, including items varying from shipping statistics to credit card receipts to parking lot traffic to market pricing data, creating and compiling 4 million alphas in a central repository[5][7] called the "Alpha Factory". WorldQuant's online platform called WebSim allows its paid consultants to add algorithms to the repository. Other divisions within WorldQuant then combine the alphas into strategies, which are then turned "into bigger portfolios", largely related to stocks.[5]
Related enterprises
WorldQuant University
In 2015 the WorldQuant Foundation launched WorldQuant University, a free online master's degree program in financial engineering.[24][12]
WorldQuant Ventures
In late 2014 Tulchinsky[9] founded WorldQuant Ventures.[25][26] Organized separately from WorldQuant[17] as Tulchinsky's own angel investment fund, the firm's focus is on data and finance companies[25] in "everything from artificial intelligence to water management."[17] 2016 investments included Cycle Computing,[25] Benzinga,[17] and untapt,[27] while 2017 investments included the Canadian research company Canalyst.[28] In December 2021 WorldQuant Ventures invested in AngelList's Early Stage Quant Fund.[29]
^Martin B. Cassidy (December 19, 2016). "Chabad Lubavitch unveils new learning center". The Advocate. Tulchinsky, who immigrated to the United States in 1977 from Belarus and lives in Greenwich, said he has been receiving instruction in the Torah from Rabbi Yossi Deren for the past five or six years, which has had a "positive effect" on his life.
