Peter Muller has been described as a quant legend – he is not your average trader on Wall Street. “He is up there with the best and brightest, bar none” according to Paul Tudor Jones, the billionaire hedge fund manager.
Peter Muller was ranked 17th on Forbes Highest-Earning Hedge Fund Managers in 2017.
He has been described as a mathematics wizard, a person with diverse intellectual interests and hobbies. Some say Peter Muller is the next Simons.
On a few occasions you might even catch Muller busking in a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt with his electronic keyboard in the New York subway but there is no need to toss him a coin, he has a personal wealth far north of 200 million USD.
Muller’s father was a chemical engineer, from a German background and his mother was a psychiatrist.
He attended Wayne Valley High School and then went on to graduate in mathematics with honors from Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton, he moved to northern California to play music for rhythmic gymnasts.
Peter Muller began working at Barra Inc., a quantitative firm In Berkeley, California.
While at Barra, he created the BARRA Brainteaser, a monthly investment-related puzzle. After doing contract work as a Barra representative for Renaissance Technologies, he was offered a job at Renaissance but turned it down because his belief in the efficient market hypothesis made him skeptical of Renaissance’s claimed high rate of return.
In 1992, he proposed using Barra’s quantitative techniques to forecast returns rather than just model risk, with the intention that Barra could manage money itself. But his proposal was rejected. That year he joined Morgan Stanley and in 1993 he created its Process Driven Trading (PDT) which oversees $4.5 billion in assets.
Peter Muller currently serves as Founder and CEO of PDT which has offices in New York and London and has returned 20% on average annually through 2010.
Muller’s management fees are above the industry standard of 2-and-20. Muller charges 3% of assets under management fee, and performance fees that rise to 50% of profits for benchmark-beating performance.
Muller is also on the board of Math for America. This is a non-profit organization, founded in January 2004 by American billionaire mathematician, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist James Simons. Its mission is to promote the recruitment and retention of high-quality mathematics teachers in New York City secondary schools.
Peter Muller also writes the New York Times crossword puzzle a few times a year.
Peter Muller has been described as a mathematics wizard, a person with diverse intellectual interests and hobbies.
Some say Peter Muller is the next James Simons.
INVESTMENT STYLE
Pete Muller, like James Simons, is a quantitative investor. He is the member of a growing band of hedge funds that use complex mathematics and computer-automated algorithmic models to buy and sell stocks, futures, and currencies based on statistical correlations and aberrations that can be found on the market.
“When people buy or sell in a desperate or hurried fashion, it tends to be helpful to us” says Muller, who is otherwise tight-lipped about what has gone right this year.
When people buy or sell in a desperate or hurried fashion, it tends to be helpful to us – Peter Muller
LEARNING RESOURCES
Peter Muller uses proprietary trading platforms which use algorithms to buy and sell financial assets.
Peter Muller also performs with his band at least once a month 😉
The music opens me up emotionally… there’s joy and passion in it. And the business gives me something competitive to do. And I am much better at both of those things because I do both… that was an insight that took me a long time to figure out – Peter Muller
CONNECT WITH INVESTOR
Follow this World Top Investor via their various social media channels and read more about their background and current investment interests on their official website:
Peter Muller
www.petemuller.com