Grant Kiehne, Finance Industry Outsider, Awarded $100,000 to Manage by Quantopian

BOSTON, March 5, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Quantopian has awarded a $100,000 account to Grant Kiehne, the winner of the February edition of the Quantopian Open. Mr. Kiehne's trading algorithm will manage the account for 6 months, and he keeps the profits he creates.

The Quantopian Open was quite close, with Mr. Kiehne taking over the lead on the final day.  The runners-up in the contest include a hedge fund financial professional in New York City, an anonymous algorithm writer in Germany, and a telecom engineer in Spain.

"I'm delighted with the quality and diversity in our contest pool," said Quantopian CEO John 'Fawce' Fawcett.  "We're building a meritocracy here at Quantopian.  Algorithm writing is no longer just for guys on Wall Street with exclusive access to the tools and data.  With the Quantopian platform, anyone with a bit of coding skill and a mind for finance can start writing algorithms.  The best ones win."

Winner Grant Kiehne has been a member of the Quantopian community since its beginning in 2012.  He is an engineer who was drawn to Quantopian out of a curiosity about trading.  Grant is known throughout the Quantopian community where he has helped 1000s of new members learn to use the Quantopian platform.

Third place finisher Kyu Park joined Quantopian in the fall of 2013.  He is the CEO of a hedge fund based in New York City, where he is building a track record using the Quantopian platform.

Contestants were required to submit their algorithm by February 2, 2015.  The algorithms were subjected to a 2-year backtest using historical data, and then one month of paper trading with live data.  The backtest and paper trading performance were each scored on six mathematical criteria, which were then combined into an overall final score. 

The contents of Mr. Kiehne's algorithm remain a secret, in accordance with Quantopian's policy.  Its results were excellent, with high returns and very low volatility.  It beat hundreds of algorithm writers, or quants, who submitted entries for the February edition.

Quantopian is running one contest every month; the next $100,000 account will be awarded on April 1.

Quantopian is building a crowd-sourced hedge fund.  The best algorithm writers from the contest are invited to join the hedge fund and are well-compensated for their intellectual property.

About Quantopian: Quantopian, a crowd-sourced hedge fund, provides a browser-based algorithmic investing platform that helps bring algorithmic trading to the broader investing community. For quants, the platform combines the ability to integrate any data instantly with and great ease-of-use to get started developing in minutes, all the while protecting intellectual property. Quantopian is an engaged community of more than 30,000 quants who discuss concepts, processes, and performance and learn from each other.

SOURCE Quantopian

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