Quants on the Run

Tyler Durden discusses the strange case of espionage that happened to Goldman Sachs over the past few months, in which a senior VP allegedly ran off with some of GS's high frequency trading prop models.

In a nutshell, on Friday, one Sergey Aleynikov was arrested at Newark airport by FBI agents, as he was coming back from a trip to Chicago (maybe visiting his new employer), on what are basically industrial espionage charges. ...

If the allegations are true, it looks like Goldman's hi-fi quant trading desk was thoroughly penetrated by a "spy", and as readers will recall, Serge(y)'s description of his job duties mirrors what Mr. Ed Canaday conveniently provided to Zero Hedge as a description of Goldman's SLP program. (Sources connected with the office of the United States Attorney have confirmed to Zero Hedge that Aleynikov was at one time or another a Goldman employee.")

Brad DeLong refers to this as a "Burning Chrome" scenario. The Gibsonian nature of the caper us pretty unavoidable.