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This fund manager left his job to teach computers to think like him

Bloomberg Published on Wed, Jun 28, 2017 / 4:31 PM GMT+8

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(June 28): Since he left his job as hedge-fund manager last year, Muhammed Yesilhark has spent his days teaching computers to pick stocks like he did in his 12-year career.

By the end of the year, the former head of European equities at Carmignac Gestion SA, who previously traded for billionaire Steven Cohen and hedge fund York Capital Management, says the algorithms will be ready to help run money for clients of his own investment firm, Q2Q Capital. Yesilhark, who will run the fund from Dubai and London, said he has raised US$100 million and aims to gather US$800 million ($1.11 billion) in total from 40 investors.

The computer models he designed are meant to accelerate idea generation for Yesilhark’s small investment team and learn from mistakes. More than 40 of them currently trawl through troves of data, scan real-time trading patterns and read company releases using natural language processing techniques to spot the perfect trading opportunity. It’s an area that requires a heavy investment of time and money and is dominated by top firms, including Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.