{"id":43695,"date":"2026-01-23T18:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/renaissance-schonfeld-and-engineers-gate-stung-in-a-shaky-start-for-quants-in-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:01:21","slug":"renaissance-schonfeld-and-engineers-gate-stung-in-a-shaky-start-for-quants-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/renaissance-schonfeld-and-engineers-gate-stung-in-a-shaky-start-for-quants-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Renaissance, Schonfeld, and Engineers Gate stung in a shaky start for quants in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/52d2ec786bb3f7e94c3ac605?format=jpeg\" alt=\"frustrated india stockbroker trader\"\/><figcaption>An Indian broker reacts while trading at a stock brokerage firm in Mumbai, January 22, 2008. Shares from Sydney to London sank for a second day on Tuesday, dragging commodity prices with them and promising similar falls for Wall Street as investors abandoned assets exposed to the risk of a global economic slowdown.<\/p>\n<p>REUTERS\/Arko Datta<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Quant funds have had a tough start to the year.<\/li>\n<li>The average quant started the year down 1%, according to Goldman Sachs.<\/li>\n<li>Managers such as Renaissance Technologies and Schonfeld have lost money in computer-run strategies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2026 has so far resembled the worst parts of 2025 at many quant hedge fund managers.<\/p>\n<p>The beginning of the year had the worst stretch of losses since early October, according to a Goldman Sachs report, and several big-name managers did not avoid the pain.<\/p>\n<p>HSBC&#039;s Hedge Weekly report states that Renaissance Technologies&#039; two largest funds lost roughly 4% each through January 9. A person familiar with Schonfeld said the manager&#039;s quant-only strategy was down 3.9% through January 16.<\/p>\n<p>Engineers Gate was down around 6% midway through the month, a person familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n<p>Renaissance, Schonfeld, and Engineers Gate declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>The average computer-run equity fund was down 1% through January 15, according to Goldman&#039;s note. The losses were mainly driven by US stocks, which have been choppy to start the year thanks to trade proposals floated by President Donald Trump&#039;s administration. Funds crowding into similar trades have also hurt returns, Goldman notes.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69739fe1d3c7faef0eccd08b?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Goldman Sachs chart showing regional quant fund performance in January 2026.\"\/><figcaption>Systematic long-short equities strategies in the US have had a tough start to the year.<\/p>\n<p>Goldman Sachs FICC and Equities and Prime Services<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Performance on January 16 \u2014 not captured in the Goldman note \u2014 was especially bad for many quant funds, industry insiders said.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, systematic funds had several extended periods of losses, including a stint in June and July that one consultant described to Business Insider as &quot;a long, slow bleed.&quot; Funds gradually recouped summer losses, but ran into trouble again in early October when crowded trades, a momentum sell-off, and inflated junk stocks led to drawdowns.<\/p>\n<p>While funds again rebounded from those losses, the average quant returned 7.7% last year, according to hedge fund research firm PivotalPath, less than the average fund and the S&amp;P 500&#039;s 2025 gain.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6973a07be1ba468a96aa9841?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Goldman Sachs chart comparing quant performance during the summer 2025 drawdown vs. the start of 2026.\"\/><figcaption>Quant performance in January is off to a worse start than the deep drawdown last summer.<\/p>\n<p>Goldman Sachs FICC and Equities and Prime Services<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>PivotalPath flagged equity quant crowding as an investor concern in a January report, noting that spikes in crowding measures have preceded previous drawdowns in systematic trading strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Indian broker reacts while trading at a stock brokerage firm in Mumbai, January 22, 2008. Shares from Sydney to London sank for a second day on Tuesday, dragging commodity prices with them and promising similar falls for Wall Street as investors abandoned assets exposed to the risk of a global economic slowdown. REUTERS\/Arko Datta [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}