Top quantitative trader quits Citi after bonuses

A London-based top quantitative trader quit Citi after seven years earlier this month.

Jun Liu was Citi's head of short-term interest rate trading quants. His Linkedin profile suggests he left Citi this month and is now a "stay at home dad" on gardening leave.

Liu started his investment banking career in 2009 at Barclays Capital as a quant developer and modeler for the fixed income aates business. One and a half years later, he shifted to Citi as the vice president for short-term interest rate trading in 2011 and became a director in 2016.

Liu completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Manchester in 2007 and worked as a Marie Curie Research Fellow in Trinity College Dublin as well as a research engineer in computer graphics and visual effects company Foundry between 2008 and 2009.

Banks are having a hard time keeping quant traders despite offering generous bonuses. Last month, director of quantitative strategies at Credit Suisse Martin Priego Wood left the bank to join Eisler Capital. Similarly, Yashar Aghababaie, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, who led design and deployment of trading algorithms and risk management systems among other things, joined Chicago Trading Company in January. Both men left their respective firms before receiving bonuses for the previous year.

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