AQR Capital, a super quant house with about $36 billion in assets under management in quantitative strategies, is having a bad spell. The $4 billion Absolute Return fund lost almost 6% in November, putting it down almost 12% for the year. Given the losses, it is unlikely that the firm will undertake an IPO in the near future, as was once expected. "The year 2007 is going to go down in history as the one that quants want to forget," says a hedge fund manager.
