EPAT, Quantra or both! What should you take up and Why?

By Chainika Thakar

Providing a wide range of courses, QuantInsti understands that you need to know what the EPAT and Quantra courses offer and how they differ.

While trying to find the best course for yourself, there can be several questions such as the benefits of doing a particular course, placement-related queries, the type of learning platform and so on.

With this table below, we have covered the distinguishing features of each programme. You can go through the features mentioned in the table and find out which programme suits you best.

Now, as you have gone through a basic introduction to EPAT and Quantra with the distinguishing table, we can dive deep into each programme.

This article covers:

• What is EPAT?
• What is Quantra?
• Altogether - EPAT and Quantra
• What is unique?
• What is best for you?

What is EPAT?

Executive Programme for Algorithmic Trading (EPAT®) helps the students in a stepwise manner, as follows:

• Learning
• Automating
• Trading

Moreover, it is a six-months’ online part-time course in which you get access to the following modules:

Afterwards, an exam is held, which is to help you showcase your competence in the algorithmic trading field.

What is Quantra?

Quantra is a self-paced learning platform that offers courses and resources in the field of quantitative finance and algorithmic trading. It provides a range of self-paced courses, tools, and materials on a wide range of topics such as quant strategies, data analysis, options backtesting, machine learning, factor investing, and portfolio management. View Courses

What are learning tracks?

Quantra provides the Learning Tracks with various courses under each track. Once you go to the page, you get to select your learning goal based on which you are suggested the learning track with relevant courses for you.

Below you can see how to navigate to find the best suited learning track for yourself based on your learning goal:

Also, you can paper trade/live trade with Quantra.

Altogether - EPAT and Quantra

In this section, we will cover-

• What is unique?
• What is best for you?

Both EPAT and Quantra complement each other and provide you with significant benefits. As a beginner, you can opt for the beginner’s courses under learning tracks on Quantra such as Algorithmic Trading for Everyone and then move to EPAT.

EPAT is meant for anyone and everyone looking for quantitative trading and automating their trading strategies for a contemporary trading journey. You can enrol in EPAT and get the tutorial sessions as a beginner along with the primers to help you out in beginning your journey.

With Quantra, you might have never coded before or never created any trading strategy and you can start from scratch with the basic courses and move on to the advanced ones.

Because of the learning curve, we recommend that you commit to learning and practice regularly on the hands-on learning exercises given in the course. With various authors such as Dr Ernest P. Chan, Laurent Bernut, NSE Academy, FXCM, Dr Thomas Starke and others, Quantra ensures knowledge from the experts.

Let us find out more about both courses with pointers on uniqueness, curriculum and the best suited programme for you.

What is unique?

EPAT

The EPAT programme is exclusively designed to make sure that the most important topics to become an algorithmic trader are covered for the students over 6 months. Each topic covered under EPAT programme provides you with the required knowledge step by step for helping you automate your trading strategies.

Now, to discuss the unique points in EPAT, we have a list ready for you here which goes as follows:

• Dedicated support manager and lifelong support/learning
• Career cell
• Live Lectures
• Alumni Community
• Guest lectures exclusive
• Industry recognitions
• Platform to learn from experience of practitioners

Quantra

The Quantra courses are exclusively designed with the learning tracks specific to your requirements. Each learning track consists of courses meant for you to learn the concept from basic to advanced levels. This way, you get a set of courses provided under each broad concept.

For instance, the Learning Track known as Algorithmic Trading for Beginners consists of the courses which need to be finished step by step for a combination of knowledge regarding the concept. The suggested courses begin from the foundation level to proceed to the beginner and finally intermediate level.

Learn more about the Quantra courses and the learning experience with the same in this video.

What is best for you?

Since both EPAT and Quantra offer you “thorough knowledge imparting” courses with all the important concepts covered, we would like to help you decide what suits you the most. Depending on various factors, we have listed down these points and they are as follows:

Opt for EPAT if:

• You want a comprehensive training of 6 months
• You want to gain maximum exposure and knowledge
• You require support post completion of the course for implementation in your own practice
• You want to remain in touch with our experts for getting the answer to any queries post lectures and if you need ongoing support through a dedicated support manager during the programme
• You prefer interacting with the faculty for gaining a better understanding of the concepts
• You want to explore the wide range of placement partners since we have 350+ placements partners to offer you the best placements

Opt for Quantra if:

• You are looking for a specialisation in the trading domain such as Machine learning implementation in the financial market and Natural Language Processing and its implementation
• You do not want to be bound by time and wish to complete the course at your own pace
• You wish to practise Python and its applications in trading
• You want your trading strategies to be automated and implemented on the trading platform
• You understand the financial markets at least on the basic level
• You prefer self-study

Watch this lockdown story of an EPATian as well as an avid student of Quantra courses, Kevin Gaughan, from New York and find out about his experience:

Conclusion

With all the courses available at QuantInsti, in this blog, we aimed to provide you with a brief overview of what EPAT and Quantra programmes offer and how they are beneficial for you. In their own contexts, and with their specialisations, both the programmes are specially designed for helping students learn to automate their trading.

Since our students range from beginners to professional traders, we have segregated the programmes, that is, EPAT is meant for traders looking for a quantitative view and automating their trading strategies.

On the other hand, Quantra’s courses are designed with the Learning Tracks suited best for all depending on the kind of pace you want to pick. For beginners, there are courses which will give a detailed knowledge of the topic, and if you are a professional, you can skip the beginner’s courses and learn from the advanced set even in the same learning tracks. Quantra’s courses will give you the benefit of learning at your own pace with interactive features.

If you wish to learn more about algorithmic trading, do explore the algo trading course. This course will cover all your algorithmic trading related topics in a comprehensive way. You will be enrolled in the programme for a period of 6 months. The EPAT programme will help you grow in the field of algorithmic trading and quantitative trading with the help of world-class faculty and vast topics covered.

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