The world according to quant funds is topsy-turvy right now, as quant funds have been rocked for the second time in six months, this time by wrong bets in their price-momentum investments. According to Dow Jones Newswires, funds following that strategy suffered its worse losses in more than 57 years last Wednesday, precipitated by the revelation that a rogue trader had caused the loss of more than $7 billion at Société Générale and a sudden Federal Reserve cut. Certainly, those aren’t the only things to go wrong. In fact, says DJN, several stocks didn’t behave as the price-momentum quants had predicted – in other words, that the winners would keep on winning, while the losers would continue in their declining ways. Rather, companies such as Apple, Google and Sunpower, which were expected to keep on rising, fell, while losers such as MBIA, Ambac Financial Group and Ryland Group, saw sudden spikes upward. “To put Wednesday’s losses in context,” says Matthew Rothman, Lehman Brothers’ head of quantitative equity strategies, “there have only been six days since July 1950 with greater underperformance by momentums, all of which were in 2001 as the Internet bubble was popping.” The latest bad news for quants is expected to further tarnish its already tainted reputation, just as it appeared some of them were regaining losses from August missteps. “We’re feeling we can’t catch a break at the moment,” Rothman said.