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 25 of october Profiting from U.S. presidential elections might just be the ultimate form of democratic capitalism. So when the media spin surrounding the 2004 elections started gaining momentum, I decided to join the politically inspired pollsters and bumper sticker peddlers in finding and exploiting the inefficiencies resulting from predicting election results. I suppose it should not have been surprising that the time tested Arbitrage Pricing Theorem was equally applicable in the political arena...
Learn more about Presidential Arbitrage and how you can profit from it.
- 4 of november
Quantitative finance is a challenging subject. However, financial practitioners don't exactly go out of their way to make the topic more accessible to outsiders. One problem is the language barrier, separating quants from the rest of the world. The following article makes light of a profession that has a tendency to take itself too seriously.
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Biographies and Culture
The books in this category give us an insight into the lives of some of the most influential characters in the area of quantitative finance. Because of the close relationship between theoretical physics and finance, I've also included Richard Feynman's collection of short stories in this category.
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My Life as a Quant (Emanuel Derman) -- This autobiography reveals the human side of quantitative finance through the eyes of the co-inventor of the Black-Derman-Toy interest rate model. I recommend this book and my detailed review can be found here. |
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Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman (Richard P. Feynman et al) -- Brilliant man, brilliant book. Need I say more? Highly recommended. |
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Fooled by Randomness (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) -- In this book, Taleb demonstrates that our intuitive understanding of probability can often be wrong, sometimes with disastrous consequences. I personally like the author's writing style but some people are offended by what they call his "need to prove the neo-classical education he enjoyed by unnecessarily referencing philosophy, history, art, and literature." Personally, I believe it enriches the book. |
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The Education of a Speculator (Victor Niederhoffer) -- It is difficult to determine exactly what it takes to be a successful speculator because instinct and intuition play a large role in financial speculation. Niederhoffer choses to teach the reader about speculation by discussing various other topics, including horse racing, chess games, squash, and music and linking the lessons learned to trading. |
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Maestro (Bob Woodward) -- While not technically a financial quant, Alan Greenspan is known for collecting and analyzing vast amounts of economic data to arrive at his decision to raise or lower interest rates. Bob Woodward, who is possibly the most famous investigative journalist of our generation, does a great job of piercing the cloud of mystery surrounding the Federal Reserve Chairman. |
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