The big quant boom began in the mid-’80s, when investment firms started attracting venerable names like Emanuel Derman, a South African-born physicist described by Patterson…
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In the last couple of decades drugstore chains (Duane Reade and CVS) and bookstore chains (Barnes & Noble and Borders) have taken over Manhattan. There…
Comments closedOne of the bugbears of my life is (other) people who behave inconsistently, who say, in effect, without batting an eyelash or turning a hair,…
Comments closedThis morning I walked up Columbus Ave on my way to work and passed a Danskin store that had a sign outside that said “Seized…
Comments closedThe other day I wanted to look up some statistics on certain stocks — volatility, correlation with the S&P, etc. I went to yahoo/finance and…
Comments closedI was on an airplane yesterday and was reading the NYR of Books, where the personals are always amusing (Masculin-Feminin) and mostly unrealistic. I like…
Comments closedThe Great Wall The commander-in-chief?so you?ve heard?has begun a mission to fix the system, directly from his office, for us, the citizens in all the…
Comments closedSouth Africa is multi-talented in the sporting field, from women’s 800m runners to football, and I have been catching up on the latest in the…
Comments closedI had a fantasy in which the Fed and the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) switched roles. If a bank failed at 9 a.m. one morning…
Comments closedCape Town, like all of South Africa, is in the throes of preparing for the World Cup in June. Everything is much more spruced up…
Comments closedThe Hemlock Society Updated Alexa Joel, according to newspapers in South Africa where I currently am (2009), tried to kill herself with an overdose of…
Comments closedTalk delivered at Bloomberg on Tuesday Nov 24th, 2009: Fischer Black and the Financial Crisis: Rising Above The Noise I have been working for the…
Comments closedA few years ago someone insisted to me in a conversation that “feelings” didn’t mean the same as “emotions”. I thought about this for a…
Comments closedI was on a jury in 1980. At the start the judge cautioned everyone not to discuss the case with their family or friends each…
Comments closedA few months ago I wondered why banks can pay 50% of their revenue in bonuses, and why their profits are so large. One of…
Comments closedNicholas Wade in the NY Times reviews Richard Dawkins’ new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, about evolution. The review is at www.nytimes.com…… Wade spends…
Comments closedPrizes are just things handed out by a bunch of people, not by God. God’s ones don’t come with announcements, are harder to identify, even…
Comments closedEnough with the bailout and Lehman. The papers keep writing about it but they have nothing more to say. Let me rather think about consumer…
Comments closedMoney is human happiness in the abstract, wrote Schopenhauer grimly in the early 19th Century. He then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human…
Comments closedEmanuel Derman expected to feel a letdown when he left particle physics for a job on Wall Street in 1985. After all, for almost 20…
Comments closedThe complex financial models that got us into this mess too often mask human nature behind false limitations of risk Whirring away at the center…
Comments closedWhen I was in grade school we used to build model airplanes out of kits. The frame was made out precut pieces of balsa wood,…
Comments closedToday?s economic turmoil, it seems, is an implicit indictment of the arcane field of financial engineering ? a blend of mathematics, statistics and computing. Its…
Comments closedThis is a noble proposal, but I remain a bit of a skeptic with respect to the ability of a cohort of scientists and economists…
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The truth is that computers are created by humans. They are not superintelligent. Even on Wall Street, they merely count very fast at the behest…
Comments closedSleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and…
Comments closedEmanuel Derman is a professor at Columbia University and director of their program in financial engineering. His book, My Life as A Quant: Reflections on Physics…
Comments closedNormally I?m a pretty reticent person, but I have to say that I?m quite unabashedly pleased to be here tonight. I?m very grateful to the…
Comments closedA lockup period for investment in a hedge fund is a time period after making the investment during which the investor cannot freely redeem his…
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