quantitative finance

Financial Markets – Electronic Markets
Not too long ago, going to a stock market meant you would meet lots of new people who were energetically shouting, running around, and making a mess with great quantities of paper. No more. Visiting a financial market now is more like visiting a telephone exchange. Computers and network gear [...]

Nerds on Wall Street Forward by Ted Aronson
Quantitative finance is not a topic usually associated with laughter. That is about to change with the publication of Nerds on Wall Street.
I was first exposed to Dave Leinweber’s wit when he delivered a speech entitled “Nerds on Wall Street.” I believe the event happened 20 or 25 [...]

Introduction to “Nerds on Wall Street“
I hope people think of this book as sort of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to Wired Markets. There are no robots parking cars for six million years, but there are robots trading millions of shares in six milliseconds, so maybe that’s close enough.
In 2006, I got a call from another nerd [...]

Clean Energy and Nerds off Wall Street
This book closes with another chapter that, like the previous two, I didn’t expect to be writing. Recent headlines (Wall Street layoffs could reach 200,000, Citigroup is cutting 50,000 jobs) imply that many nerds on Wall Street (NOWS), mostly innocent bystanders in the meltdown, may soon find themselves on [...]

Structural Ideas for the Economic Rescue – Fractional Homes and New Banks
Mom used to say, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I clearly ignored that advice in the previous chapter, with the “mad as hell” opening and analogies to an exploding meth lab run by the neighbors. This [...]

Stupid Financial Technology Tricks and Global Economic Collapse
Like many others from the stock side of greater Wall Street, I felt blindsided by the events of 2008. “Blindsided” is actually a gross understatement; I felt like the guy who comes home and finds the neighbors were running a meth lab that has exploded and flattened the [...]