Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Birkenhead lad done well.
Revenge of the Nerd
Paul Wilmott is out to save Wall Street's soul—one dork at a time. Wall Street's math gurus are, for the most part, still employed. Strangely, the banks need quants more than ever right now. If anyone's going to figure out how to price these toxic assets, it's them. Quantitative finance isn't going away, but it is in desperate need of reform. And one man—a math geek himself—thinks he knows where to start.
Posted by devo @ 02:14 PM (1048 views)
8 thoughts on “The Birkenhead lad done well.”
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Eeyore says:
…except he’s not from Birkenhead; despite the top [with a back covered in chalk] 😉
and as normal a bloke as you could meet.
paul says:
Hmmm. I’m sure according to the CDO salesmen the answer is more CDO salespeople (so that comparative rewards are lessened – see?) , according to the traders the answer is to employ more traders and surprise surprise the answer to maths geeks getting it wrong is to employ more maths geeks!
How about instead, we just stop listening to them self-justifying their existence and boot them out onto the street for getting it so badly wrong?
hpwatcher says:
I don’t think fancy accounting tricks are really going to help anyone……..
devo says:
Banks and hedge funds employ mathematicians with no financial-market experience to build models that no one is testing scientifically for use in situations where they were not intended by traders who don’t understand them. And people are surprised by the losses!
Paul Wilmott
refusetobuy says:
Maybe all quants should have to have a certificate in quantitative finance before they are allowed to work.
If only there was some place you could get such a qualification.
devo says:
POLITICIANS AND GOVERNMENTS WILL REMAIN COMPLETELY IN THE DARK: Do you want to earn £50k p.a. working for the public sector, or £500k p.a. working for Goldman Sachs? Governments, who are supposed to set the rules, do not even know what the game is. They do not have the slightest clue about what happens in banks and hedge funds.
http://www.wilmott.com/blogs/paul/index.cfm/2008/3/10/This-is-No-Longer-Funny
Sharpe says:
went to one of his lectures at IC – it was extremely poor.
doomwatch says:
Those who can’t teach.