The Physics of the Stock Market. A Brief History of Predictions of the Unpredictable
Original title: The Physics Of Wall Street. A Brief History Of Predicting The Unpredictable
Authors: James Owen Weatherall
Publisher: Mann, Ivanov & Ferber, 2013 г
ISBN 978-5-91657-946-8
Pages: 320 pp.
Format: 70×100/16
Weight: 560 g
Binding: Hardcover
Read the book
Read a book about money and stock markets
Money, money, money... How much effort and ingenuity it takes to earn, preserve and multiply them. And the higher the stakes, the more complicated the mechanisms. A model designed to predict earthquakes is used to predict massive stock market crashes. And the complex ideas of quantum theory could soon be used to create a more accurate consumer price index.
Do you think a brilliant economic education is enough to cross the financial sea?
Here's a simple example. Jim Simons' name is whispered in the physics departments of Harvard and Princeton. He is a distinguished scientist and the founder of the hugely successful financial services company Renaissance Technologies, as well as its Medallion Foundation. And almost a third of Renaissance's two hundred employees have doctorates not in finance, but in physics, mathematics and statistics. Quants like them, they say, were to blame for the 2007 financial crisis. Their citadel was sophisticated models borrowed from physics, but it collapsed when faced with the vicissitudes of real life Wall Street.
But this book is not about the market crash. It's about how quantum emerged and how to understand the mathematical models at the head of modern finance. And, more importantly, this book is about the future of finance--why we must look to new concepts from physics and related sciences to solve the economic problems facing the world.
The year 2008 smashed many banks and funds to smithereens. But not all suffered losses that year. The Jim Simons Medallion Fund made 80% even as the financial sector around it collapsed.
Must physicists be doing something right?
Who is this book for
- For those with an inquisitive mind and those who like to understand complex but interesting issues.
- For physicists and mathematicians.
- Financiers with previous mathematical experience.
A wonderful example of popular science literature--an unusual, previously unreported topic and an excellent presentation. James Weatherall has managed to make complex material understandable to a fairly wide audience. An objectively interesting book.