- Endogenous steroids and financial risk taking on a London trading floor (PNAS) — We found that a trader’s morning testosterone level predicts his day’s profitability. We also found that a trader’s cortisol rises with both the variance of his trading results and the volatility of the market. Our results suggest that higher testosterone may contribute to economic return, whereas cortisol is increased by risk. Our results point to a further possibility: testosterone and cortisol are known to have cognitive and behavioral effects, so if the acutely elevated steroids we observed were to persist or increase as volatility rises, they may shift risk preferences and even affect a trader’s ability to engage in rational choice.
- The Origin of Universal Scaling Laws in Biology — eye-opening paper that blew my mind. Highlight of Sci Foo was meeting the author and shaking his hand. Relates metabolic rate, size, heart rate, and lifespan by applying physics to biology.
- Ushahidi — open source software for managing disasters. The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.
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Dissecting the Canon: Visual Subject Co-Popularity Networks in Art Research — In this paper we analyze a classic da-
taset of art research, which collects ancient art and architecture and their Western
Renaissance documentation since 1947. [T]here is clearly a long tail of monument
popularity.
"finance" entries
Four short links: 15 July 2009
A collection inspired by Science Foo Camp attendees
Four short links: 7 May 2009
iPhone Rocketry, Copywrongs, Econopocalypse, and Empire
- How To Use An iPhone To Fly RC Airplanes and Helicopters — So I had my basic idea down. iPhone joins the Linksys router network. It gets an IP address. Then, I open up my pilot program. The pilot program interfaces with the router via SSH (I couldn’t think of a better way that has redundancy, and speed, and was already buily by someone else). The pilot program interprets what the iphone is doing, and outputs data to one of the ethernet ports of which there are conveniently 4. Rudder, Ailerons, Throttle, Elevator.
- Economist Debates: Copyrights and Wrongs — The Economist live debate about copyright, with the moot “This house believes that existing copyright laws do more harm than good.” Public comments, voting, and new informed opinions each day.
- How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street (NYMag) — story of the software developer behind a lot of the mortgage repackaging software. Many good lines, e.g., But even then, I was wondering why I was making more than anyone in my family, maybe as much as all my siblings combined. Hey, I had higher SAT scores. I could do all the arithmetic in my head. I was very good at programming a computer. And that computer, with my software, touched billions of dollars of the firm’s money. Every week. That justified it. When you’re close to the money, you get the first cut. Oyster farmers eat lots of oysters, don’t they?
- Yow — words of wisdom from John Battelle on Google as the new Microsoft: If any lesson is to be drawn, perhaps prematurely, from all this, it’s that no company – or two companies – can lead a culture for longer than half a generation. After that, the culture starts to distrust the companies’ motives, regardless of whether they are pure or well intentioned.
Importance of Innovation in Finance & BarCampBank
“Progress is not the mere correction of evils. Progress is the constant replacing of the best there is with something still better.” -Edward Filene Two years ago, when we were organizing the first BarCampBank in the US, many people found it hard to believe that banks & credit unions could a place for meaningful grassroots innovation. Even crazier was…
Thoughts on the Financial Crisis
The other day, we received a blistering email from a Radar reader complaining about our silence on the subject of the economic meltdown. I wrote back: There are a lot of people bloviating about the financial crisis. It's outside of our area of expertise, so there didn't seem to be a lot of urgency to add to the hot air….
Tools for the Equity Research Toolbox
When I was a kid, I would always remember commercials for a school called Apex Tech. One of their taglines was "look over the professional tools you get to keep when you finish your training". It's a lot like that today. Google News, along with Yahoo! Pipes are two tools that analysts, traders, and salespeople are discovering and using. Today…
Data on the Web: VGChartz vs. NPD
After writing my first post, Equity Research in the Age of Web 2.0, I received a lot of comments asking really good questions. Most of the questions from readers asked about real world examples. So here's a taste. In the world of securities research, in general, we talk about consensus sources. These are sources that everyone looks to as an…
BarCampBank is spreading
When Ben Black and I organized the first BarCampBank in North America last year, we hoped that it would spread. According to William Azaroff's post on NetBanker, the movement is there and growing: What's all this about BarCampBanks? From a North American premiere in Seattle almost a year ago, we've witnessed two more in the last few months, and eight…
Equity Research in the Age of Web 2.0
After spending many years on Wall Street watching the buy side (investing institutions) and working with the sell side (investment banks); all I can say is that I am excited with what the future holds. The Internet is quickly becoming 'the' vast store house of data, research and commentary that I hoped it would. If you think the Internet is for message board jockeys, blogs for late nights in pajamas, and social media for dating; you are missing point. If you want to add to your company and industry analysis, as well as, your investment process, you need to be an interactive user of the Internet.
The Corporation's Two Bodies
The New York Times quotes Laura Martin of Soleil Securities, as saying "This is management putting its employees and its job security ahead of current Yahoo shareholders' interest." The sense of horror here–that management could actually put the interests of employees ahead of the interests of investors–is interesting, to say the least. It raises an important question that's really almost…
New Release 2.0 on Money 2.0
One year ago, we published an issue of Release 2.0 entitled "When Markets Collide" (download a PDF), in which we considered what Wall Street and Web 2.0 might have to teach one another. Quite a bit, it turned out: the key parallels we uncovered include latency (both have to do their jobs more or less instantly), connectivity (it's the liquidity…