Jan

20

Book Notes, by George Zachar

January 20, 2007 |

GaveKal's Our Brave New World, pace the Chair's critique, is not intended to be a highly detailed image/roadmap of macro issues. I thought of it as the economic equivalent of cubist art.

From Wikipedia:

Analytic Cubists "analyzed" natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts on the two-dimensional picture plane. Color was almost non-existent (except for grey, blue and ocher) (monochromatic), instead they focused on forms like the cylinder, sphere and the cone to represent the natural world. [Read more here]

The GaveKalers usefully caricatured recent economic trends, displaying them in a thought-provoking manner, albeit one not directly translatable into specific, testable trading strategies.

Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance by Paul Wilmott is perhaps the most accessible (downright fun) reads I've seen in the field. Folks intimidated by the topic but determined to edge up the learning curve will find reasonably down-to-earth definitions and applications of basic tools like Black-Scholes, various risk metrics, distributions, etc. It is decidedly not for experienced practitioners, but instead for folks who want to stop scratching their heads when confronted with phrases like "gamma surface" or Sortino ratio.

 


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  1. Macus on March 15, 2007 7:57 pm

    In a TV program,I saw a econmist recommede this book which is write by the author Paul Wilmott ; U said that is perhaps the most accessible (downright fun) reads I’ve seen in the field.

    Now,you see, I am a young Chinese people which faced a heated equnity market everyday,and willing to do something right;I also very interesting in Finance,but you know,in our country,it’s very hard to get a book like that one which as you said,could inspire people.

    Please forgive my poor english,please leave you cherrished opinion to me,thank you very much.

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