John Fawcett: Disrupting the secretive world of quants

I chat with John, the founder of Quantopian, on how he got started in quantitative finance, where he sees the industry evolving and how he created a global community of intrinsically motivated coders to create unique solutions to the greatest intellectual game on earth.

Nothing on this podcast is to be considered investment advice or a recommendation. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken without first seeking qualified and professional advice.

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New Jersey’s $85 billion fund stockpiles cash, eyes PE secondaries

New Jersey’s $85 billion fund stockpiles cash, eyes PE secondaries

An underweight position across private markets, predicated on a view that geopolitics and inflation mean interest rates are not coming down any time soon, has positioned the New Jersey Division of Investment with plenty of dry powder and a cash position four times the policy allocation. It is now readying for opportunities in private equity secondaries and with emerging managers. Chief investment officer Shoaib Khan spoke to Top1000funds.com.

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Will Christmas be the final blow for Spain’s Social Security Reserve Fund?

The Spanish Social Security Reserve Fund is set to be depleted by another €7 billion ($9.05 billion) before the end of 2012, according to IESE Business School pension expert, Javier Diaz Gimenez. The $90-billion fund has already been asked by the government for $3.8 billion, which is likely to go towards a raise in state

The procyclicality premium

Moving with business cycles, procyclical stocks have been found to yield higher average returns than countercyclical stocks. William Goetzmann and Akiko and Masahiro Watanabe use 50 years of real GDP growth expectations from economists’ surveys to determine forecasted economic states in order to avoid the effects of econometric forecasting model error. The scholars created a

Railpen, the open DB fund with locomotion

Despite the constant pull on Railpen chief executive Chris Hitchen’s expertise in other directions, most recently helping to run NEST, the UK government’s new low-cost pension scheme, he is resolute that his primary task is ensuring Railpen, inhouse manager of the £19-billion ($30.4 billion) pension scheme for Britain’s rail industry, successfully delivers on its monthly

Fiduciaries’ top concern is US gridlock

Endowments and foundations in the United States are more concerned with the US political and fiscal gridlock than the uncertainty caused by the European debt crisis, according to a survey of non-profit organisations by Mercer Hammond. Partner at Mercer Hammond, Russ LaMore, says the US situation dominated the global macroeconomic concerns of these investors, followed

Leverage aversion, efficient frontiers and the efficient region

This paper suggests a new specification for leverage aversion, which may better capture the unique risks of leverage. The authors also introduce mean-variance-leverage efficient frontiers, comparing them with conventional mean-variance efficient frontiers. They conclude that leverage aversion can have a large impact on portfolio choice. Leverage aversion, efficient frontiers and the efficient regionmrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content

UK’s NAPF conference focuses on three issues

The agenda at the United Kingdom’s National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual shindig in Liverpool’s Echo Arena on the banks of the Mersey couldn’t have been broader. From early analysis of auto-enrolment, the biggest shake-up of the industry in a generation and just days old, to life expectancy, Britain’s role in the European Union,

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