The Curious Quant

The Curious Quant series, hosted by Michael Kollo, is a discussion between technically-minded professionals in the financial services, technology and data science fields. It carefully examines the application of new data and new methodologies to common problems in financial markets. The aim is to promote better discussions about these emerging areas, and a better understanding of new technologies.

 

 

Michael Kollo is a seasoned investment professional with a deep passion for the pragmatic discussion and application of quantitative models to solve problems. His PhD in Finance is from the London School of Economics where he lectured in quantitative finance in addition to Imperial College and at the University of New South Wales. He has created models and led quantitative research teams at Blackrock, Fidelity and Axa Rosenberg in the UK before more recently moving to Australia where he established the quantitative team for the $50 billion industry superannuation fund, HESTA. Kollo is an experienced speaker, author, mentor, a keen student of philosophy and more recently, a podcaster. The Curious Quant is a series of conversations with market leaders, deep thinkers and practitioners who deal with the wonder and frustrations of these models and who are on the front line of AI innovation.

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Siguler: buy good quality companies

As the world and companies globalise, George Siguler, managing director and founding partner of private equity firm, Siguler Guff, has a simple recommendation for investors. “My recommendation for stock investors is to look at great global companies,” he says. “Look at companies like Johnson and Johnson, Unilever or Boeing. They all have great balance sheets

A series of shorts
don’t make a long

It is easy for long-term investors to avoid short termism, and the solution lies in avoiding momentum and conducting risk analysis using cash flows – not market pricing. “Diversification is a joke. Diversification and risk analysis relies on pricing, but pricing is distorted because it’s driven by momentum,” says Paul Woolley, chairman of the Paul

ShareAction mainstreams responsible investment

“ShareAction has become the premier organisation to give voice to those who wish to invest their values as well as their assets,” enthused former vice president of the United States Al Gore, speaking to a packed audience at ShareAction’s annual lecture in London’s Guildhall last week. ShareAction is only a tiny pressure group but Gore’s

Cass creates principles
for DC model

As almost every market in the world looks to move from defined benefit to some sort of defined contribution model, academics at the Pensions Institute of the Cass Business School, City University London have developed a set of 15 principles for designing a defined contribution model. The principles, consistent with the recently published OECD guidelines, are based

Pension funds reject EU financial transaction tax

When the European Commission announced plans on February 14 to introduce a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) by the start of 2014, it planted a bomb under Europe’s pension funds. That is not, of course, the view of Algirdas Šemeta (pictured below right), the EU’s commissioner for taxation. He says the proposed tax is “unquestionably fair

Ugo Bassi focuses on transparency at ICGN

For many people their most memorable in situ news moment is when man landed on the moon or when John Lennon, Princess Diana or Michael Jackson died. But most Italians will remember where they were when Pope Benedict XVI resigned. A country with record unemployment, no head of state and no head of the church

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