Ferris Bueller's Day Off (& memories)

Today is the 30th year anniversary of the release of the film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I wouldn't have realised without seeing a plethora of tweets from @grodeau and many others on Twitter. It's one of those films, where the title, is wonderfully descriptive. It is literally about Ferris Bueller's...

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Complex simplicity

Our memories love stories. A narrative finds a place in our thoughts far more easily than some abstract fact. I can remember numerous stories from my university days. However, I might struggle to recall a precise mathematical proof I learnt in a lecture. Indeed, I was recently thinking about the...

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Celebrating 1000 days of independence

Time is wonderfully eclectic. The present sprints on, a fleeting flash, the past clings on in memory, the future, that world of the unknown, waits to be fashioned by the sweeping hands of chance, a realm where perhaps fortune or disaster beckons. Repeatedly, the past transcends into present, reminding...

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​Teaching others & also learn yourself

​ The premise of this article might seem odd. The primary objective of teaching is to teach others and to help them to learn. However, very often the process of teaching itself can also help the teacher to learn. Precisely how, is something I shall elaborate on during the rest of this article! I...

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When I (nearly) met Warren Buffett

"Welcome to Omaha", reads the small sign in the airport which greets you when you land there. Walking through the cobbled streets of the Old Market district, it is hard not to conjecture up images of the saloons of the old west. Shops sell cowboy hats and cow skins. Nebraska steak is the food of...

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The skill of New York

Buildings race with one another, aiming to touch the sky. Joggers throng the park, the feet tapping down one after the other. Spring blossoms, the park lives once more. Horns beep, the sounds crisscrossing the grid of streets. Food carts on street corners, with the smell of warm pretzels and kebab...

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Proof's in the data scientist pudding

I am defenseless in the face of those titans of confectionery, chocolate and cake: the sweetness of sugar, the butteriness of butter, the milkiness of milk (I was attempting to choose words to make you, the reader, as hungry as possible). The cause I presume, is my sweet tooth. I realise that...

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When learning was history

​Lounging about on Saturday afternoon, my mind seems less honed to thinking, and more adept at wondering away the hours, a boat seemingly poised to eventually land at the shores of the asleep. However, rather than surrender to sleep, I thought it best to try my hand at writing this blogpost....

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Music to benchmarked ears

There are some days, which I never thought would come. An example of one such day arrived years ago. It was the day, when I simply had no idea which artist was at the top of the music charts. This state of affairs has persisted to the current day: today, I have absolutely no idea who is at the...

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Go-ing with quant trading

When I think of the word "go", I think of its meaning according to the Cambridge Online Dictionary (written below): go verb UK ɡəʊ US ɡoʊ (present participle going, past tense went, past participle gone)        go verb (MOVE/TRAVEL) A1 [I usually + adv/prep] to ​travel or ​move...

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Excelling with & without Excel

Travel does many things. The cliche tells us that it broadens the mind. Holidays are the tonic for the whispering monotony of the routine. Yet a holiday is never purely a matter of joy. Within the idea of holiday are bound up the logistics of transportation. None of us book a holiday for the experience...

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Miami twice as bearish

So why did the title of this article include the words "Miami twice"? I suppose it does sound like the TV show Miami Vice (well, actually that was the main reason). I can't remember much about the show aside from the white suits, sunglasses and the 80s music, perhaps because, I was always much...

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Fashion, trends and CTA strategies

I'll confess, understanding fashion has never been my strong point. My uniform for much of my career working in investment banks was simply an ill fitting suit. I eventually worked out that a suit, which was the right size, might actually be a good idea. In recent years, since quitting banking, working...

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Breaking the trading routine

Routine. The drudgery. The predictability. The sheer monotony. In all my years, I can't recall reading the words, "I dream of routine". No one enjoys the sense that everything they do is routine. However, a modicum of routine helps to give life at least some structure. Those occasions when we break...

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Mitigating Risk, Managing Uncertainty

Happy new year! If you're in markets, the new year has been anything but happy. The markets have greeted the new year with more than a modicum of scepticism. Crude oil has continued to trade very poorly. Equities have sold off significantly since the start of the year, mirroring the behaviour of...

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