Standard statistics might project next summer’s ice cream sales. The aim of people working on newer Big Data systems is to collect seemingly unconnected information like today’s heat and cloud cover, and a hometown team’s victory over the weekend, compare that with past weather and sports outcomes, and figure out how much mint chip ice cream mothers would buy today.
Category: Quants
Scientists Identify a Mathematical ‘Crystal Ball’ That May Predict Calamities
Neuroscientists have come up with a mathematical equation that may help predict calamities such as financial crashes in economic systems and epileptic seizures in the brain.
Physicists And The Financial Markets
Gene Stanley raises his fork, holds it out flat, a few inches above his plate of risotto. “The majority of traders still use Gaussian models and, when something outside the Gaussian happens, they have all these phrases, like ‘outliers’, but the main phrase is ‘shit happens’.”
Mysterious Algorithm Was 4% of Trading Activity Last Week
Translation: the ultimate goal of many of these programs is to gum up the system so it slows down the quote feed to others and allows the computer traders (with their co-located servers at the exchanges) to gain a money-making arbitrage opportunity.
What If Google Had a Hedge Fund?
Google may not have a hedge fund, but it’s unlikely that high IQ hedge funds aren’t using Google’s data to better manage their own situational awareness and risk.
Abnormal Capitalist 