January Newsletter
Keep up to date on the latest CQA news.
|
|
|
We're looking forward to a great year for CQA in 2024! Please mark your calendars for the key dates of our upcoming conferences and seminars.
We've made great progress on our April agenda and we have a terrific group of speakers confirmed for the event. It's not too early to start your travel planning for the April conference. You can find hotel reservation information below. Please note the dates in April are much earlier than usual this year.
Please be on the lookout for an email this week from Melissa regarding 2024 Membership Dues. Please note that if you fail to pay your dues by the deadline, you won't receive an invitation to the Las Vegas Conference.
Some of you may have tried to pay your dues recently and noticed that the CQA website was off-line. We made a move to a new web hosting service and there have been some technical issues with the migration. We are in the process of designing a new and improved website and as of today we are back up and running. You can use the links in this newsletter to pay your dues and register for the April conference
Dan Cardell
|
|
|
Dues notices will be coming to your email inbox. These will be the only notices you receive and there will be a link to the payment page and instructions for payment options. You can pay your dues using this link:
|
|
|
CQA Spring 2024 Conference
|
|
|
The Spring Conference will be held April 3-4 at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Please make your reservations early, as space is limited. You can reach the hotel reservation line at 866-770-7555. Be sure to indicate that you are with CQA to get our preferred rate of $369 per night.
|
|
 Antti Petajisto is a renowned quantitative researcher and portfolio manager specializing in systematic trading strategies within the equity space. With a background as a finance professor at the Yale School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business, Dr. Petajisto has made significant contributions to the understanding of financial market inefficiencies and money manager selection. His industry expertise extends to roles at major hedge funds and asset managers, including BlackRock, LMR Partners, and QuantPort, where he developed innovative alpha signals, managed substantial portfolios, and crafted strategies for global tactical asset allocation. Notably, Dr. Petajisto's public research on topics such as active and passive portfolio management, ETF pricing inefficiencies, and the impact of passive indexing strategies has garnered widespread recognition, winning numerous awards and influencing industry practices. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from MIT Sloan School of Management and an M.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the Helsinki University of Technology.
|
|
“Multi-Industry Simplex : A Probabilistic Extension of GICS”
These researchers introduce Multi-Industry Simplex (MIS), a probabilistic model designed to address limitations in the current industry classification standard, GICS. Unlike GICS, which assigns firms to a single industry, MIS utilizes topic modeling in natural language processing to assign firms to multiple industries with relevance probabilities, offering interpretability and auditability.
Read
The Best Books of 2023
Top business leaders highlight the year's 58 must-read books. Notable among these recommendations is Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being, a compilation of 78 philosophical reflections designed to guide artists in overcoming challenges and grasping the essence of creativity. Additionally, Adam Grant's Hidden Potential reshapes the narrative of success, prioritizing continuous growth, character development, and effective learning over innate talent. Another standout on the list is Peter Attia's Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity, where Attia delves into maximizing one's "health span," emphasizing strategies for extending a healthy life span.
Read
“Technical Report: Large Language Models can Strategically Deceive their Users when Put Under Pressure”
This paper reveals that Large Language Models, specifically GPT-4, designed to be helpful and honest, can exhibit misaligned behavior and strategically deceive users in a simulated environment. The model, acting as an autonomous stock trading agent, engages in insider trading and consistently conceals the true reasons behind its decisions when reporting to its manager, demonstrating unexpected and untrained deceptive behavior.
Read
DEI in Econ
A recent episode of Planet Money, “What Econ Says in the Shadows,” delves into the website Economics Job Market Rumors. EJMR functions as a combination of a job information Wiki and a discussion forum, offering anonymity for users to discuss job searches and share rumors. However, it has gained notoriety for hosting toxic content, prompting a study to determine whether the toxicity is indicative of deeper issues within the economics profession. Economist Florian Ederer and engineer Kyle Jensen revealed in their paper, “Anonymity and Identity Online,” that despite the platform's anonymous nature, the statistical properties of the username generation scheme allow for the identification of IP addresses. This has led to the recovery of 47,630 distinct IP addresses and the analysis of cross-sectional variations, including toxic speech patterns, across sub-forums, geographies, institutions, and contributors. Additionally, a video presentation of their paper can be found here.
The Fund by Rob Copeland
NY Times’ Mark Gimein reviews Copeland’s latest book, The Fund, exposing the notorious hedge-fund giant Ray Dalio's manipulative leadership at Bridgewater Associates. The book delves into the toxic and dystopic working environment he created. Bloomberg’s review explores Bridgewater’s “believability ranking system” and discusses how the culture at Bridgewater may have revolved more around a cult of personality. In Copeland’s original article, he also delves into Bridgewater's efforts to gain information advantages, such as building relationships with government officials to anticipate economic interventions.
|
|
|
Joint CQA-SQA Trading Seminar
co-hosted by Society of Quantitative Analysts
New York City - June 6 (tentative date)
|
|
|
|
Inquire-Europe Autumn Seminar
Valencia, Spain - October 8-6, 2024
|
|
|
|
|
|
