We investigate the leverage of hedge funds using both time-series and cross-sectional analysis. Hedge fund leverage is counter-cyclical to the leverage of listed financial intermediaries and decreases prior to the start of the financial crisis in mid-2007. Hedge fund leverage is lowest in early 2009...

There exist two separate branches of finance that require advanced quantitative techniques: the "Q" area of derivatives pricing, whose task is to "extrapolate the present"; and the "P" area of quantitative risk and portfolio management, whose task is to "model the ...

The state of Colorado has determined that the tax revenue from the sale of legalized marijuana has now exceeded half a billion dollars. Colorado has so much extra money for marijuana it can now afford a cocaine habit.

The publisher of Hillary Clinton’s upcoming memoir announced today that the title of her book will be the statement “What Happened.” Well, that’s the censored version.

A major shortcoming of the U.S. leading index is that it does not use the most recent information for stock prices and yield spreads. The index methodology ignores these data in favor of a time-consistent set of components (i.e., all of the components must refer to the previous month). An alternativ...

The owner of a clown motel in Nevada is looking to sell it. The clown motel is like any other motel, except it only has one parking spot.

Alfred Cowles' (1934) test of the Dow Theory apparently provided strong evidence against the ability of Wall Street's most famous chartist to forecast the stock market. In this paper, we review Cowles' evidence and find that it supports the contrary conclusion -- that the Dow Theory, as applied by i...

The process by which analysts revise quarterly earnings forecasts is analyzed and compared to the way in which several time-series models of quarterly earnings revise forecasts. A significant portion of the analyst's forecast revision is explained by the most recent one-quarter-ahead forecast error....

I read that you can now buy a new, wine-flavored jelly. Which is a great idea until your kid’s teacher calls and says, “I dunno what happened to Billy. He ate a PB&J and keeps singing ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’”

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk claims he has gotten verbal approval to connect New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington with a high-speed train that runs in an airless tube. While the New York City subway just introduced brand-new rotary phones.