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From The Thalesians
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The Thalesians
The Thalesians is a group of dedicated professionals with an interest in finance, economics, mathematics, computer science, and synergetics, not necessarily in that order.
The group was founded in September, 2008, by Paul Bilokon, then a quantitative analyst and strategist at Lehman Brothers specialising in foreign exchange, and a part-time researcher at Imperial College. The first Thalesians were his friends and colleagues, Saeed Amen, Thomas Barker, Nikolai Iordanov, and Stephen Scott.
Our Philosophy
We are named after Thales of Miletus (Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος), a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in ca. 625 BC-ca. 546 BC. Thales was a mathematician and is familiar to many secondary school students for one of his theorems in geometry.
But more relevantly to us, he was one of the first users of options:
"Thales, so the story goes, because of his poverty was taunted with the uselessness of philosophy; but from his knowledge of astronomy he had observed while it was still winter that there was going to be a large crop of olives, so he raised a small sum of money and paid round deposits for the whole of the olive-presses in Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a low rent as nobody was running him up; and when the season arrived, there was a sudden demand for a number of presses at the same time, and by letting them out on what terms he liked he realised a large sum of money, so proving that it is easy for philosophers to be rich if they choose, but this is not what they care about." — Aristotle, Politics, 1259a.
The morale of this anecdote is that it is easy for philosophers to be rich if they choose; the famous Milesian went ahead and proved it.
We, the Thalesians, admire him for that. But we also share many of his values, for example his core belief that a happy man is defined as one "ὁ τὸ μὲν σῶμα ὑγιής, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν εὔπορος, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εὐπαίδευτος" (who is healthy in body, resourceful in soul and of a readily teachable nature).
This wiki was created to serve as a source of information on quantitative finance, to collate references to various related resources, and to serve as a convergence point for the Thalesians, our colleagues and collaborators. It grew out of Paul Bilokon's finance wiki, which he started in February, 2007.
We believe that secrecy and fidelity are important in the world of finance. But we also acknowledge the power of information sharing in open societies. Let your business logic remain a closely guarded secret. But release everything else into the public domain. What goes around, comes around; this will ultimately spare you reinventing the wheel.
Contribute
We are looking for exceptionally smart, gifted, professional people to contribute and possibly join our ranks. If you are interested and believe we may be interested too, contact us.
Overview
Here is my wiki in a nutshell.
- Notation - A word on notation. The symbols I prefer to use for various quantities and operations. These conventions should hold for most of this site, but not necessarily all of it.
- Formula Sheet - A list of important formulae. At least those important in my work. This list covers both basic maths, statistics, and financial mathematics.
- Knowledge Base - My cookbook of simple recipes for finance, mathematics, and programming. These are simple tricks of the trade that I use in my everyday work. Chances are that I didn't have the time to write up the more sophisticated techniques. This section is always under construction.
- Glossary - Definitions of important terms in finance, mathematics, and programming. Also lists of abbreviations.
- Reading List - My bibliography. References to books and periodicals on finance, mathematics, and programming.
- Resources - Links to Internet resources on finance, mathematics, and programming.
- Software - A list of useful software products for finance, mathematics, and programming.
- Employment - Tips on getting a job in finance (quantitative modelling, research, and trading), interview questions and links to related resources.
- Community - List of people you should know in finance, mathematics, and programming.
- Current Events - This is a misnomer, perhaps. Here I list some rescent past, present, and future events and quantitative finance. This includes conferences, lectures, and book releases.
This page is permanently under construction, irrespective of whether there is a corresponding message on the page that you are looking at. Chances are you'll see bits and pieces that are clearly incomplete. So be it. I prefer to keep working on it, even at the cost of completeness.
