John At The Center

Andrew Lo of MIT on the confluence of technology & finance, and what is has wrought, for good and … much less good. And, yes, John Thain is in this too.

via The Confluence of Technology & Finance.

The term Cobra effect stems from an anecdote set at the time of British rule of colonial India. The British government was concerned about the number of venomous cobra snakes. The Government therefore offered a reward for every dead snake. Initially this was a successful strategy as large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually however the Indians began to breed cobras for the income.When this was realized the reward was canceled, but the cobra breeders set the snakes free and the wild cobras consequently multiplied. The apparent solution for the problem made the situation even worse.[2][3]

via Cobra effect – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

High frequency trading with genetic algorithms : Bitcoin.

Combined with central government debt and other liabilities such as bad bank loans, analysts estimate China’s overall explicit debt load is about 70 per cent of gross domestic product.

But some analysts believe the contingent liabilities of the government are much higher, once debts on the books of state-owned enterprises and other entities implicitly backed by the state are included.

“If you take a very broad view of the Chinese government’s contingent liabilities rather than explicit debt on the books then the number comes to well over 150 per cent of China’s GDP in 2010,” according to Victor Shih, a political economist at Northwestern University in the US. The US has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 93 per cent, while Japan’s ratio is over 225 per cent.

via China estimate of the day — Marginal Revolution.

Wall Street is being dragged into the Silicon Valley talent war as the demand for data analysts increases on both coasts of the US.

via Wall Street vs Silicon Valley – FT.com.