Scott Patterson: The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
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Жанр : Random House Inc.
Издательство : Random House, Inc.
Год издания : 2011
Аннотация:
Over the last twenty years, a species of math whizzes known as quants has usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers whove long been the alpha males of the worlds largest casino. The quants believe that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry holds the key to reaping riches from the financial markets. They took over Wall Street with their formulas... and helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Yet, in creating it, had they sowed the seeds for financial historys greatest disaster? Drawing on unique access to four of the best and brightest among these number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what these men thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize — and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQs had led them so wrong so fast. With the immediacy of todays NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris...and an ominous warning about Wall Streets future.