The Predictors
by Thomas A. Bass · first published 1999
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5HN commenters
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Excerpted in The New Yorker and hailed by the business press, The Predictors is destined to become a classic of its generation--an antic, subversive odyssey into a universe defined by the mystical convergence of physics and finance. How could a couple of rumpled physicists in sandals and Eat-the-Rich T-shirts, piling computers into an adobe house in Santa Fe, hope to take on the masters of the universe from Morgan Stanley? Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard may never have read The Wall Street Journal, but they happen to be among the founders of the new sciences of chaos and complexity. Who bet
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…Lowenstein (for a fuller appreciation, read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis first). If you're interested in reading an excellent account of a startup HFT/hedge fund, it's worth ordering a secondhand copy of The Predictors by Thomas Bass (for a fuller appreciation, read Chaos by James Gleick first).
on “What are hedge funds, and what social functions do they serve?” ↗…innovation. They were crunching "Big Data" more than a decade before it became a buzzword, and using clusters and grid computing, graphics cards and FPGAs long before Bitcoin arrived on the scene. Go read The Predictors by Thomas A Bass, to read how a group of chaos scientists made a killing in the futures markets. Some of those technologies end upo making their way into wider use but, while their contribution to the…
on “Ask HN: What would our world's tech be like without our flawed financial system?” ↗I see they've got Packard from Prediction Company as well. Bass, Thomas A., The Predictors, 1999, gives a good account of Packard & Doyne Farmer's work on market prediction.
on “Numerai, a hedge fund built by a community of anonymous data scientists” ↗I was giving this some more thought. Anyone else here familiar with the cast of characters from the book The Predictors ? http://www.amazon.com/Predictors-Maverick-Physicists-Theory-... Is there any possibility of their involvement?
on “Ask HN: Why would a government have created bitcoin?” ↗The Predictors by Thomas A Bass https://www.amazon.co.uk/Predictors-Thomas-Bass/dp/080505757...
on “T. Rowe Price Voted for the Dell Buyout by Accident” ↗If you know programming, the thing probably is to get intrigued about the various different areas. The Predictors (Thomas Bass) Market Wizards (there's a series) When Genius Failed Pit Bull (Marty Schwartz) Rigged (Mezrich) Liar's Poker Reminiscences of a Stock Operator These are all basically novels.…
on “Ask HN: Good resources for learning+getting into Finance / Trading?” ↗The book about that group, The Eudaemonic Pie, is a great read: http://www.amazon.com/Eudaemonic-Pie-Thomas-Bass/dp/05951423... Recently I ran across another book about the same group, "The Predictors: How a Band of Maverick Physicists Used Chaos Theory to Trade Their Way to a Fortune on Wall Street"
on “Tell us your naughty stories” ↗