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By Irene Aldridge The last two weeks witnessed a somewhat forgotten phenomenon — a market headed south at a rapid pace for several consecutive days. Unlike flash crashes, brief spikes of downward volatility that can be predictable (see Aldridge, I., “High-Frequency Runs and Flash Crash Predictability”, Journal of Portfolio Management, 2014, and AbleMarkets Streaming Flash Crash Index), the sell-off of the past two weeks was methodical, slow and painful. AbleMarkets, a Big Data platform for finance, tracks institutional activity by pinpointing electronic algorithms used to break up large orders throughout the day. AbleMarkets uses the most granular tick-level data from exchanges to identify market microstructure footprints of institutionsRead More →

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By Irene Aldridge Selling volatility has been a popular trading strategy among hedge funds over the past couple of years. At the core of the strategy’s popularity is the observation that volatility becomes considerably more severe when the markets are moving down rather than when they are rising up (see, for example, “The Cross-Section of Volatility and Expected Returns” by Ang, Hodrick, Xing and Zhang, Journal of Finance, 2005). In other words, selling volatility is a complicated way of betting on the rise of the market. During the current administration’s tenure, the U.S. markets have consistently risen, while dampening volatility in the process and generating excitement amongRead More →

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In the next five years, big data analysis is poised to become one of the most important and competitive skill sets around. Portfolio analysis in particular is where pension funds are focusing their big data investments. Big data is a set of techniques embedded in the latest, most sophisticated technologies: social media analytics, digital video recognition, 5G cellular technology and much more. The capabilities of big data are incredibly powerful and extend far beyond traditional systems. Supported as a spying technology in the World War II and later, the Cold War, core big data techniques were developed in the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s and areRead More →

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Irene Aldridge’s latest paper on Big Data optimization in portfolio management is the first to show that spectral decomposition of an inverse of the correlation matrix delivers 400% improvement over the equally-weighted and other common portfolio optimization schemes. Read more here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3142880Read More →

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By Irene Aldridge Figure 1. A question for you: if you have 9 dots lined up in a 3×3 grid (Figure 1), how do you connect them all with just four segments without lifting your pen? This is an example of an out-of-the-box problem which kids love and which expands their sense of spatial coordinates and problem solving not usually taught at school. The Math & Science curriculum in early childhood education is focussed on understanding numbers — a great feat and a standard-meeting requirement. While mastering basic arithmetic is necessary, what makes you more interested in learning math & science: 1) reciting arithmetic orRead More →

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By Irene Aldridge The word on the street is that no indicator is more reliable about one’s beliefs of future economic conditions than one’s trading activity. It is fascinating to observe institutional investor activity immediately before and after the announcement that the U.S. Senate has conditionally passed the proposed new tax law in the context of understanding the thoughts and beliefs of institutional investors as expressed by their often billion-dollar investing decisions. The new tax regime slashes corporate tax rates from 35% down to 21%, potentially resulting in direct increase in after-tax earnings, and, therefore, stock prices in 2018. From a cursory analysis, it wouldRead More →

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CFEM Practitioner Lecturer Spotlight|Irene Aldridge Monday, October 23, 2017 Whitney Johnson: Forty Over 40 Practitioner Spotlight! CFEM Practitioner Lecturer, Irene Aldridge (AbleMarkets), currently teaches ORIE 5255 and has been listed on Forbes’ Whitney Johnson 2017 Honorees: 40 Women to Watch Over 40. In addition to being President and Managing Director of Research at AbleMarkets, Irene is a quantitative Big Data researcher and author of “High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies” and “Trading Systems and Real-Time Risk: What Investors Should Know About Fintech, High-Frequency Trading, and Flash Crashes”.  Follow her whole story in the “Forty Over 40” article here.Read More →

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By Irene Aldridge As parents, we always want the best for our children. Without a second thought, we invest in the best music and sports classes that we can afford to stimulate their brains and muscles. We arrange outings and playdates in order to provide our children with a diversity of experiences and friendships. By doing these things, we hope not only to help them now, but also to equip them with the skills they will need 10 or 20 years down the road. We can say, with reasonable accuracy, that the hottest, most necessary skill that will be in demand in the coming yearsRead More →

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Only investors that harness Big Data and track risks in real-time survive, an interview with Irene Aldridge. By PlanetCompliance, July 28, 2017 Everything changes. Financial Services. Markets. Risk. Technology and innovation transform an entire industry and if you want to survive, you need to change, too. In order to change though, a profound understanding of the new technologies is necessary. PlanetCompliance spoke to Irene Aldridge, the author of the bestseller “Real-Time Risk” about what investors and finance professionals need to know about Fintech and the way Big Data is transforming the world we live in. There are without doubt not enough women in finance. Not in traditional banking,Read More →