Greetings from California,
I am is San Francisco, however, I don't see that too many people would speak Spanish here. Yes, I know it's America, but doesn't the name of the city itself call for Spanish?
Lately, I have been deeply involved into a Coursera course on Financial Engineering and Risk Management, where the brilliant Dr. Emmanuel Derman is a guest lecturer. I signed up for the course after having read his book, My Life as a Quant, which I find a delightful literature piece and a valuable source of practical information if you happen to be in the field. This book is strongly recommended to all who has not read it, and I will be definitely posting a review-entry on why I find this book so amazing.
Spoiler alert: this book is inspiring for all of us who got too far with our hardcore scientific training, to the point where common sense whispers: "Give it up, get a job and do the real thing!" while the perfectionist's approach to everything and the bad habit of doing everything to its very end does not let us let it go. The book shows us light in the end of the tunnel.
Don't blame me, academia, you are amazing, and you are the driving force for all. But you know you got efficiency issues, right?
Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a San Francisco-based person working in finance at a high level, and I heard the opinion that Russia's stocks (as represented by the RTS index) get less and less dependent on oil every year. It has been said that now the connection (call it correlation if you wish) is less than 50 per cent. Is this statement arguable?
Have a wonderful weekend!
