Mathematical Investor

Introduction

A June 2014 study released by the Employee Benefit Research Institute concluded that many U.S. Baby Boomer and Gen Xer households are expected to run short of money in retirement (assuming 35 years in retirement): 83% of those in the lowest income quartile, 47% in the second quartile, 28% in the third, and 13% even in the highest income quartile. Another study concluded that more than half of future U.S. retirees will rely on Social Security for at least 50% of their income.

Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that many workers, both in the U.S. and

Continue reading How financially literate are individual investors?

On 7 July 2014, the New York Times ran a feature story on James H. Simons, the well-known geometer, hedge fund founder, billionaire and philanthropist. Here are some of the fascinating facts uncovered in the Times story and elsewhere:

Simons was born in 1938 in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a shoe factory owner. Simons graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in three years, then received his Ph.D. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley in three more years, finishing at the age of 23. Simons worked on cryptographic mathematics at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Princeton, New Jersey, but

Continue reading New York Times features story on James Simons