September 2008
6 posts
Stephen Fry on the need for the BBC to stay in its...
James Rubin on China and Russia
Tonight I was lucky enough to go to a question and answer session with James Rubin, Democrat and foreign policy expert, ably hosted by the chief economist of HSBC Stephen King. The questions were very diverse, and of a high quality as one would expect from an audience of fund managers; they compared well with those at the Oxford Union, which tend to show the audience’s comparative (and...
Has it ever struck you the similarities between playing Championship Manager (circa late 1990’s) and asset management? Today, I noticed how alike the two activities are: first of all in the modus operandi: essentially, you take large amounts of data, both in the form of written news reports and analysts’ reports (or advice from coaches and scouts) as well as large arrays of numbers,...
One of my favourite programs to watch on the television is Dragons’ Den, in which entrepreneurs pitch their companies to a panel of five “dragons” for investment. Although primarily a form of entertainment, I think there are some important lessons to be learnt about business from the show.
The first is the art of pitching, whether you are pitching your company, your product or yourself. The...
Notes from a Small Cubicle
Last week I started to do an internship at a city investment management firm, in the US equities team: now I’ve been doing it for a week, now seems like a good idea to jot down some thoughts. I don’t really want to get into investment philosophy – the team I work with seems to spend most of its time looking at charts and then trying to find a catalyst for change in the company, which...