Forking Paths in Empirical Studies

Date: May 23, 2023

Guillaume Coqueret, Associate Professor, Emlyon Business School and Dr. Hossein Kazemi, Senior Advisor, FDP Institute discuss the importance of small variations in the implementation protocol of applied studies. This presentation will share why we advocate the usefulness of reporting a wide range of outcomes in empirical work, based on many variations of design choices. This allows us to characterize the effects more exhaustively and leads to more robust conclusions. We illustrate these ideas in two studies: one on equity premium prediction and one on portfolio sorts (asset pricing anomalies, i.e., factors).

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How to Build Better Portfolios in Python Using Riskfolio-Lib

Date: April 18, 2023

Are you looking to optimize your investment portfolio to maximize returns and minimize risks? Do you want to learn how to use Python to build powerful investment strategies and manage your portfolio efficiently? Then, this webinar is for you!

In this webinar, we will introduce you to Riskfolio-Lib, a powerful open-source library for portfolio optimization in Python created by Dany Cajas. Riskfolio-Lib provides a range of portfolio optimization techniques, risk management tools, and performance analytics to help investors design and manage their portfolios effectively.

Dany Cajas will demonstrate some popular use cases and will discuss with FDP Charterholder, Cordell Tanny how this library has evolved. It includes not only traditional methods of optimization, but also contains some of the most modern techniques available.

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Deep Neural Net Applications on Trading and Risks

Date: April 13, 2023

Many cutting-edge and AI/ML technologies have matured from R&D into robust tools in the past few years. Successful applications tend to be correctly scoped to provide immediate impact (3-6 months) to resolve existing bottlenecks, and by re-imagining a fresh approach on ‘how things are done’, through re-working of critical but implicit/unquestioned assumptions.

Some examples include applications on information extraction and analytics for nowcasting, tracking and resolving data transformation and quality issues, untangling complex dependencies and internal structures on long-chains of processes, and machine learning to resolve massive calculation performance bottlenecks, to name but a few.

This talk between Dr. Hossein Kazemi, FDP Institute and Dr. Gary Wong, Artemis AG will focus on applying Deep Neural Net (DNN) on 2 areas:
• Using DNN to replicate computationally intensive models (complex models and/or long-dated trades) and boosting massive calculation performance (1M+ times speed up) for trading and risks, e-trading on structured products, and regulatory calculations such as CVA and FRTB – a game-changer to totally turnaround the cost/benefit analysis.
• Pattern recognition on markets – analyzing and nowcasting for volatility surfaces – both liquid and illiquid markets. Apart from applications in trading and risk management, generating realistic and arbitrage-free synthetic vol surfaces are useful for data benchmarking, estimating missing data points for illiquid markets, and generating realistic stress scenarios.

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How Should Long-Term Investors Form Portfolios?

Date: March 28, 2023

Nowadays, the availability of alternative data and their adoption in the asset management industry to improve investment decision processes is a widespread alternative approach. It comes with the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques that allow the processing of these data, reducing their noise, and converging Big Data into Smart Data.

Traditional asset management techniques provide very little guidance to these questions. Academic studies are often rooted in 50 or 70-year-old portfolio theories, as are standard investment textbooks. Yet these theories have very little to do with real-life portfolio practice.

McGill University, Associate Professor of Finance, Russ Goyenko will discuss with Senior Advisor, FDP Institute, Dr. Hossein Kazemi, how long-term investors should form portfolios. They will delve into how they should evaluate securities, portfolios, and managers. Learn more about how they adapt to time-varying expected returns, volatilities, correlations, and many factors, signals, and strategies.

We are proud to have Claude Perron, Founder of FIAM as an Association Partner sponsoring today's event. FIAM's mission is to contribute to the development and competitiveness of the Quebec financial community and beyond.

Developing an Improved Investment Style Analysis Algorithm and My Journey to the FDP Designation by Cordell Tanny

Date: March 9, 2023

In this fireside chat and live demonstration, Cordell Tanny will share with Dr. Hossein Kazemi his journey through his financial services career and how it led him to the FDP designation. He will describe his experiences with the program and how the material learned in the curriculum helped him not just advance his knowledge of how machine learning and AI can be used in finance, but also how to apply many of the concepts to his daily workflow. By the end of the presentation, the audience will have a better understanding of the importance of the FDP designation and gain insights into the journey of obtaining the FDP Charter. The audience will also see how open-sourced python libraries and financial data from free sources can be used to build innovative quantitative models.

We are proud to have Claude Perron, Founder of FIAM as an Association Partner sponsoring today's event. FIAM's mission is to contribute to the development and competitiveness of the Quebec financial community and beyond.

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FDP Q2-2023 Candidate Orientation Session

Date: March 2, 2023

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From TradFi to DeFi Through the Lens of Experience

Date: February 23, 2023

The CAIA Boston Chapter is pleased to present a panel discussion of global leaders who have led significant financial service organizations through periods of change and innovation over the last couple of decades. Learn how they have taken, adapted, and augmented those skills in this new era of digital disruption and innovation 2.0, under the broad heading of DeFi. How do they assess the new opportunities within a sea of disruption, and learn why the underpinnings of risk management, process, and procedure remain so critically important for a sustainable business model.

CAIA Association CEO, Bill Kelly will explore this topic with Julia Bonafede, CFA, Co-Founder of Rosetta Analytics, Jane Buchan, CEO of Martlet Asset Management, Zoe Cruz , Founder & CEO of Menai Financial Group and Jennifer Murphy, Founder & CEO of Runa Digital Assets.  Thank you to Jennifer Tribush, CAIA Boston Chapter and Senior Vice President, Global Head of Alternatives Product, State Street for supporting this CAIA Association and FDP Institute educational webinar.

How is ESG Reshaping the Alternative Investment Business?

Date: February 15, 2023 

Today, ESG is no longer just an acronym but a reality, expected to reach a third of assets under management by 2025. It is spreading across all asset classes, including the less liquid ones. ESG now defines the new frontier of alternative investments. Our speakers will be discussing the recent trends in alternative investments, how ESG impacts the alternative investment business and the important role of data.

Laura Merlini, Managing Director, EMEA will moderate a discussion with Mehrzad Mahdavi, Executive Director of FDP Institute along with Florence Angles, Managing Principal, Capco and Julia Bonafede, Co-Founder, Rosetta Analytics.