I've just finished reading a book called "the poker face of wall street". Writer Aaron Brown, an executive director at Morgan Stanley and a well known Wall Street quant man, believes that modern finance and the modern game of poker have a great deal of similarities and that investment professionals can learn a great deal from good poker players: namely a better understanding of risk.
As both a poker player and as a quant expert, Aaron believes that real risk means real money is made or lost in a heartbeat and that in both worlds, it’s the combination of being able to correctly assess the odds as well as read the table (or rather the other players at the table) which make the difference between success and failure. As Aaron puts it, you may have “the right maths skills, but often no head for either risk or people”. Whilst I didn’t agree with everything Aaron had to say, I did find it an enjoyable read. Rather controversially, Aaron believes that investment is really jus...
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