Hedge Funds and Science: The Two Sides of the Same Coin

对冲基金一直在去年为Academia提供巨大的总和。2月Ken Griffin，基于芝加哥对冲基金公司的创始人堡垒，捐赠了1.5亿美元到哈佛大学，最大的学院赠送了最大的礼物。迈克尔恒泽，伦敦总部主任对冲基金公司CQS那donated £1.5 million ($2.5 million) to Oxford University, to help search the universe for invisible dark matter and dark energy. These followed Jersey–based hedge fund firm布瑞恩霍华德去年对帝国大学商学院捐赠2010万英镑，从纽约对冲基金公司的活动投资者首席执行官Bill Ackman捐赠45米到牛津大学的Saïd商学院Pershing Square Capital Management。

大学电库似乎是对冲基金金钱的避难所。但最近，利用投资回报的学术研究有一个新的趋势。

二月里资本基金管理（CFM）是法国最大的对冲基金公司之一，该公司管理45亿美元，宣布与伦敦帝国学院的正式伙伴关系，以制定CFM-帝国的定量金融学院，这将探讨金融市场风险建模的新方向。为了促进财务学术调查，CFM正在为博士后的奖学金提供资金，为博士学位的学生提供资助，以及访问国际学者的计划以及一系列研讨会和会议。

The project is a solid fit for CFM, the company of which physicist Jean-Philippe Bouchaud is chair, a leading figure among quantitative hedge fund firms. “Finance is as important for humans as nuclear science and pharmaceutical research,” says Bouchaud. “Academia and finance are two separate things. But the gap is getting narrower; this tie-up is proof of that. It’s time to stop warring and get the best of both insights.”

除了监督CFM，Bouchaud在巴黎的Ecole Polytechnique教授物理学，并发表了几本书和超过250篇科学论文的物理和金融。他也是众所周知的生态物理学支持者，使用物理学家开发的统计学理论和方法研究经济学。该公司的教学联系有助于CFM为140名员工提供了40名员工的科学家，其中许多人来自高等教育等级。

嫁给金融和学术界的冲动并不是什么新鲜事。经济学已经倾向于各种模型方程的物理学，例如地震预测和混沌理论。即便是Black-Scholes-Merton赢得Myron Scholes和Robert Merton 1997年诺贝尔·穆普尔经济科学奖，赢得了经济科学奖，与物理学中的热方程共享。（该配方首次发表于1973年的纸张，由1995年死亡的费舍黑色共同创造，因此不符合诺贝尔。）

但最近伙伴关系的正规化建议直接途中用于利用科学投资。CFM的倡议是对冲基金公司和科学的最新系列。Man Group那the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, pledged £13.75 million ($27.5 million using 2007 rates) in 2007 to sponsor the Oxford-Man Institute (OMI) of Quantitative Finance for a five-year period. Last year Man Group extended this partnership until 2018. East Setauket, New York–based hedge fund firm Renaissance Technologies is known for specifically seeking out job candidates with science backgrounds for its quantitative research positions. Longtime quant James Simons, who founded the firm in 1982, has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to institutions of higher learning and research, including $60 million to the namesake Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley, and those on his resident Long Island, including $13 million to the Brookhaven National Laboratory and $85 million to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he is chair emeritus of the board of trustees.

对于人类组，OMI是一种访问和孵育最高人才的一种方式以及采购相关研究。

“我们对人类的高素质人员有一定的需求，所以将道路进入一个顶级大学是非常有帮助的，”人类的AHL基金的执行主席Tim Wong说，蒂姆斯·努力依赖于计算机算法来现货利润趋势。“在雇用他们之前，您有机会在更深层次的水平上了解候选人。你可以看到他们的工作方式，他们有机会看看我们如何工作。它还让我们在世界各地的牛津大型网络中联系。“

The application of theoretical physics to what at times can appear to be the gravity-defying properties of money is one thing. But where does theory end and practice begin? A brilliant quantitative mind is not necessarily an alpha generator. Last year hedge fund manager George Soros argued that economics had tried to be a hard science like physics but ignored that society and the thinking of human beings entered into the course of events, introducing unpredictability into the equation.

男人的AHL基金已经遭受了三年的三年损失：不是闪耀的科学展示投资者。“当然，在趋势之后的趋势挑战更广泛地存在趋势挑战，但行业正在迅速发展和多样化，”黄说。“OMI在这一承诺中发挥着关键作用。”

As evidenced by the failure of models to deal with the financial crisis, banks have had a rough go of incorporating quant models in their strategies but haven’t always had the patience to see them through. “Twenty years ago, we were stunned by seeing that banks considered a week to be long-term research,” says Bouchaud. “You have no time to research in a week — you won’t get answers. Innovation needs long-term research.”

即使是Isaac Newton也失去了18世纪投资者投资的捆绑，后来解释了“我可以计算出恒星的运动，但不是男人的疯狂。”Berkshire Hathaway椅子和CEO Warren Buffett Quicpecthis 2005 letter to shareholders如果牛顿没有受到这种损失的创伤，艾萨克爵士可能已经开始发现第四议案法：为投资者随着运动的增加，作为一个整体，返回减少。“

A school of thought holds that far from being physical systems, markets are based on informational asymmetry and become difficult to model because there is always something looking to disrupt order to gain an informational advantage — that is, the “trader’s edge.” In a 2010 paper titled “警告：物理嫉妒可能对您的财富有害！，“马萨诸塞州理工学院学院Andrew Lo和Mark Mueller简洁地说：”想法不确定性只是幻想;只有痛苦。“

Bouchaud坚持认为数学模型不是交易成功的唯一因素。他批评了高效的市场假设，其中的推荐人，芝加哥大学尤金Fama，以及耶鲁大学经济学家所公开的评论家罗伯特希勒尔，联合赢得了2013年诺贝尔经济科学纪念奖（芝加哥经济学家Lars Peter Hansen也分享了奖品）。Bouchaud也不是Black-Scholes-Merton模型的粉丝，他认为，他们认为能够对期权交易的风险进行系统。

“We are doing a little bit of the math that is needed. But most of the time you don’t need math,” he says. “You need intuition and an understanding of what the numbers mean and how to pull them together. There is a huge difference between understanding something on an academic level and looking at implementing it.”

So to where does this all lead? Could we really see the next generation of hedge fund firms being staffed by wonks in ironic T-shirts splashed with mathematically themed puns? Despite the riches on offer, the marriage between science and对冲基金不一定是童话故事。

许多学者之间的情绪是贿赂科学家远离他们的象牙塔。在2012年出版的国际定居点银行的一项研究中，BIS经济学家斯蒂芬Cecchetti和恩西·哈鲁巴辩称，在大量的“众多”竞标火箭科学家远离卫星行业的时候诱惑了财富。结果是，在另一个年龄的人梦想着患有癌症或飞往火星的人，今天梦想成为对冲基金经理。“

其他人不同意，说明最好的科学将普遍留在学术界，而不是跳过船舶资助。詹姆斯欧文大风，加利福尼亚大学伊维林大学逻辑和科学哲学助理教授在他的书中辩称华尔街的物理学，在2月份发布，数学模型是补救措施，而不是疾病。他的书中有一个案例是西蒙的文艺复兴技术。

“绝大多数研究科学家已经进入他们的田地，因为他们想做研究。他们在学术界取得了巨大的牺牲，既有个人和金融，在学术界中取得了成功，“Weatherall在面试中说。“The Ph.D.s who move to finance tend to be the ones who decide that a good salary on Wall Street, or elsewhere in industry, is better than a progression of postdocs and no job security, or a teaching position with no research support.”

Bouchaud自己很快就会说金融公司应该寻找心脏更加成定量造型的科学家而不是钱包。“如果你想吸引人们并避免道德危险，你需要拥有不仅仅是钱的人，”他说。“你需要与它有智力挑战。”他认为，他自己的公司的界限将通过探索和研究鼓励发展，正如他看到它，这是财务所做的方式。“这个想法是避免过于规定的。你应该让惊喜到来。“

Bouchaud’s words suggest the science and hedge fund relationship is a mutually beneficial one. But what happens when the influence over scientific research turns into interference?Hedge fundsare money-making machines. One could assume the longer science languishes, the more scientists will look to finance to capture money. The boundaries between finance and science are ever more co-dependent.