It's N-1 again !!

'Desire is the root cause of sorrow' - ye it is ... however, how does one move ahead in life if there are no desires or no unfulfilled ambitions !! ...

So here's me with one more desire (if you read my previous blogs ..I have already mentioned..i m a 'Yeh Dil Maange more' guy). I work presently in somthing known as Alternative Investments, many aren't aware of what exactly this peice of shit is. So let me brief a bit on it ... Alternative Investments is an investing sophistication, where numbers rule the world, the belief being ..there's nothing in this world numbers can't define .. in a histrionic terms - 'Investing is a number driven martix'..and thats actually true.....

When I finished my MBA, I had little idea I will be working in an Alternative Assets(AA) department. Now, though I always wanted to be close to figures ( I love sexy figures too), AA was a pleasant surprise. My life, now, revolves around figures ... at the end of a working day all I have done is mazed several figures on a spreadsheet and said 'WOW' .. thats crazy stuff. Good part about the job is that I use very bit of my brain analyzing Asset classes world over ..all tiny little parts of my acedemic sense.. and it also helps in creating a duality within myself .. for e.g. one part of the brain says Chineese Stock market would fall given a P/E of 35, the other part of the brain says .. how can chineese stock fall .. the one year deposit rate in China is less than the inflation.. and I am right both the times...

This is all I love about my job...

Now, the not so loved part of my job..

Often I have to meet with different Hedge Funds managers from across the globe, every time I meet them, I come out as a 'Inferiority-Complex' driven individual (which I obviously dont like)...let me tell you why this happens...On one side of the table is me and on the other side of the table is a guy who's done Phd. in physics, was working with french space agencies, now is a part of a quantitative Hedge fund and to add insult to injury is a graduate from MIT; and if this doesnt lower your spirits; nothing can, has also done CFA. I happen to meet one today ...

'So you follow a bayesian process' was my question .. 'We not only follow a bayesian process .. we also optimize based on factors..wht we do is calculate Correlations on a moving average basis with half Alpha values' was the reply ... I thought I should shoot myself there ...he he ... I have met 6 managers in 15 days time and they all have left me baffled ....

The bad thing about this job is that there are things which are going above my head ... and I dont like that to happen to me (believe me, you cant even laugh at urself)...

I have very soon realised that there are these immensely(grammatical error allowed) Brillianttttt people in this world and unfortunately, as of now, I am not a part of that group.


So here's the desire ... now I need to learn everything possible under the sun concerned with Alternatives ... to be as good as people who have understand figures better than me ... to learn how to beat them in their own court ... to make figures talk...

I thought not many desires were left unfulfilled, gusess what 'N' has increased and I am one short of it ...............