Fred Fox is the founder and CEO of Planalytics, a company specializes in business weather intelligence -- the study, development and commercialization of weather analytics. His clients are companies and NGOs who seek to better understand the impact of weather-related events. Fox advocates developing a corporate weather history in order to make assessments when future events occur. Planalytics gets granular with its data -- so much so that it can reasonably forecast how much an inch of snow will impact the month’s and quarter’s sales. 

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Ranji Nagaswami is chief executive officer of Hirtle Callaghan, a firm that helped popularize the idea of the outsourced CIO. Previously, she was co-head of U.S. fixed income at UBS Asset Management; she also was chief investment officer of Alliance Bernstein Investments, the group’s retail/mutual fund division, and served as chief investment adviser to the city of New York during the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (founder of Bloomberg LP). She discusses the agnostic approach to investing, considering everything from passive management on one end of the spectrum to alternative investments like private equity and venture capital on the other. Nagaswami, who has five women on her executive team, also explains why including women in leadership is important for investment firms, noting that extensive research shows that women are less emotional when it comes to portfolio management, make better decisions, and have better performance.

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Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Matthew Rothman, the head of global quantitative equity research at Credit Suisse and a senior lecturer in finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He was hired a few years before the financial crisis hit to be the global head of quantitative research at Lehman Brothers (and then moved to Barclays Capital, following the Lehman bankruptcy). In the midst of the quant crash in 2007, he published “Turbulent Times in Quant Land,” which became the most highly distributed research note in Lehman’s history. He is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, and as an analyst often weaved song lyrics into his research notes.

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Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews the fascinating Victor Niederhoffer, a nationally ranked squash champion and former Berkeley professor of finance and statistics. An undeniably brilliant man who was still unable to adequately manage risk, he offers crucial lessons for all traders. In his first book, "The Education of a Speculator," he reveals the risk-embracing style that created his first fortune. In his follow-up, "Practical Speculation," he almost -- but doesn’t quite -- accept responsibility for the prior disaster. It was published before the devastating second set of losses suffered during the credit crisis.

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Not many strategists begin studying technicals in college, but that was the route Katie Stockton took. As an undergraduate at the University of Richmond, she studied graduate level coursework in technicals, eventually becoming an intern at technical analysis firm Dorsey Wright.

Stockton discusses how the total volume of stock-market trading has fallen since the financial crisis. Is it algos or indexing or HFT causing the fall-off? Some combination of all of the above? She describes her favorite indicators (Trend, Fibonacci, etc.) and some of her not-so-favorites (Elliot Wave).

As chief technical strategist for BTIG in New York City, she looks at the world as a top-down analyst, considering everything from interest rates to stock prices to economic indicators. But she keeps coming back to charts and the trend as the dominant factor driving all of her analysis. Her work led her to win the 2017 Best Institutional Brokerage for Equity Research at the 2017 Technical Analyst Awards.

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 What happens when Paul McCartney asks, “What are you doing for the next few years?” For Lawrence Juber, you think about it for a nano second, before saying “I guess I am playing with you.”  The session guitarist, musicologist, former Wings guitarist and Grammy-award winning composer with 25 albums to his name describes rehearsing with Paul and Linda before their next tour. McCartney wanted to record some tracks, but his favorite studio, Abbey Road, was unavailable -- so he built an exact reproduction of Abbey Road inside his own studio. He explains how composers and performers get paid a meager amount from music streaming, and why the real money is in television and movie soundtracks. The music business model has changed from record sales to live performances and merchandise sales.

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Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Steven Clifford. Compensation consultants are parasites, so says Steven Clifford, author of "The CEO Pay Machine: How it Trashes America and How to Stop it." Clifford is a former tech company chief executive officer who has grown disillusioned with the procedures and practices that serve no corporate purpose other than enriching the CEO and senior management. What was supposed to be pay for performance, he said, has become a scheme to transfer wealth from shareholders to insiders. 

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Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews  Ellen Zentner, the chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley. She explains why Texas came through the financial crisis so well, courtesy of its rainy day fund. Her career took her from the Texas Comptroller's office to Morgan Stanley, where she leads the North American Economics group. She said starting in government gave her time to think “deep thoughts” and develop her analytical approach. 

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Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Matt Wallaert, a behavioral scientist who works at the intersection of technology and human behavior. After several years in academia and two successful startups, he joined Microsoft, where he led a team of experts using technology to help people live happier, healthier lives. During his time with Microsoft, he was a director at Microsoft Ventures, the firm’s venture capital arm. He sits on the boards of a variety of startups and nonprofits. Wallaert and Ritholtz discuss the role of behavioral psychology in startups. This interview aired on Bloomberg Radio.

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Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Richard Clarida, a global strategic adviser for PIMCO and former assistant secretary of U.S. Treasury. His first day at the Treasury Department was Sept. 11, 2001, and he describes what it was like to start work during such a chaotic period. He also reminds us that during the financial crisis, many were originally concerned with a deflation scare. He gives the Fed high marks for crisis management during the Great Recession, but says that since the recovery has begun, it has been too slow to normalize and not very clear in its communications.

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