Tag Archives: Machine Learning

Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Webinars

Cornell Engineering. Operations Research and Information Engineering. Financial Engineering Manhattan

Featuring Machine Learning experts from Cornell, Citi, and more…

You and your colleagues are invited to attend the Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Webinars. Through the online talks in Spring 2021, we are excited to collaborate with Citi in highlighting machine learning applications in finance.

All webinars are from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm EDT.

This webinar is free and open to all guests. Registration is required (RSVP). You will receive the webinar link and dial-in info upon registration (the confirmation email will come from
no-reply@zoom.us)

Date: Tuesday, May 11th, 2021
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT
Speaker: Nicholas Venuti | Morgan Stanley
Title: Advances in Sequential Deep Learning

Abstract

Sequential data serves as the basis for many real-world applications such as machine translation, voice-to-text conversion, and motion tracking. As the order and context of past datapoints are needed for future prediction, these datasets must be modelled temporally either by constructing features or utilizing recursive models.

Many state-of-the-art solutions include recurrent neural networks (RNNs), as these methods are able to exploit both techniques by capturing the time-based nature of these systems while leveraging the expressiveness of deep learning architectures. While RNN variants such as gated recurrent units (GRUs) and long-short term memory (LSTM) networks have dominated sequential deep learning, recent studies have found that temporal convolutional networks (TCNs) can match or exceed these networks in prediction performance while greatly reducing the training time of the models.

In this talk, we will provide a general overview of four common architectures: vanilla RNNs, GRUs, LSTMs, and TCNs. We will compare the model stability, memory requirements, and training times of each. Lastly, we will review the performance of these architectures on a variety of benchmark image, text, and audio datasets.

Program Agenda:

  1. Nicholas Venuti’s Presentation
  2. Q&A
  3.  “Lightning Talk” – featuring CFEM Alumnus Vineel Yellapantula
  4. Discussion

Speaker Bio

Nicholas Venuti is a Machine Learning Research Scientist in Morgan Stanley’s Machine Learning Center of Excellence, whose main research focus is deep learning architectures for time-series predictions. After obtaining his Bachelor of Science in Biomolecular Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University, Nicholas began his career working in data analytics at an environmental consultancy. Afterwards, he obtained his Masters of Data Science at the University of Virginia, where his thesis studied using NLP to identify semantic shifts in religious and political texts as an early indicator for extremist views.

“Lightning Talk” Info:

CFEM alumnus Vineel Yellapantula will discuss his summer project at AbleMarkets under Prof. Irene Aldridge, “Quantifying Sentiment in SEC Filings.” By utilizing Natural Language Processing techniques and the BERT model, he explored how text present in the MD&A section of 10-K and 10-Q filings affect the performance of the stock. He also tested the efficacy of multiple factors derived from these texts using a long-short market-neutral trading strategy.

Vineel Yellapantula (MFE Cornell ’20, MSc Mathematics BITS Pilani ’18) is a Decision Analytics Associate at ZS Associates.

We hope to see you online!

The Cornell-Citi Team

**Please excuse any duplication of this announcement


If you are interested in our past seminars, you are welcome to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and watch our videos!

Past CFEM Events

February 16th, 2021
Speaker: Charles-Albert Lehalle (Capital Fund Management)
Title of Presentation: “An Attempt to Understand Natural Language Processing and Illustration on a Financial Dataset”

March 9th, 2021
Speaker: Bruno Dupire (Bloomberg)
Title of Presentation: “Some Applications of Machine Learning in Finance”

April 13th, 2021
Speaker: Peter Carr (NYU) and Lorenzo Torricelli (University of Parma)
Title of Presentation: “Stoptions” and “Additive Logistic Processes in Option Pricing” (PDFs available upon request)

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series: Sandrine Ungari

This event has been rescheduled to Thursday, May 13th at 9:30 AM EDT. Please see the updated event details below.

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series, NYU Tandon

Sandrine Ungari, Head of Cross-Asset Quantitative Research Team at Société Générale will give the following talk on Thursday, April  22nd at 9:30 AM EDT. 

Attend Virtually >>

Meeting ID: 953 4085 3209
Passcode: BQESU

Title

A Brief History of Quant Investing – from Traditional Equity Factors to Machine Learning

Abstract

Over the past few decades, systematic quantitative investing has gathered interest from a wide range of investors ranging from hedge funds to asset owners. In this presentation, we review a few of the most emblematic systematic strategies, and discuss their more recent implementations making use of modern statistical learning. Differences in performance across factors and cycles highlight the importance of having a portfolio framework. We show how diversification can be a factor of performance in that field too.

Bio

Sandrine Ungari is currently Head of Cross-Asset Quantitative Research team at Société Générale. The Quantitative Research team has been recognized as a market leader in quantitative research and is the recipient of the 2020 Risk Award for Research House of the Year. Sandrine’s research topics cover systematic strategies across asset classes, interest rate modeling, machine learning, statistical analysis, and portfolio construction. She joined Société Générale in 2006. Prior to that, she worked as a quantitative analyst at HBOS Treasury and at Reech Sungard in London. She is a graduate of ENSTA (Paris) and holds a Master’s in Quantitative Finance from Paris VI University.

Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Webinars

Cornell Engineering. Operations Research and Information Engineering. Financial Engineering Manhattan

Featuring Machine Learning experts from Cornell, Citi, and more…

You and your colleagues are invited to attend the Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Webinars. Through the online talks in Spring 2021, we are excited to collaborate with Citi in highlighting machine learning applications in finance.

All webinars are from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm EST.

This webinar is free and open to all guests. Registration is required (RSVP). You will receive the webinar link and dial-in info upon registration (the confirmation email will come from
no-reply@zoom.us)

Date: Tuesday, March 9th, 2021
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST
Speaker: Bruno Dupire | Bloomberg L.P.
Title: “Some Applications of Machine Learning in Finance”

Abstract

Finance has always tried to make use of all available information to optimize investment decisions. The advent of efficient Machine Learning algorithms, alternative data, and computational powers has deeply impacted many fields in finance. To mention a few, rotation of factors according to market regimes in factor investing, option pricing and hedging, anomaly detection, covariance matrix cleaning, transaction cost analysis. Alternative data include texts from news and tweets, supply chain data, satellite images, vessel routes, weather data, credit card transactions, geolocation data.

This overflow of information opens the door to endless number crunching and apophenia. The desperate search for a signal leads to overfitting and unstable relationships, so beware. As I like to say, the market is a machine made to destroy the signal!

Program Agenda:

  1. Bruno Dupire’s Presentation
  2. Q&A
  3. “Lightning Talk” – Yumeng Ding
  4. Discussion

Speaker Bio

Bruno Dupire is head of Quantitative Research at Bloomberg L.P., which he joined in 2004. Prior to this assignment in New York, he has headed the Derivatives Research teams at Société Générale, Paribas Capital Markets, and Nikko Financial Products where he was a Managing Director. He is best known for having pioneered the widely used Local Volatility model (simplest extension of the Black-Scholes-Merton model to fit all option prices) in 1993 and the Functional Itô Calculus (framework for path dependency) in 2009. He is a Fellow and Adjunct Professor at NYU and he is in the Risk Magazine “Hall of Fame”. He is the recipient of the 2006 “Cutting Edge Research” award of Wilmott Magazine and of the Risk Magazine “Lifetime Achievement” award for 2008.

After a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence in 1982 and a Ph.D. in Numerical Analysis in 1985, he has conducted in 1987-88 a study to apply Neural Nets to time series forecasting for Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. He has been applying Machine Learning to a variety of problems in Finance and has given many lectures on the topic in the Americas, Europe, and Asia over the past few years.

“Lightning Talk” Info:

CFEM alumna Yumeng Ding will discuss her team capstone project, which was titled, “Interpreting Machine Learning Models.” By utilizing Machine Learning interpretability models, the Cornell CFEM team, sponsored by Alliance Bernstein, explored how black-box models can be explained and evaluated in finance. The team analyzed S&P 500 constituents and explored the interpretability of some widely-used ML modes.

Yumeng Ding (MFE Cornell ’20, BA Finance Fudan University‘15) is a soon-to-be analyst in Strategic and Analytics at Deutsche Bank.

We hope to see you online!

The Cornell-Citi Team

**Please excuse any duplication of this announcement


If you are interested in our past seminars, you are welcome to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and watch our videos!

Past CFEM Events

February 16th, 2021
Speaker: Charles-Albert Lehalle (Capital Fund Management)
Title of Presentation: “An Attempt to Understand Natural Language Processing and Illustration on a Financial Dataset”

Upcoming CFEM Events

April 13th, 2021
Speaker: Peter Carr (NYU)
Title of Presentation: Adding Optionality

May 11th, 2021
Speaker: Raja Velu (Syracuse University)
Title of Presentation: TBD

Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Webinars

Cornell Engineering. Operations Research and Information Engineering. Financial Engineering Manhattan

You and your colleagues are invited to attend the Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Webinars. Through the online talks this semester, we are excited to collaborate with Citi in highlighting machine learning applications in finance.

All webinars are from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm EST.

This webinar is free and open to all guests. Registration is required (RSVP). You will receive the webinar link and dial-in info upon registration (the confirmation email will come from
no-reply@zoom.us)

Date: Tuesday, Nov. 17th, 2020
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST
Speaker: Paul Besson | Euronext
Title: “European Liquidity and Trading Flows During the COVID-19 Crisis: Insights from Euronext Data”

Abstract
Part 1: Liquidity Overview

Part 2: How Orderbooks Reacted to COVID-19

Part 3: How Brokers, Liquidity Providers, and Retail Reacted to COVID-19

Speaker Bio
Paul heads Euronext’s Quantitative Research department. His main area of research is Market Microstructure and Behavioural Finance on Flows Analysis. Prior to this, he held the same position for seven years at Kepler Cheuvreux, the largest independent European broker. Paul has twelve years’ previous experience as a fund manager in quantitative arbitrage, both for hedge funds and long-only funds. Paul regularly presents papers at academic conferences and has authored various publications on Market Microstructure in applied journals.

He has been a lecturer for a number of institutions, and still gives lectures for Paris Dauphine University. Paul graduated from ENSAE Paris.

We hope to see you online!

The Cornell-Citi Team

**Please excuse any duplication of this announcement

Previous CFEM Events

Sep. 1st, 2020
Speaker: Michael Rabadi (Balyasny Asset Management)

Oct. 6th, 2020
Speaker: Rama Cont (Oxford University) and Francesco Capponi (BlackRock)

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series: Jon Hill

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series, NYU TandonDear All,

You are cordially invited to the Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series (BQE) on Thursday, September 17th at 6 p.m.  on Zoom.

Attend Virtually >>

*Please note a meeting password is required for this event.
Meeting ID:958 8116 1956
Password:
BQEJH

Dr. Jon Hill, NYU Tandon Adjunct Professor, will give the following talk:

Title:

A Smarter Model Risk Management Discipline Will Follow From Making Smarter Models

Abstract

What if a financial firm decided to delete its entire set of models and redevelop them from scratch. What might it do differently in the process of rebuilding its entire model eco-system in order to avoid and leverage from some of its previous mistakes? How could such a firm make the Model Risk Management (MRM) platform smarter and less resource intensive than it was before?

This article describes one forward-looking possibility for making the manually intensive practice of MRM smarter by building models that are smarter in the sense of having a rudimentary level of ‘self-awareness’. Similar to the ways that tech firms have tracked the usage of their smartphones, cars, laptop computers and printers for many years, active intelligent agents embedded in model source code can support the creation of a dynamic model inventory to serve as a repository of historical data that accurately describes how, when and where a firm’s models are used and to diagram firm-wide inter-dependencies between data and models.

Keywords: model risk management, governance, validation, dynamic model inventory, model usage, transponder function, model-embedded, active intelligent agents, machine learning, big data, SR11-7, OCC2011-16.

Bio:

Jon leads the New York Chapter of the Model Risk Managers International Association. With over twenty years of experience in diverse areas of quantitative finance, Jon is recognized as a subject matter expert in model risk management, governance and validation and is the author of numerous publications on these topics. Jon is also an adjunct professor in NYU’s Financial Risk Engineering Dept. where he teaches a graduate course in Advanced Model Risk Management, Governance and Validation.

Jon holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Utah. He is a frequent speaker and chairperson at model risk conferences throughout the US and Europe.

Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Seminars

Cornell Engineering. Operations Research and Information Engineering. Financial Engineering Manhattan

You and your colleagues are invited to attend the Cornell – Citi Financial Data Science Seminars at the Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech, Room 131. Through the talks this semester, we are excited to collaborate with Citi in highlighting machine learning applications in finance.

11 West Loop Road
New York, NY 10044

All seminars are from 6:00pm to 7:00pm. This seminar will be recorded, and you can watch the livestream.

Seminars are free. However, registration is required for NYC attendees as seating is limited.

 

Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Speaker: Alok Dutt | Citigroup
Title: Data Science in Financial Markets: Hype vs. Useful Practical Reality

Abstract: The data-driven fields of AI and ML are ubiquitous in the financial industry, but despite the promise there are many obstacles to effective application. Few firms are able to reap their full rewards and it is increasingly important to distinguish what works from what doesn’t in practice. How does one navigate the opportunities and challenges amid the plethora of techniques and complexities of implementation? This talk will present a number of general principles and case studies that can help make the necessary choices to realize the transformational potential of data within a financial institution.

Speaker Bio

Alok Dutt is Head of Analytics in the Markets Quantitative Analysis division at Citigroup. He is an architect and manager responsible for various advanced projects in data analytics, trading algorithms and automation across multiple business lines and asset classes. In his role at Citi he applies data and quantitative techniques to automate business processes including research, modeling, trading, simulation and visualization. Alok has extensive experience in several broad areas of quantitative finance, including derivatives modeling, algorithmic trading and market making. Before Citi, he developed the trading models and algorithms for a new automated options market making group at Morgan Stanley that was the subject of a HBS case study on disruptive innovation. Prior to that, Alok was an exotics modeler and trader and established the first multi-asset hybrid trading desk at Bank of America. Alok has a PhD in Computer Science from Yale University and a BA in Mathematics from Cambridge University.

We hope to see you there!

The Cornell-Citi Team

Directions to CFEM&Citi @CornellTech on Roosevelt Island: Take the Tram or the F train to Roosevelt Island; walk to the left along the East River until you see a modern glass building, which is the Tata Innovation Center. Once you enter the lobby and check in, walk straight ahead to Room 131.

**Please excuse any duplication of this announcement

Upcoming CFEM Events

April 1, 2020
May 6, 2020

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series: Dhruv Madeka

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series, NYU TandonDear All,

You are cordially invited to the Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series (BQE) on Thursday, February 6th at 6PM in LC 400, Dibner Building, 5 Metrotech Center – 4th Floor.

Dr. Dhruv Madeka who will present a talk on the following topic:

Title:

Practical Deep Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

We present a Deep Reinforcement Learning approach to solving a dynamic periodic review inventory system with stochastic vendor lead times, lost sales, correlated demand, and price matching. While this dynamic program has historically been considered intractable, we show that different policy learning approaches are competitive or outperform classical baseline policies. In order to train these algorithms, we develop techniques to convert historical data into off-policy data for a simulator.

Bio:

Dhruv Madeka is a Senior Machine Learning Scientist at Amazon. His current research focuses on applying Deep Reinforcement Learning to inventory management problems. Dhruv has also worked on developing generative and supervised deep learning models for probabilistic time series forecasting. In the past – Dhruv worked in the Quantitative Research team at Bloomberg LP, developing open source tools for the Jupyter Notebook and conducting advanced mathematical research in derivatives pricing, quantitative finance and election forecasting.

We look forward to having you join us for the talk and refreshments.

FinTech Seminar Series

FinTech Applications of AI & Machine Learning in B2B space

With its formidable datasets within domain sets like credit default, economic, security ratings, firmographic & people data, Moody’s is well positioned to develop new products to serve the needs of its clients. The Moody’s Analytics Accelerator group aims to identify, research and develop new business products for new clients and new markets using sophisticated AI & Machine learning techniques that are now ubiquitous in the Consumer space. This talk will focus on how we have brought to market products in the Compliance, Loan Origination, Financial Spreading and Commercial Real Estate domains.

Bio

Rakesh Parameshwar is a Senior Director for Strategy & Innovation in the Moody’s Analytics Accelerator (MAA) group. The MAA group aims to identify, research, and develop new business opportunities, with a special focus on emerging technologies like AI & ML. Before joining Moody’s Analytics in 2018, he was in charge of business strategy and product development for Bloomberg’s Desktop API, Alerts and Quant Solutions group. Prior to this, he had extensive experience working for global banks where he advised clients with risk management solutions and built technology solutions. Rakesh has an MBA from NYU Stern, a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in India and a certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF)

When

Wednesday January 29, 2020
6 PM – 7PM

Where

University of Waterloo @ Manhattan Institute of Management
2 Washington Street, 17th floor
New York, New York

NYU Courant: Mathematical Finance Seminar

The mathematical finance seminar covers a broad range of topics in mathematical and quantitative finance, including:

  • Data science and machine learning in finance
  • Big data and econometric techniques
  • Quantitative finance
  • Portfolio and risk management
  • Pricing and risk models
  • Regulation and regulatory models
  • Trading strategies and back testing

Presenters include invited visitors and NYU Courant faculty. A seminar presentation often covers original research. The seminar meets monthly on Tuesdays at 5:30 pm to 7 pm in room 1302 of Warren Weaver Hall at 251 Mercer Street, unless specified otherwise. Please make sure to check the exact schedule and room assignment. Talks generally last an hour, followed by networking.

Seminars are open to the public.

The seminar coordinator is Petter Kolm (email: petter DOT kolm AT nyu DOT edu).

Seminar Organizer(s): Petter Kolm


Tuesday, November 12, 2019
5:30PM 
251 Mercer St.
Warren Weaver Hall 1302
Model Risk Management for Alpha Strategies created with Deep Learning
Ben Steiner, Global Fixed Income, BNP Paribas Asset Management

NYU FRE Lecture Series: Aparna Gupta

NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Dear All,

You are cordially invited to attend the FRE Lecture Series on Thursday, November 7th in LC 400, Bern Dibner Library, 4th Floor (5 MetroTech Center), at 6:00PM.

Dr. Aparna Gupta will present a talk on the following topic:

Title:

Identifying the Risk Culture of Banks Using Machine Learning

Abstract:

We introduce text mining and unsupervised machine-learning algorithms to define the risk culture for U.S. bank holding companies and examine the relation between risk culture and performance. Applying principal component analysis on textually extracted features from 10-K filings identifies uncertainty, litigious and constraining sentiments among risk culture features to be significant in defining risk culture of banks. Cluster analysis of these features proposes three distinct risk culture clusters which we label as good, fair and poor. Consistent with regulatory expectations, sound risk culture in banks is characterized by high profitability ratios, bank stability, lower default risk and good governance.

Bio:

Aparna Gupta is an associate professor of quantitative finance and director of the Center for Financial Studies in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has been the founding director of the MS program in Quantitative Finance and Risk Analytics at RPI, and holds a joint appointment in industrial and systems engineering in the School of Engineering at RPI. Dr. Gupta has been a visiting researcher at US SEC in Washington DC for two years. Her research interest is in financial decision support, risk management, and financial engineering. She applies mathematical modeling, machine learning and financial engineering techniques for risk management both in technology-enabled network services, such as, energy and renewable energy systems, communication systems, and technology-enabled service contracts, as well as risk management in the inter-connected financial institutions and financial markets. She has worked on several US National Science Foundation funded research projects in financial innovations for risk management. Dr. Gupta’s research has been published in top quantitative finance and operations research journals, and has been awarded various recognitions, including 2018 best paper award of the Financial Management Association and 2019 best paper award at the 17th FRAP Conference. She is the author of the book, Risk Management and Simulation. Dr. Gupta is a member of WFA, FMA, INFORMS, GARP and IAQF, and serves on the editorial board of several quantitative finance and analytics journals. She earned her doctorate from Stanford University and her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

We look forward to having you join us for the talk and refreshments. Please mark your calendars.