Beyond The Random Walk

A Random Walk in Physics

This book offers an informal, easy-to-understand account of topics in modern physics and mathematics. The focus is, in particular, on statistical mechanics, soft matter, probability, chaos, complexity, and models, as well as their interplay. The book features 28 key entries and it is carefully structured so as to allow readers to pursue different paths that reflect their interests and priorities, thereby avoiding an excessively systematic presentation that might stifle interest. While the majority of the entries concern specific topics and arguments, some relate to important protagonists of science, highlighting and explaining their contributions. Advanced mathematics is avoided, and formulas are introduced in only a few cases. The book is a user-friendly tool that nevertheless avoids scientific compromise. It is of interest to all who seek a better grasp of the world that surrounds us and of the ideas that have changed our perceptions.

Random Walk To Nowhere, A: How The Professors Caused A Real "Fraud-on-the-market"

This book is about an intellectual fraud, one that has become part of legal doctrine that has greatly influenced decisions all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. The 'efficient market hypothesis' (EMH), born from the Random Walk theory, started out as an honest attempt to improve insights into how financial markets work, but eventually became almost a religion that every financial economist had to buy into, or risk professional crucifixion. The EMH began over a half century ago. It posits that share prices reflect all available market information, and that it is impossible to consistently outperform the market. This theory dominated research in the academic financial community from the outset, and has continued to do so for decades. Meanwhile, the evidence for above-average profit-making opportunities in the markets has been unfairly suppressed.Written for practitioners in the business, finance and legal industries, this book outlines the major issues that gave rise to the fraud, focusing on the role of statistics in the rise of what the authors call the 'New Finance.' It details the developments and results of the exclusion of other theories from efficient markets research and highlights the problems arising from a dogmatic adherence to EMH.

Psychology and the stock market