Rocket Science and Investment Management: Closer Than It Seems

Although it may seem surprising to many, Walter Gerasimowicz says that his careers as scientist and an investment advisor are not as dissimilar as they would seem at first glance.

“A lot of [investment management] is mathematically driven,” he says. “Much of the same mathematics that I utilized as a scientist in looking at reactions and kinetics and movements at molecular levels is the same mathematics that applies to the reversion of interest rates to the mean, for example, or, to the calculation of portfolio allocations where you are minimizing risk through the minimization of a variance/co-variance matrix. It’s the same thing, but you’re applying it to price movement as opposed to molecular movement or vibrational movement at the molecular level. So there are those types of similiarities.