This is, simply, a trading, investment and business blog written by a Canadian, with interests in both the Canadian and American markets, although of late (October 2008) I’ve found it much more profitable to trade the much more liquid American markets. I hope this site serves as an antidote both to technical trading (and other faux-empirical systems) and over-reliance on pure fundamentals — value being somewhat subjective and fundamentals becoming meaningless in panics and crashes. I read other trading blogs occasionally as a view into other viewpoints — some of which are lessons on what not to do.
You might be wondering, why “A Canadian on Wall Street” when Canada’s main financial district is at Toronto’s Bay Street? Well, since I’m a bit of an outsider in the mainstream financial world represented by “Wall Street”, and a participant of American markets from afar, I felt it was a succinct way of expressing that. Plus, it’s a reference to a Sting song, one of the few of his I actually don’t mind. It seems to confuse a lot of people, but I’ve grown to like it so it stays, although most people don’t seem to refer to this site with that name, but with the more catchy “Canuck Investor”.
As far as disclosure is concerned, if I don’t explicitly state my position on a security, security option, future or other fanciful derivative product, usually at the end of an entry, you can infer that I don’t have a position in it. Like most people who invest regularly in securities, I’m cagey about my own portfolio while gleefully interested in determining the contents of yours, so I imagine it will not be too often when I’ll need to disclose a position. This industry’s all about information.
You can reach me at “canuckinvestor” on gmail.
September 15, 2008 at 7:46 am
Hi,
I have completed a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo (UW). I am at a crossroads in life and wondering what to do next.
I was thinking of Financial Mathematics at U of T or UW, but was also interested in Economics.
You had mentioned that Financial Math is mostly limited to non-English speakers but who are really smart at Math. This concerns me as I do love match. But then the Macro aspect of Economics is fascinating to me as well.
Any advice?
Thanks,
Dan
September 17, 2008 at 11:06 am
Hi Dan,
I’m no expert in the area of Financial Mathematics/Engineering and my impressions come from articles I’ve read on that career area as well as auditing a Financial Engineering program — the bulk of the classes were made up of new immigrants. That said, there were numerous native English speakers as well, so I would definitely look into it if that’s your interest. It really depends on what you want to do with it as well — for instance, if it’s to work in a hedge fund as a quant, it might be useful, although firms like Renaissance Technologies tend to avoid people with these degrees and focus on those with more purely academic qualifications.