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Center for Financial Studies
Fosters high-quality research and learning.
The Center for Financial Studies (CFS) of the Lally School of Management strives to foster highest-quality research and learning in the fields of financial engineering, risk management, corporate finance, financial intermediation, and capital markets. To that end, the Center produces industry events, hosts and participates in national competitions, provides professional training and data repositories, conducts workshops, and guides research opportunities.
Annual CFS Workshops
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2020 - AI and Cybersecurity Issues in Financial Services - In this workshop, we bring together speakers from federal agencies, industry, and academia to discuss and share insights on the cybersecurity threats currently facing the financial services sector, the artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies and systems being used to address such threats, and the additional opportunities AI brings to the industry.
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2019 - Risks and Advances in Financial Technologies Workshop - During this one-day workshop hosted by the Center for Financial Studies (CFS), we bring together speakers from industry, regulatory entities, and academics with a range of research interests for an active discussion on the current opportunitites and challenges of financial technologies, a review of their current adoption, and a look to the future.
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2018 - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Finance Services Workshop - During this one-day workshop hosted by the Center for Financial Studies (CFS), industry experts discusssed artificial intelligence and machine learning in the financial services industry.
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2017 - Quantitative Finance and Risk Analytics Workshop - In this one-day workshop hosted by the Center for Financial Studies (CFS), attendees learned and networked with top academics and industry experts in the financial industry, specifically in the areas of quantitative investments and risk management.
CFS Seminars
Past CFS Research Series Seminars
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October 30, 2019 - "Market-Risk Coverage of Securitized Products" with Leon Tatevossian, NYU Tandon
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October 8, 2019 - "Forecasting Realized Volatility with Kernal Ridge Regression" with Blake LeBaron, Brandeis University
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October 9, 2019 - "An Intangible-Adjusted Value Factor" with Hyuna Park, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.
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April 3, 2019 - "Should I Stay or Should I Grow? Feedback Effects of Voluntary Disclosure" with Sudarshan Jayaraman, University of Rochester.
- April 10, 2019 - "Phantom Menace: Role of Pseudo Peers in CEO Compensation" with Swaminathan Kalpathy, Texas Christian University.
- March 20, 2019 - "Statistical Arbitrage: Back to the Future" with Marco Avellaneda, The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
- January 16, 2019 - "Peer-to-Peer Financing: Contract Design with Asymmetric Information" with Steven Kou, Boston University.
- November 7, 2018 - "Issuer Default Risk and Rating Agency Conflicts*" with Samuel Bonsall, The Pennsylvania State University.
- October 17, 2018 - "Cross Country Cultural Differences, Hedge Hund Contracting, and Risk Taking" with Na Dai, Ph.D., School of Business, University At Albany (Albany, NY).
- May 2, 2018 - " Analyst Book Value Forecasts" with Dr. Alfred Liu, School of Business, University at Albany, Albany, NY.
- February 21, 2018 - "Executive Fiduciary Duty and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," with Yijiang Zhao, Ph.D., Kogod School of Business, American University, Washington, D.C.
- December 6, 2017 - "Universal Demand Laws and Monitoring Device Role of Accounting Conservatism," with Feng Chen, Ph.D., Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
- November 10, 2017 - "The Changing Landscape of Accrual Accounting: Implications for Operating Cash Flow Predictability," with Mani Sethuraman, Ph.D., Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Business, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
- November 3, 2017 - “The Lifecycle Effects of Firm Takeover Defenses,” with William C. Johnson ’95, Ph.D., Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
- October 3, 2017 - “Portfolio Optimization with Industry Return Prediction Models,” with Wolfgang Bessler, Ph.D., Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany.
- September 15, 2017 - "Wisdom of the Employee Crowd: Employer Reviews and Stock Returns," with Dexin Zhou, Ph.D., Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, New York, New York.
- March 29, 2017 - “The Multilayer Structure of the Financial System," with Dror Kenett, Ph.D., U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Financial Research, Washington, D.C.
- March 3, 2017 - "Credit Default Swaps and Bond Issuance Cost,” with Cihan Uzmanoglu, Ph.D., School of Management, SUNY Binghamton University, Binghamton, N.Y.
- February 22, 2017 - “Interest Rate Swap Market Complexity and Its Volatility Implication,” with Steve Yang, Ph.D., School of Systems and Enterprises, Steven Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N.J.
- February 17, 2017 - “Volatility Forecasting: The Role of Internet Search Activity and Implied Volatility,” with Marketa Wolfe, Ph.D., Department of Economics, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
- January 31, 2017 - "Real Activities Management and Volatility of Operating Cash Flows: The Impact of Enterprise Systems,” with Alfred Liu, Ph.D., School of Business, University of Albany, Albany, N.Y.
- November 10, 2016 - "A New Non-Convex Optimization Approach (HOPE) for High Dimensional Regression in Genomic Subset Selection,” with Professor Yuji Nakagawa, Faculty of Informatics, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan.
- November 10, 2016 - "Product Market Peers in Lending: Information Processing Efficiencies and Proprietary Costs,” with Gaetano Gus De Franco, Ph.D., B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, La.
- November 9, 2016 - “The Value of Hot News: Intellectual Property and the Sell-Side Research Industry,” with Jonathan E. Clarke, Ph.D., Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga.
- November 2, 2016 - "CAP COM, A Case Study for Success," with Ms. Paula Stopera, President/CEO, CAP COM Federal Credit Union.
Previous CFS Industry Speaker Series Seminars
- March 27, 2019 -"Life on Wall Street as an Engineer" with Tao Cheng, managing director at BlackRock.
- February 27, 2019 - "Cryptocurrency Trading and Current Landscape of Exchanges" with Ricky Li '11, co-founder of Altonomy
- October 24, 2018-"Moody's Municipal Finance Primer" with Robert Weber, vice president and senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service
- September 19, 2018-"Investing In Junk Bonds" with Mr. Dave Garg, Portfolio Manager at Tricadia Capital.
- March 21, 2018 - "A Market-Maker's Approach to Option Trading" with Sheldon Natenberg, Independent Market Maker (Retired), Chicago Board Options Exchange.
- February 14, 2018 - "FAM Approach to Investing," with John Fox, Chief Investment Officer, Fenimore Asset Management, Cobleskill, NY.
- November 15, 2017 - “A Public Pension Plan Overview,” with Fred Herrmann, CFA, CPA, managing director of public equities and Paul Cummins, CFA, manager of quantitative strategies. Both speakers are from the New York State Teachers' Retirement System in Albany, New York.
- October 6, 2017 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. - "Emerging Trend: Alternative Data for Investment," with Le Yan, Ph.D., senior quantitative researcher, Thasos Group, New York, New York.
- April 19, 2017 - “Energy Sector: Opportunities and Challenges in Electric Industry Sector is a Vital Part of Every Economy, ” with Ms. Narmada Nanjundan, Director of Risk, East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Winchester, KY.
- March 8, 2017 - “Holistic Cognitive Banking: Knowledge Digitalization is the Next Asset Class, ” with Mr. Paolo Sironi, FinTech Thought Leader, IBM Watson Financial Services, Frankfurt, Germany.
- March 1, 2017 - “Factor Models in Equity Portfolio Management,” with Dr. Vijay Chopra, managing director of international equities, Lebenthal Asset Management, New York, N.Y.
- October 26, 2016 - "Leveraging Modeling and Analytical Techniques for Credit Card Business,” with Mr. Sharad Kumar ’02.
- October 18, 2016 - "Preparing for a Risk Career," with Dr. Lisa S. Ponti, Head of Academic and Regulatory Outreach, Global Association of Risk Professionals.
Vision, Mission, and SMART Strategy
- Synergistic collaboration among Lally and non-Lally constituents, through CFS-based faculty affiliations and industry-partnered projects
- Meaningful dissemination and sharing of knowledge and discovery that can impact the best practices, through topic-specific workshops and CFS participation
- Advancement of the technological infrastructure of CFS (in hardware, software, and data access) to facilitate comprehensive solutions to financial problems
- Raising the awareness of CFS among all students to promote wider participation for industry exposure and knowledge discovery, and in leveraging existing technological skills in a wider student population
- Training, education, and certification of young talent in facing and mitigating tomorrow's challenges in the global financial landscape.
Research, Support, and Partnerships
- Workshops and seminars
- Interaction with industry and professional bodies
- A repository for financial data, software, and other research-related facilities at the Lally School
Support
- Technology and computer lab
- Financial and statistics software
- Trading lab, access to a variety of financial databases, and literature
- Library
- Bloomberg terminal
- Professional organizations
- IAQF: International Association for Quantitative Finance
- GARP: Global Association of Risk Professional
- CQA Investment Challenge
- Industry speaker series
- Career fair (IAQF - end of October)
- GARP events
Training
CFS Training Opportunities
- Computer lab access - Gain knowledge and practice in the latest finance hardware and software
- Bloomberg terminal/training - Bloomberg terminal access/training helps enhance research practices and improve analysis of data and market-moving events for students from a wide range of disciplines. Students benefit from integrating theory with real-world practice.
- Certifications - Financial Risk Manager (FRM), Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA)
Student Challenges and Competitions
- CFS Financial Modeling Competition
- IAQF Modeling Competition (National-level event)
- CQA Challenge (National-level event)
- GARP Masters Research Fellowship (International opportunity)
- CFA Research Challenge and CAIA activities
- The Buttonwood Debate
Affiliations: Faculty and Industry
CFS Director:
Associate Professor Aparna Gupta
Director of the M.S. in Quantitative Finance and Risk Analytics Program
Rensselaer Lally School of Management
guptaa@rpi.edu
Affiliated Faculty
Professor Chanaka Edirisinghe
The Kay and Jackson Tai ’72 Chair and Director of the Center for Financial Studies
Rensselaer Lally School of Management
edirin@rpi.edu
Jerome S. Reinert '56 Visiting Executive Series
Past Events
- January 25, 2019 - "Yield Frowns and Vol Smiles" with Peter Carr, Ph.D., chair of the Finance and Risk Engineering Department at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. To watch a video recording of the event, click here.