Two sides of the coin

Two events this week saw a keen audience assemble to discuss and hear the latest facts and research from the world of finance. First came the Swiss Finance Industry Seminar by Swiss National Bank (SNB) Board Member Thomas Jordan. Professor Jordan addressed a capacity audience of more than 220 people on Tuesday morning (photo) to talk about the SNB Transaction.

And yesterday FINRISK research project leaders gave an all day presentation on the current state of their research. I'll be posting on some of those presentations in the coming days, including an excellent presentation on neurofinance by Kerstin Preuschoff. Dr Preuschoff presented some very compelling evidence that the human brain encodes important financial concepts, including expected reward, in a systematic and predictable fashion.

Economics of uncertainty

The Swiss Finance Institute found its way into several recent media discussions in the midst of this extraordinary time for the field of finance. Among others, Institute managing director Professor Jean-Pierre Danthine and Professor Martin Hoesli gave interviews and the Institute cropped up in several discussions about the Swiss financial centre.

An expert of property finance, Martin Hoesli has advised governments and pension funds on how to assess risk adjusted returns in the real estate sector and brings an empirical eye to the housing market in Switzerland and abroad. His timely new book "Real estate investment - Decision and Risk Management" has just been published by Paris-based Economica.

Jean-Pierre Danthine has given numerous interviews for print and radio in recent weeks, most recently on the Swiss approach to supporting the financial system through research and education. The goal, according to Danthine, is to strengthen Europe's research culture in the field of finance to be commensurate with its economic significance internationally.

Geneva based daily Le Temps claims that research is acutely needed as ballast in the seas of economic uncertainty. And Zurich based Finanz und Wirtschaft believes that new initiatives such as the Swiss Finance Institute cannot come soon enough in a financial system seeking an alternative to the specific forms of intervention coming from Washington and Brussels.

Professor Michael Brennan presents wake up call on stock return bias

Early risers in Zurich were treated to an impressive research presentation by Professor Michael Brennan (left) this morning entitled "The Mispricing Return Premium".

The substantial size of the positive bias in stock prices estimated by Brennan's empirical study of NYSE, AMEX and Nasdaq data was all the more startling for the audience given the time-slot of the event: 7am at Zuercher Kantonalbank's gleaming offices in Zurich West.

Professor Emeritus at UCLA Anderson School and London Business School, Michael Brennan's research covers a broad topic range in finance and the Institute will see another facet of his current work when he presents on agency and asset pricing at our Annual Meeting in November.

The next seminar in the Swiss Finance Industry Seminar series, held on October 28th at 7am, will be given by Thomas Jordan, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and University of Berne. Professor Jordan's presentation is entitled Geldpolitik und Liquiditaet. Click here to register.

Also pictured: Didier Sornette (middle) and Paolo Vanini (right). Professor Vanini is director of knowledge transfer at the Swiss Finance Institute. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion from the assembled experts in banking and finance.