Download PDF Abstract Every empirical study of financial returns since Mandelbrot (1963) has converged on the same short list of stylized facts: heavy polynomial tails, anomalous scaling of volatility with the aggregation horizon, power-law persistence of absolute returns, multiscaling across moment orders, and vanishing linear autocorrelation. These regularities are robust Read more…
Download PDF Introduction “Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.” Bill Gates wrote that in January 1996, in an essay better remembered for its three-word title, Content is King, than for the prediction itself. Three Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The AI trade is no longer behaving as one single boom, as the debate over which parts of the industry will actually capture the profits has intensified among investors. After two years in which artificial intelligence pushed valuations higher across semiconductors, cloud platforms, model labs, and enterprise Read more…
Download PDF In this article, we introduce the Gauss+ model for the yield curve. The model belongs to a wider class of models called Affine Term Structure Models (ATSMs) which serve the purpose of modelling the short rate for the pricing of risk-free term structures. These models typically link the Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Global humanoid robot shipments totaled approximately 13,000 units in 2025 against $10.3bn in venture funding across over 450 individual rounds. This divergence defines the analytical challenge facing the current robotics cycle. Barclays projects the global humanoid market to reach $35bn under its base case by 2035, and Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Restaurants in Japan offer a wide array of dishes that cater to different budgets and tastes, resulting in a highly diverse culinary landscape. Next to dining places that offer typical Japanese dishes, such as sushi, soba, and udon, restaurants offering Western-style food, such as hamburgers and ethnic European cuisine, Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Lead-lag relationships describe a simple claim: asset X may embed information about asset Y at two different points in time. If this delay is systematic and measurable than a model can exploit such a structure to produce forecasts and ultimately trading signals. The challenge is that the Read more…
Download PDF History Unilever’s [LON: ULVR] corporate structure has historically been defined by the coexistence of food and personal care businesses, which originated from the 1929 merger between Margarine Unie and Lever Brothers. The rationale for this consolidation at that time was largely based on scale and distribution synergies, but Read more…
Download PDF USA U.S. equities extended their rally this week, with the S&P 500 (+0.9% w/w) and the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1% w/w) both closing at fresh record highs, as investors looked through a still-challenging macro backdrop and focused instead on a crucial earnings test for mega-cap tech. The week made Read more…
Download PDF Introduction A potential $40bn merger between The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. [NYSE: EL], the skincare giant, and Puig [BME: PUIG], a fragrance-focused portfolio company, is poised to reshape the global beauty industry. On 23 March 2026, early-stage discussions were confirmed between the two groups concerning the creation of Read more…
Download PDF Introduction In this article we present a conditional latent factor approach to decompose US equities returns into systematic latent components and idiosyncratic residuals. The aim of the article is to expand on previous research by the Bocconi Student Investment Club by presenting an alternative approach to the traditional Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Across different asset classes, volatility surfaces all tell different stories: in this article we let the data tell them unfiltered, building each surface directly on market quotes through interpolation rather than through the lens of a parametric model. Implied volatility surfaces are among the most informative objects Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The success of GLP-1 drugs, most notably Ozempic and Mounjaro, has made peptides one of the most commercially attractive therapeutic areas in the world and, therefore, a key pillar in Big Pharma’s strategy moving forward. Peptides, short chains of amino acids between traditional small-molecule drugs and larger Read more…
Download PDF USA US equity markets had a remarkable week. S&P 500 rose by 4.54% WoW, hitting a new record high on Wednesday, and DJIA grew by 3.20% WoW, jumping nearly 868 points in a single session. Marked by a swift de-escalation in the US-Iran tensions, markets have thus experienced Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Venezuela sits on top of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, encompassing over 300bn barrels. Nevertheless, its citizens suffer under one of the most severe economic collapses of the 21st century, where GDP has contracted around 65%, hyperinflation has reached millions of percent, and over 8m citizens Read more…