It took an eminent statistician to burst one of the most prominent equities bubbles in history, by which time stockbrokers were sometimes deemed sexier than movie stars.
23 October 2019
The Wall Street Crash of 1929
'We Have a Deep Understanding of Bias and Statistics'
David Harding talks to the Australian Financial Review about Winton’s source of competitive advantage.
16 September 2019
Why Commodity Cartels Break Apart
Commodity cartels are a natural subject for financial market research, since effective syndicates set and control asset prices.
1 August 2019
Riding the Asian Tigers
How speculative attacks on currencies led to the East Asian Crisis of 1997.
2 July 2019
The Mississippi Bubble
Money for nothing: A history of mania in John Law's Mississippi Company stock.
29 April 2019
How Trade Wars Affect Markets
Disruptions to trade during the American Civil War and the reigns of Napoleon and Louis XIV had long-term consequences for financial markets.
2 April 2019
How Fundamental is Economic Data to Markets?
Our analysis shows that the market's opinion of economic data releases changes through time.
26 March 2019
David Harding Talks to Bloomberg TV
In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker, David Harding spoke about artificial intelligence, Winton’s research interests, and why the firm knows when it achieves a breakthrough.
18 March 2019
Down on the Farm
A stable of lesser known speculative manias including Japan's rabbit mania, poultry fever and the ostrich feather boom.
21 January 2019
Shining a Light on Currency Black Markets
Unique data spanning 50 years’ of monthly black market rates reveals insights ranging from the extent of the Soviet Union’s dependence on the shadow economy to the consequences of Colombia opening its “sinister window”.
13 December 2018
Economies of Scales: How to Chart Long-Term Time Series
Charts are widely used in finance. As well as representing information efficiently, they can reveal relationships or anomalies in data. But their effectiveness or otherwise is a function of the choices made during chart construction.
22 November 2018
How Financial Markets Reacted to World War I – in Five Charts
On the centenary of the Great War's conclusion, it is instructive to examine how this historic event affected investors and changed global capital markets.
6 November 2018
From US Steel to URLs: What’s in a Company Name?
From the literal approach of the 1920s to bandwagon effects during tech bubbles, this examination of a century of US stock market data reveals the changing fashions in company naming.
24 October 2018
In Quest of Aztec Gold
The panic of 1825 was the culmination of several years of euphoric investment in sovereign debt and precious metals that included one of the most remarkable swindles of all time: bonds sold in the name of a made-up country, called Poyais.
23 October 2018
Railway Mania
All aboard the gravy train (1845 - 1947). The advent of steam travel sparked a boom in railway stocks in England and even Austria. But as the boom hit the skids, families were ruined and several banks failed.
18 September 2018
How UK-US Trade Has Changed Over Time
We compare trade between the two countries in 1926 with the situation now. See the extent to which the nature of goods, and import and export dependencies have changed.
20 July 2018
The Pit & The Pendulum: Part III
Our third instalment of historic follies charts banking crises in 14th century Florence and 19th century Brazil, an 1869 attempt to corner the gold market, Australia’s nickel boom of 1969 and the Russian Rouble crisis of 1998.
5 July 2018
What Was the First Billion Dollar Company? A Short History of Market Cap Milestones
With several technology companies nearing trillion-dollar equity valuations, we examine the record of firms that surpassed previous symbolic milestones.
14 June 2018
If We Don’t Believe Markets are “Efficient”, What Do We Believe?
We examine an ecology-inspired alternative to the efficient market hypothesis and find that it better captures properties of real-world financial markets.
14 March 2018
Powell’s Outside Status Breaks Central Bank Pattern
The central banks of the world’s most influential nations have for the past two decades been dominated by economists. This hasn’t always been the case.
5 February 2018
Reading Between the Lines
A history of technical analysis, from 18th century Imperial Japan to Bitcoin price movements today – informed by material from Winton’s archive.
15 January 2018
Gaming the Market
Why not give your nearest and dearest the gift of a classic financial market boardgame? Here we present 10 ideas from the Winton archive.
15 December 2017
How Big is the Hedge Fund Industry?
Winton's in-depth research shows that funds exhibiting the characteristics typically associated with hedge funds manage far less than $3 trillion.
5 December 2017
Sea Changes – The Longer View of Shipping
The tracking of shipping routes is an oft-cited achievement of modern data science. But comparable data has been collected for centuries—as our video shows.
27 November 2017
Decoding AI’s Role in Financial Services
Hopes vested in AI capabilities have often run ahead of the reality – just as they did several decades ago.
20 October 2017
In Memoriam 1987 ‒ A Year That Shook Finance to its Foundations
My personal recollections from the financial market mayhem that began in earnest on 19 October 1987.
18 October 2017
Why Do We Believe Things?
We believe some things because of the evidence of our senses: that it is daytime, that the floor is solid, that there are other people in the room.
31 August 2017
Australia’s Lesser Known Commodities Booms
The typical Australian analogy for the China-fuelled expansion in commodities trading would probably be the mid-19th century gold rush.
19 July 2017
Cocoa’s Bittersweet Bounty – 200 Years in Charts
A recent Longer View article looked at standout commodities performer palladium. Now, for the dunce of the class: cocoa.
11 July 2017
Investment Catalysts: Palladium’s Inexhaustible Price Swings
The emissions scandal has hit carmakers’ shares, but has also proved a fillip for another type of investment.
28 June 2017
Unstable Gases: Market Shocks and Qatari LNG
The gas market has experienced many shocks stretching back into the 19th century.
19 June 2017
Choked Off: The Six Day War’s Impact on Maritime Trade
On June 5, 1967, Israeli jets launched the opening salvo of a short, but consequential conflict that shut the Suez Canal for eight years.
6 June 2017
Over a Barrel: the Pipedream of Oil Price Stability?
Oil-producing countries are fretting ahead of the next OPEC meeting, given the seeming powerlessness of the cartel to influence the oil price.
23 May 2017
US Protectionism in Four Charts
Understanding long-term patterns in global trade can serve as a useful window into economic and financial market developments.
11 May 2017
The Sweet and Sour History of Sugar Prices
A recent report described a commodity trader buying up thousands of swimming pools’ worth of sugar, potentially moving the market.
6 April 2017
The History of the Modern International Monetary System
The recent surge in bitcoin prices, fuelled by capital flight from China, evinces a growing desire to revamp (or circumvent) the world’s monetary order.
14 March 2017
Warren Buffett on Hedge Funds
Warren Buffett has become established as perhaps the greatest investor of all time.
3 March 2017
The Market Impact of US Presidential Elections
In the lead up to the recent US presidential election, it was widely predicted that the US stock market would crash in the event of a Trump victory.
10 February 2017
Copper-Bottomed Booms and Busts
Perhaps the most striking manifestation of the 2000s copper boom was the sight of charred human remains dangling from power cables.
18 January 2017
Crisis Risk Offset, Positive Convexity, Tail Risk Hedging and Smart Beta
Over the last two or three years, a number of new, interrelated fashions have emerged in the institutional asset management world.
19 October 2016
Opportunity for the City post Brexit - A Global Financial Investing Zone
As featured in The Telegraph.
23 September 2016
Challenging Equity-Bond Correlation Assumptions
Equities and bonds are often assumed to be negatively correlated. This hasn’t always been true.
31 July 2016
Reflections on the Democratic Legitimacy of the Brexit Vote
The UK’s Vote to leave Europe is a surprise, but it can hardly be said to have come out of the blue.
7 July 2016
Britain Stronger in Europe
The Leave campaign is passionate, sincere and competent. I believe it also to be profoundly misguided.
1 April 2016
Are Markets Becoming More Unstable?
Market shocks may feel like they are becoming more common, but the data suggests otherwise.
31 March 2016
Efficient Market Theory – When Will It Die?
Imagine if the economy as we know it was built on a myth.
2 February 2016
Leaving Europe Would Be A Terrible Investment
The countdown to Britain's EU referendum has started.
1 February 2016
The Role of Sector and Country in Stock Returns
Does globalisation mean that stock returns are related more to sector than country performance?
31 January 2016
Seasonal Volatility and the Multiplicity Effect
October has been the most volatile month for stocks on average over the past 87 years. Is this due to chance?
30 November 2015
The Hidden Costs of Global Index Tracking
We find hidden costs of about 10 basis points per year for the naïve global index tracker.
30 October 2015