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World Cup Forecasting Challenge For Quants

Posted by timothy on from the kickoff-in-four-days dept.

databuff writes "As a break from projecting the strength of subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and other obscure financial instruments, quantitative analysts at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, and Danske Bank have modeled the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Now Kaggle has set up a forecasting competition, allowing statisticians to go head-to-head with these corporate giants. The challenge is to predict how far each country will progress in the tournament."

11 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. What's the x-bar by Misanthrope · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For somebody falling to the ground clutching their leg long enough to get a card thrown?

    1. Re:What's the x-bar by severoon · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's obvious to me with smart people like this behind the analysis, we should bet big on the correctness of their projections. Perhaps we should tie our economy to their analysis in some way that will potentially result in a large windfall? Who's with me?

      --
      but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
  2. Bias by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are numerous problems here.

    Firstly is very few fans of football can truly consider themselves independent enough to do this well. I will try, but I just know my bias's will in the end have some effect on the outcome of my selections.

    Secondly it isn't just about stats at something like the world cup where there are very few second chances and It is a game where you can completely dominate the opposition and still lose to a single error or bad ref decision.

    1. Re:Bias by TheKidWho · · Score: 5, Funny

      They're Americans, they're most likely not football fans to begin with!

    2. Re:Bias by aBaldrich · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Here in Argentina we use to say that statistics are like miniskirts: they give you a nice idea, but hide the most important things.

      --
      In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
  3. Don't they have other things to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I mean, the financial market is still a mess and I'd rather have them working on the real issues we face. Or is this a quick glance at what actually always goes on at those companies? Are they nothing more than professional gamblers and don't care about their responsabilities?

  4. For the record... by SoVeryTired · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For the record, quants rarely try to predict things in the market. That's left to people who work in econometrics. The main job that a quant does is to price financial instruments in a way that is consistent with the market prices of other liquidly traded assets. I'm being deliberately vague about what precisely is meant by "consistent" because that often depends on the choice of model, but there are also model-free results which require certain asset prices to obey certain relations: put-call parity, for example.

    --
    Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
    1. Re:For the record... by SoVeryTired · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not sure the distinction you are using. Quants predict nothing. They are used to see which companies appear undervalued, and thus would be good values (and not in the sense of a value vs growth company). They are also used to determine which appear overpriced.

      I think that's more like a financial analyst. A quant typically works one level of abstraction away from the stock market itself, calculating prices and hedging strategies for stock options or credit default swaps, say.

      I know there's a lot of anti-quant sentiment around at the moment, and this being slashdot, I'd like to add a disclaimer: I'm just trying to describe the job that a quant does in theory. I'm not making any statement about whether the methods they use at present are effective. Please keep that in mind before flaming me.

      --
      Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
  5. Re:Considering how well they did in the past... by royallthefourth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Worse than that, JP Morgan picked Slovenia to finish fourth. Ahead of teams like Germany and Slovenia.

    ...that's basically how credit default swaps work.

  6. Re:Stats game... by frenchbedroom · · Score: 4, Funny

    STFU spammer !

    *looks at parent's UID*
    *gasps*
    A 4-digit prime UID !
    *slowly backs away from parent's lawn, sweating profusely*
    Ha ha, my mistake, carry on...

  7. A cheaper proposal: by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    For just $10,000 in unmarked and nonsequential bills, Vinnie "the kneecap" is willing to venture a prediction as to when any particular team is going to drop out.

    "When yous got a problem, pick Vinnie. We don't predict; we Promise."